Posted: Tuesday 21 February 2012
Boys, you’d better watch out…
Last week I had a work experience pupil at my desk with me for the day and as I took her through some routine tasks and asked about her university choices, it got me thinking about when I was first starting out in law. I was in fourth year at the University of Aberdeen and had just come back from a glorious year of sunshine at uni in Spain. Now, faced with the ultimate fear of actually starting work, I, along with my fresh faced companions, started the job application process.
One of the first things I remember about the selection day at MF was the initial welcome speech from the Chief Executive who, to my surprise, was a woman. I have to say I was very impressed to see a woman in charge and I think it also exposed some of my own prejudices: I wouldn’t have thought twice if a man had been standing in front of me. Linda Urquhart OBE is now the Chairman of Morton Fraser, on the board of CBI and also runs the very successful Businesswomen’s Network. This is based in both Edinburgh and Glasgow and is designed to bring together our female clients and contacts to allow them to network, hear interesting speakers and forge relationships of mutual benefit.
I feel lucky in that I have never experienced sexism, or at least sexism that I’ve been aware of. Yes, there have been jokes and the odd dig about females over the years, but I’ve genuinely never felt overlooked or discriminated against because of my sex. Unfortunately, not everyone has had the same experience as me and there is still evidence which suggests it's an issue in some industries and businesses in particular. My experience has been different, however it would be naïve of me to think that sexism no longer exists.
I had a chat with the school pupil, also female, about her own experiences and she seemed to feel the same way as me. At entry level, at least, the feeling seems to be much more positive which is surprising considering we have just been told that equal pay will not be reality for another 98 years.
When I look at my time at University, the majority of students in my class were female and this became even more evident at Diploma stage, so obviously the tide is turning. It would appear, then, that the real issue arises at senior management level where female employees are not being retained (or paid) at the same level as their male counterparts. It is understandable that some women leave the profession when they start a family, however companies need to take a more active role in encouraging their employees to stay in work with an offer of flexible working hours and more of an emphasis on paternity leave options to balance the gap.
At the recent Nordic-Baltic summit in Stockholm, one key theme was how to increase the number of women entrepreneurs and appoint more women to the boards of major companies. David Cameron refused to rule out setting quotas to force companies to appoint more female directors if voluntary action did not succeed.
If there is to be equality in the workplace, I don’t believe introducing a quota system is the way to go about it: people should be judged on their own merits, not their sex. There is an argument that quotas send the right message and give women an opportunity they may not have had otherwise, but how would a woman ever feel comfortable sitting on a board never knowing if she was chosen because of her skills and knowledge, or as part of a box ticking exercise for the HR department. I understand that progress needs to be accelerated, but this needs to be through a shift in attitudes and cannot be forced upon people. Affirmative action would undermine the authority of those women who can make it on their own and, with so many bright girls coming up through university, and working their way up companies straight from school, hopefully it won’t be necessary. Boys, you’d better watch out…
