Angela Priestley

We often hear women talk of having a ‘wonderful’ time during maternity leave — many indicating different levels of contact with their employer from daily email checking to monthly meetings with a manager or nothing at all.

There’s one point that’s been repeatedly made about legendary White House reporter Helen Thomas following her death over the weekend: she was never intimidated by presidents.

It’s been just over a year since Anne-Marie Slaughter penned her piece Why Women Still Can’t Have it All for The Atlantic, with everyone from Hillary Clinton to Oprah Winfrey and locally Julie Bishop having something to say on whether or not they agree.

There’s one question rarely posed in discussions about workplace gender diversity: what do the men think? Gender consultant and Creative Coaching Company director Karen Barr has sought to find that out, spending nine months interviewing 25 senior male business leaders regarding female talent and how we can increase the number of women in leadership positions.

A pipeline of female talent is available for board positions, but may appear narrower than it actually is due to traditional ideas of what a “board ready” candidate actually looks like.

We don’t usually look to graduates for tips and advice on how to get ahead in our careers, possibly because we consider ourselves one step ahead – out there experiencing the ‘real world’ for what it is.

Our most high-profile and richest mining magnate is a woman, but the representation of women at the senior level of the mining and resources sector hardly runs any deeper than that.

When one half of the population pushes for flexible working arrangements more than the other, you can see why certain stereotypes regarding who does what in the home remain.

Over the next 33 days we can only hope our major political parties address the ‘women’s vote’ by doing more than putting their still too small representation of female candidates and the wives and daughters of their leaders on the campaign trail.

Day one of the election campaign and working parents got some attention Monday by way of Kevin Rudd’s $450 million promise to boost after-school hours care in 500 schools.

Leading women have been incredibly generous with their time since we launched Women’s Agenda one year ago today.

Managing 5500 employees on multiple continents would be difficult enough for even those who have few commitments back home.