Increasing Equity in Power and Decision Making - by Stacy Roopnarine

Abstract - "I raise up my voice, not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. We cannot succeed when half of us are held back." [1] In these words by Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist for female activism and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate; in addressing the United Nations, she rightfully explains the problem of the world today. With half of its population being kept back, how can we expect the human race to succeed? We quite often hear much talk of gender parity, women’s rights, yet decision makers continue to be male dominated. So ladies, in fact we are sitting on the sidelines awaiting men to tell us where we go from here as women. This paper explores the representation of females in Government, Media and Decision Making positions, and explores strategies to increase participation globally, so we can indeed attain Planet Fifty/Fifty as part of the United Nations goal by 2030.

                                                                                                                                           I.    Introduction

It is estimated that currently, the global population is approximately 7.4 billion people with a composition of 49.6% females. [2] This means that women are roughly half of the population, but more importantly how does this compare to the statistics in terms of women representation in various sectors and in leadership positions?

Data from the Inter Parliamentary Union shows that globally, the percentage of women Parliamentarians as of June 2016 is a mere 22.7%. [3] In a study for Business Insider, the leadership consultancy Zenger Folkman shows that worldwide there are only 3 to 4 % women in CEO positions. [4] These statistics are indeed worrying to anyone who believes in equity, fairness, justice and one race – the human race.

 II.   Women in Parliament

The data obtained from the Inter Parliamentary Union showing a small percentage of 22.7% of women parliamentarians is serious cause for concern. Basically, women are half the global population, yet so under-represented in the greatest decision-making body of a country, the Parliament. One has to ask the question, why? From my own personal experience, I can share with you my views and then juxtapose that with statistics of what is occurring globally.

Having served as a Parliamentarian in my own country for five years, both as a Minister of Government and an elected Member of Parliament, I can say without a doubt that Politics is indeed still a man’s world. I have already given global statistics of women participation in the Parliament to support this, but the question remains; why then is less than a quarter of an average Parliament comprised of women? Is it that women do not care about making a difference in their respective countries and making an impact in the global leadership realm? In my country of Trinidad and Tobago, the participation of women in Parliament is currently approximately 32% under a male Prime Minister; an average increase of 8% from when I served up to 2015, under our first female Prime Minister elected in 2010.

The reason seems simple; it is not that women do not want to serve in leadership positions, but leaders have to give more women the chance to serve in such positions like the Legislature. I have often heard the myth that women ‘don’t want to come forward to serve in leadership positions’, but I have had a very different experience. I have seen qualified, dedicated and hard working women bypassed for men, some of lesser experience and lesser qualifications.

In fact it is my view that the ‘boys club’ continues to do its work. Traditionally, Parliaments have been dominated by men and even though there may be more women serving in Parliaments today compared to a decade ago, one has to question whether they are simply there for window dressing, whether they are there to make quotas or whether they are there based on fairness and equity in treatment and of their own qualification and merit. Whatever the reason however, there is no doubt that we have made progress in terms of our numbers globally after decades, but the truth is that according to the Inter Parliamentary Union, in its 2013 publication of ‘Atlas of Electoral Gender Quotas’, 185 countries and territories use some type of gender quota for an elected office. [5] Gender quotas are often used to ensure a certain number or percentage of women must be included in a candidate list or a certain number of seats must be allocated to women in elected offices such as the Parliament. This now leads to the debate of whether women are chosen based on skill or based on gender; that by itself goes against the principle of equity. If the situation was reversed and we said X% must be men or X% must be of a particular ethnic, religious or sexual orientation group, the rationale no longer seems fair.

In my experience, I have seen quite often women placed in positions as a front and any opposition to the ‘boys club’ meant demotion, removal or replacement. Women who were either elected or appointed often held lesser valued cabinet ministries or what one can describe as "soft industries". The issue here is not whether the leader is male or female, but rather that the ‘boys club’ still finds a way to dominate, and it is perhaps because they network and discuss work over beers and scratch each other’s backs for their own convenience. Does this mean that women have to learn to do the same in order for us to attain equity?

