Gender equality: Time to break glass ceiling and invest in creating space for women

I’ve spent a lot of time talking – and thinking – about being a woman in the workplace.

I have participated in numerous leadership courses aimed at woMEN; joined female forums in the workplace; networked with women outside of the industry I’m in.

During the most recent female leadership course I attended, the group of women participating were asked to raise their hands if they felt like they weren’t confident and assertive enough in the workplace.

Does a man ever get asked this question? Does a man spend more than an hour of his life thinking about his assertiveness in the workplace, never mind being questioned on it?

Don’t get me wrong, I am an ardent feminist and I love speaking to like-minded women about what we need to do to change the status quo.

Whether that is challenging the stories our children are read, where the passive princess in the fairy tale is inevitably saved by the prince; or the role men play in child rearing and general household duties; or the fact that we only ever seem to have “class moms” and never a “class dad”.

But in the workplace? I am losing my typically female patience. Why are we the ones needing to be “empowered”? Is it because men are already “powered”? Is that not buying into the narrative of being “less than” our male counterparts?

Why are we the ones worrying about how our male colleagues might feel about the rising tide of feminism when they have for decades spared little thought for our careers? Is that not offering a courtesy to them that was never afforded to us?

Why are we the ones continually questioning ourselves – our reactions, our words and our “emotions”, trying to prove ourselves over and over again as assertive and confident, with a sprinkle of empathy and a dollop of the maternal, yet never ever “aggressive”.

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I am grateful for all the female focused empowerment talk and the various forums that exist for women in the workplace – including the Women in Autos Council I cofounded with a few other powerful and wonderful women. But I am also starting to lose my patience at the lack of real action in the world.

We’re still talking, and not doing – certainly not fast enough. Joe Biden’s announcement that he wanted to nominate a black woman to the US Supreme Court is a case in point.

The undercurrent to him calling out her gender and race is that the US Supreme Court justice – whoever she will end up being – is there only because a man has bestowed the power on her, not because she deserves it.

He could also just have announced the fact that he was appointing a new Supreme Court justice – as he would have if he’d been appointing a white man.

Ladies – we should not be grateful that we get to go on leadership courses and sit in empowerment forums and think that this is enough. That’s all easy and it’s the very bare minimum. It is also entirely nonthreatening to the patriarchy.

Now, instead of talking about babies as we did in the ’70s, we get to talk about how to “lean-into” the workplace. Yay for us. But without wanting to sound like a bra-burning feminist, this is not enough. We need more.

Action, visible change – not in drips and drabs to tick a few boxes. Like my friend said to me the other day, perhaps companies should invest less in female-focused leadership courses and more into creating space for women.

Not a “safe space to talk”, but actual incremental C Suite positions. Talk is cheap.

Another, very brilliant friend in a different industry to mine suggested we should unionise as a way to force change, taking the power into our own hands entirely. Her rationale is that if the rules of the game are defined by the players that have been playing, and winning it, for centuries, we need to collectively change the game.

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My husband read this rant of mine and said – so what do you actually want? What are the tangible things you want to achieve?

Here they are: I want to keep talking about empowerment and feminism and leadership. I think it is vital
that we do this at home, especially, for our children to grow up conscious.

But I also want space to be created for the already empowered female leaders all over this beautiful country – and world – of ours to have an opportunity to lead. Not in the next generation, but now.

Not as a PR opportunity (“first female xyz”) but just because she’s the best for the job. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, summed it up perfectly: “Whether diversity is reflected in companies and institutions is an active choice.

“Too often, when looking at top positions, men say that it is hard to find women with the right profile. Well if you are seriously looking for them, you will find them. It is time to break the glass ceiling.”

• Smith is a senior executive writer in her private capacity.