For the past few years you would have been excused for thinking that it was primarily women in senior executive roles who were banging their fists and demanding the rules change so that there could be equal opportunity for women in executive ranks. The conversation was so focused at the pointy end of leadership that for many women the argument was feeling out of reach.
As early as five years ago I was hearing pushback from twenty-something women who, having witnessed the struggle of those who went before, were more likely to say, “but I don’t want it all”.
While for many that may still be the case, what I am now hearing in increasing volume is that they do want equal opportunity should they choose to pursue it. And that idea of rallying for the cause of all women is what is starting to get my hopes up.
Most media airtime on the subject has been filled with the voices of women already at the top, which has been an important and necessary step in highlighting successful female leader role models.
On Saturday eight successful Australian women from a variety of industries and disciplines received honorary degrees from the University of Sydney. Lowitja O’Donoghue, Dr Kerry Schott, Elizabeth Broderick, Catherine Livingstone, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Justice Virginia Bell, Gail Kelly and Gillian Armstrong received their degrees in a celebration of female leadership, with a special nod to women who paved the way.
But in recent weeks I’ve been hearing more from outspoken younger women and women who are starting to speak out from the middle ranks. It takes courage to take a public stand against a system that has, at best, an unconscious bias towards men, particularly when reporting through to a man as the majority of women do today. Yet, increasingly women from the very centre of organisations are standing up for their right to be treated equally.
At the Asia Pacific World Sport and Women Conference in Sydney last week a number of women, frustrated by the snail’s pace of progress in achieving equal leadership opportunities in sports administration, used the microphone from the floor to support the call for gender quotas. Rather than asking: “why quotas?” as is often the line of questioning, they were more inclined to ask: “why not?”
I am seeing women that I mentor, like the very impressive News Director of Sydney radio station 2MMM Deborah Clay, begin to mentor younger women coming up behind them. It’s a particularly satisfying feeling to see the mentoring cycle continue.
The other day I overheard a couple of twenty-something women discussing the gender pay gap and its impact on superannuation, with one stating boldly, “a man is not a plan”. That conversation put a smile on my face as one of the brands that I publish, Cosmopolitan, with a brand footprint in excessive of 2million women in Australia, is focused on empowering single women to take control of their own destiny. In her editor’s letter in the December issue, Bronwyn McCahon projects the aspirations of her readership for 2015.
“I hope we’re talking about what a kick-arse year it will be for women,” she writes. “I hope we’re talking about how women earn cent for cent the same as men. I hope we’re talking about the increase in chief executive roles for women and I hope we’re celebrating there being more than one woman in the Australian cabinet. None of this is impossible.”
With the ground swell of support from those who stand the most to gain in the long run, I am feeling increasingly hopeful for the next generation of female leaders.