One of the other reasons one can attribute to frustrating women in public office, is the focus placed on their personal lives. In many instances the romantic lives of some female Parliamentarians is quite often more important to the general public than their own public responsibilities. In addition the portrayal in the media of women running for public office is very different from men. This will be further explored in Section III.

                                                                                                                                           III.  Women in Media

Women in leadership positions are often faced with different issues from men and much of it is intensified by the media. If we look at politicians, the reporting in the media of what male politicians say as opposed to females is typically dominated by men. Furthermore if one looks at the content of what is being reported, it would appear that when reporting women politicians, there is more focus on character traits and less focus on the real issues. In fact it was reported in the Huffington Post, that in political campaigns the focus on character traits for male candidates was 6 percent while for female candidates it was 9.4 percent. [6] This means that media and the general public place more emphasis on the character of a gender.

Furthermore, the scrutiny of personal lives or attire of female politicians is far more outrageous than men. We saw most recently in the United Kingdom, before Theresa May was sworn in as Prime Minister, the British newspapers had already placed emphasis on her ‘fancy shoes’, as can be seen from the numerous recent newspaper reports. Interestingly enough one cannot recall the same occurring with David Cameron who preceded her; perhaps he did not have leopard print shoes? The issue here surely isn’t the shoes, the issue is that women are judged by different standards than men and the media perpetuates it.

For instance, the US based documentary “Miss Representation” which explores how the media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions by the dissemination of very limited information meant to portray women in a degrading manner; featured examples of how women were presented negatively in the media during the US Presidential election of 2008. Hilary Clinton and former candidate for Vice President in 2008 Sarah Palin, were commonly referred to as “Mrs. Clinton” or “Hotty Palin,” by the media instead of the correct terms of “Senator” or “Governor”. [7]

As a former female Parliamentarian and object of erroneous and fabricated media stories, it seems ironic to me that women are judged by what they wear, their personal lives and aesthetics. Society continues to have ‘acceptable’ norms for a man in a position, but yet if his female colleague in the same position does the same, it is frowned upon?

The media has an influence on nearly every household today, whether its print media, radio, TV or the more conventional forms of social media. Therefore, if this industry does not provide a level playing field then it simply propagates the gender divide. The question remains however as to why women are portrayed in this way in the media. If one looks at advertising, surely a half-naked woman can sell anything, if not, then why are they so prominent in alcohol ads, hardware ads, food ads, and nearly-everything ads.

Research has shown that men dominate the advertising industry, in fact as of 2014; only 11 percent of creative directors were women in the US. [8] Leadership in advertising is still highly dominated by men, yet research by Fona International has also shown that women control 85 percent of consumer purchasing. [9] So if women are the decision makers in the purchasing world, why are advertisers still appealing to men? If one were to rationalize this, advertisers are attempting to sell their products to an audience of consumers, so if women hold 85 percent of purchasing power, who exactly are these half-naked ads supposed to be appealing to? This can be attributed to the fact that the advertising world is male dominated, or perhaps it can be due to research, which shows that men watch less TV than women, according to Nielson. [10] Therefore it may be common thought among advertisers that the half-naked woman will peak the interest of men to watch TV, thereby giving the advertisers more potential customers for their products.

The bottom line is that we are now faced with a situation of the majority of persons controlling the media and advertising world being men. They control the industry so one can now understand why the bias against women being portrayed positively in the media, as opposed to being portrayed in a way that men believe women should be.

This double standard has to change if we are serious about Planet 50/50, and the UN’s goal to achieve gender parity by 2030. Women can sometimes be the biggest perpetrators of their own demise, as it is often women who encourage attacks on other women for personal gain, to score a headline or give silent consent to this type of behavior whether knowingly or unknowingly. Therefore women have to be for women; perhaps that can initiate a revolution of change and turn around the advertising world to give women a level playing field in being portrayed in the media.

                                                                                                                                             IV.  Women in Leadership

Women can be seen in almost any job today in many countries around the world, they have become Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, Teachers, Entrepreneurs and so many other Professionals, but how many of these women make it to the top of organizations? How many board meetings do you see a mix of 50/50 gender? The leadership consultancy Zenger Folkman shows that worldwide there are only 3 to 4 % women in CEO positions and that while at the lower levels of organizations women represented half the workforce, the number lessened as you go higher up the organization. [11]

Many argue that in most instances, women don’t want to move up the ladder in an organization because work life balance is indeed important. There is another argument that women are prevented from moving up the ladder by men who may be in senior positions, since women are viewed as having priorities of children and family life and may not fit into the mold required of the senior executive. Whatever the man-made rationale, it does not make logical sense that women are being bypassed for men of lesser qualifications. There are women who are quite capable of taking up the reigns, as we have seen in instances of successful companies with women CEOs such as IBM’s Ginni Rometty or Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.

Leadership should never be defined by gender; it should be the best man or woman for the job, based on qualifications, experience and hard work.

    V.   Strategies to Increase Women Leadership

I have defined below Five simple strategies geared at increasing women leadership, easily defined by the acronym WOMEN:

A.   Women for Women

In terms of Parliaments and Decision Making bodies where women do make it to top positions, these women should ensure that they give other women an equal chance when making appointments within their power. This does not mean picking a woman for the sake of ‘window dressing’; it does not mean implementing quotas to make sure a percentage of women are in Parliament, it does not mean bypassing a more qualified man for a woman. What this means is giving an equal opportunity to women and giving them a fair chance to serve as equals with their male colleague. It means treating them the same and setting a standard so that when you are no longer in that position, the bar would have been raised so high that it would be very difficult to go back to gender bias.

B.   Obtaining Power

Power is perhaps one of the greatest and oldest control mechanisms by mankind. Women already have obtained power and perhaps we don’t even know it; it’s called Purchasing Power. I previously indicated that 85% of consumer purchasing is being controlled by women; this means that you have the ability to control much of the advertising industry by the choices you make on a daily basis. By being aware of what is happening in the advertising world and by being aware of what is presented to you and why, you have the power to reject these stereotyped ads of half-naked women by the choices you make when you purchase a product.

If we want to see a change in the advertising industry, we have to be prepared to make the change, and being the largest client group, surely we are in a position to do so.

C.   Mentoring in Schools

Children learn behavior by what they see and what they are taught. If society keeps passing on the status quo to the younger generation, then by the behavior exhibited to them, we expect to see the same results in future generations. Drastic change is required and this change has to start today by the knowledge we feed to the next generation. For this reason, mentoring of young girls and boys is important in order to change the societal norm. Girls need to understand the concept of equity and not fall into the trap of playing a particular role because it has been that way traditionally. They need to be educated on women’s rights and have to start viewing themselves in the same light as the boys. Similarly, young boys need to be taught how to view women on the same level as them, not to see them as the lesser sex, or even as only sex objects or homemakers.

The future of any country, of any group or of the human race, lies in the hands of its youth. If we do not sow the seeds required today, then how can we expect to reap the projected rewards at the end of the day?

D.   Engaging and Education

If men represent half the population, and women the other half, it would seem logical that if both halves were to combine, that team ‘mankind’ would be able to make greater strides in achieving a goal, whether it is to end poverty, fight crime, end wars, promote peace or attain gender equity. Therefore engaging men and women together is critical for planet 50/50 to succeed. It is important that men support women in leadership positions, as without them we are only half. Men have to be engaged to stand side by side with women as they all have mothers, daughters, grandmothers, wives or sisters. Educating men in the areas of women leadership and what it brings to an organization other than pleasant aesthetics is a good start to levelling the playing field.

Quite often men simply do not know how to deal with women in leadership positions as perhaps they have not been exposed to that or have been taught otherwise.

Therefore by educating men and engaging them in this process, it gives them a better understanding and appreciation of the struggles we face. In the same way women need to be educated as to the power they hold as consumers, in order to reject the norms that society; mainly men have thrust upon us. Women need to understand how they can support each other by the choices they make daily, whether it is in purchasing products, hiring an employee, giving a promotion or merely standing up to defend each other.

E.   Networking

One of the things the ‘boys club’ has done well over the last centuries is network. Men socialize and in that way do business together, promote a colleague and generally work together for a mutual benefit. This has perhaps worked for them and it is something that women can learn from in order to help each other. Quite often women are our own worst enemies, as too frequent we see the biggest critic of women in leadership being other women, too frequent we see women trying to climb the ladder of success only to be pulled down by another woman. When we learn to network and support each other in that climb, then we can make progress unimaginable to our sustainability in leadership.

                                                                                                                                           VI.  Conclusion

It seems that we have created excuses for why women are not in leadership positions; excuses such as lack of interest, lack of qualifications, lack of willingness, different priorities, and whatever other concocted rationale we want to believe which has prevented gender parity from occurring. Based on information presented here and the strategies explored, which may assist in charting the way forward, if we are collectively serious about attaining gender equity then certainly it can happen. Women in Leadership positions are critical to the survival of the human race, and so I end as I began, with a reminder of Malala’s statement in my opening line ‘we cannot succeed if half of the population is held back’.

The time has therefore come to break barriers if we are serious about Planet 50/50. It is not rocket science, but it starts with each individual woman making a conscious effort, to open her eyes to our present situation and play a part in making this goal a reality. Together we hold the power in our hands and together we can do it for the sake of generations to come.

We cannot wait on someone else to do it for us, as who will? It’s my sincere hope that one day we will achieve gender equity and I also hope that we will continue working towards this goal, as Margaret Thatcher once said, “If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.” [12]

References

[1] Yousafzai, Malala. "Malala's Speech." Accessed July 27, 2016. https://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Malalal_speech.pdf.

[2] "World Population Clock." Countrymeters. Accessed July 29, 2016. https://countrymeters.info/en/World.

[3] "Women In National Parliaments." Inter-Parliamentary Union. June 01, 2016. Accessed July 29, 2016. https://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm.

 [4] "Why Women Are More Effective Leaders Than Men." Business Insider. January 24, 2014. https://www.businessinsider.com/study-women-are-better-leaders-2014-1.

[5] Dahlerup, Drude, Zeina Hilal, Nana Kalandadze, and Rumbidzai Kandawasvika-Nhundu. "Atlas of Electoral Gender Quotas." Inter-Parliamentary Union. Accessed July 29, 2016. https://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/atlas-en.pdf.https://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/atlas-en.pdf

[6] Bahadur, Nina. "Women In Politics: Coverage Focuses More On Personality Traits, Less On Issues, Study Finds." The Huffington Post. August 7, 2013. Women In Politics: Coverage Focuses More On Personality Traits, Less On Issues, Study Finds.

[7] "Miss Representation." The Presentation Project. Accessed July 16, 2016. https://therepresentationproject.org/film/miss-representation/.

[8] "A 2014 Study of Women Serving as Advertising Creative Directors." 3percentconf.com. September 2014. https://www.3percentconf.com/sites/default/files/editor-file-uploads/3percent-ResearchResults_FINAL.pdf.

[9] Barmann, Kit. "Purchasing Power of Women." Fona International. December 22, 2014. https://www.fona.com/resource-center/blog/purchasing-power-women.

[10] "AMERICAN VIDEO HABITS BY AGE, GENDER AND ETHNICITY." Nielson. January 8, 2011. https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2011/american-video-habits-by-age-gender-and-ethnicity.html.

[11] "Why Women Are More Effective Leaders Than Men." Business Insider. January 24, 2014. https://www.businessinsider.com/study-women-are-better-leaders-2014-1.

 [12] "Margaret Thatcher Quotes." Brainy Quote. Accessed July 10, 2016. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretth127088.html.