Acevo chair: equality debate 'must move on from bra-burning'

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Acevo chair: equality debate 'must move on from bra-burning' 8

Governance | Tania Mason | 27 Jan 2012

If women in the voluntary sector are to achieve equality of pay and opportunity, the debate needs to move on from the “old-fashioned bra-burning era” and focus on skills, according to Acevo chair Lesley-Anne Alexander.

Alexander (pictured) made the comment during a panel discussion hosted by Bates Wells and Braithwaite yesterday to launch Rowena Lewis’s report on women leaders in the sector. Close to Parity: challenging the voluntary sector to smash the glass ceiling is the culmination of Lewis’s work as a 2010 Clore Social Fellow.

About 50 people gathered at BWB’s offices to hear panellists Beatbullying CEO Emma-Jane Cross; Clore programme director Dame Mary Marsh; Jennifer Ogole, CEO of Bang Edutainment; and Alexander discuss the issues raised in the report and consider what the sector can do to dismantle the glass ceiling.

Alexander, who is also chief executive of RNIB, said she recalled with dread the “over-zealous discussions about equality” in the public sector early in her career, and asserted: “We need a new way of framing this debate.

“There is no way we are going to make a difference if we take our debate back to that bra-burning era. I think it needs to be a discussion around skills…if we frame the discussion and what we do in terms of the old-fashioned equalities agenda we are not going to get very far.”

Jennifer Ogole warned against abandoning the more traditional campaigning routes, saying these still have value and merit, but said the sector should look at the issues and experiences of current emerging women leaders and adapt approaches and methods to better suit them.

Emma-Jane Cross said: “It is about merit, for me. I’m not a feminist, I’m an egalitarian – it’s got to be about equality for all.”

Marsh: Trustee boards too risk-averse

Dame Mary said she thought some of the problem lay with trustee boards – and women in the sector - not taking enough risks.

She said: “I worry that trustee boards don’t take enough risks when making senior appointments. The trustee board at NSPCC took a big risk when they appointed me, as I was making a pretty flying leap from what I was to what I would do.

“But trustee boards increasingly look for somebody who’s already been a CEO, and we will never get there if that is how trustee boards are going about it.”

However, she also reminded those gathered of how far women in the sector have come in recent years. She reflected on her own introduction to the sector when she became CEO of NSPCC 12 years ago following a career in teaching: “I went to my first meeting of the CEOs of large charities, at the Army & Navy Club, and walked into a room full of men. And an awful lot of them were military men. Geraldine Peacock was the only other female CEO at the time and she wasn’t at that meeting.” Soon after, a whole raft of big charities appointed female CEOs.

Dame Mary concluded by urging women in the sector to have the confidence to put themselves forward for big leadership jobs, even if the prospect scares them.

Place a comment

Carl Allen
7 Feb 2012

Perhaps the war has been won but some battles are still being fought.

[Reply]

Leila
31 Jan 2012

'I am not a feminist, I am an equalist'...she obviously doesn't understand what feminism is?! Feminism is about achieving equality!!! How can a debate take place with women who are not informed and scared to admit there is still inequality and scared to admit to being feminists?

Being a feminist is today's society is about recognising that women's rights and equality have come along way, thanks to the feminist movement, but there is still not total equality - demonstrated by the lack of female leaders in this and other sectors.

What's wrong with feminism??? Women who state they are not feminists should think 'why is it so wrong to be a feminist?' when feminism is still, as it always was, about what equality and perhaps they should understand 'feminism' has been given a bad name as a means of undermining the goals for equality.

[Reply]

Paul Edwards
Community Development Worker
N/A
30 Jan 2012

I do so agree with Katy McCormick. As a long time feminist, myself, and, yes, I am a male, I am often disheartened by the smugness and complacency of current successful women when it comes to acknowledging their debt to the Sisters that went before them. And the battle has not been won. Women have been allowed into the game but they are still, very much, playing by men's rules. Just talk to women who have the temerity to take time out from their careers to have children about the effect it has on their pay and career prospects, if you need evidence for that.

[Reply]

Leah Dixon
Project Manager
30 Jan 2012

@ Dame Mary...Yes I agree that women need to take risks even if it scares them!!

@ Stephen...Hardly whingeing when men get paid more to do the same job women are doing!! I'm sure men would be complaining if the situation was reversed.

[Reply]

Katy McCormick
Head of Development
Margaret Carey Foundation
27 Jan 2012

I don't think anyone has debated bra-burning for a couple of decades, Lesley-Anne, and to imply that women aren't getting seats on boards because they are having "discussions about equality" is pretty dismissive of all the work that men and women have put in during those decades to achieving a more equal society.

And Emma-Jane, it's not just about merit. The idea that women (and ethnic minorities and people from disadvantaged backgrounds) can achieve the same as white males in any field of business as long as they have the same "merit" is simplistic in the extreme. I am sorry you are not a feminist, because it was feminists who paved your way so your "merit" could be recognised.

[Reply]

Carl Allen
30 Jan 2012
Response to [Katy McCormick]

Discrimination is taken up in the "Culture trumps strategy, and merit."

[Reply]

Stephen Lulsley
Independent Commentator and Consultant
27 Jan 2012

Good for you Lesley-Anne; you prove the glass celing is a figment of the whinging feminists.

[Reply]

Michelle Stratford
Freelance Consultant to the Voluntary Sector
Various
27 Jan 2012

There are two glaring issues holding back women in our sector. The first is the lack of resource given to training and skilling up women to become leaders and the second is the lack of promotional structures and pathways for people at the lower levels of organisations to enable them to move upwards. A programme such as Clore is I feel money spent on an elite hand picked few, often with existing management experience, which could perhaps be more wisely spent on creating development and opportunities across the sector, for women and men, including by creating structured mentoring programmes country wide. It is also important not to fall into the trap of thinking that women just need to be given a chance in a leadership/management role and they will succeed because of some innate ability. Some of the worst instances of bullying in social sector workplaces (public and voluntary) are perpetrated by women out of their depth and unprepared for the demands expected of them. Structure, training and opportunity - all key to improving leadership across the sector.

[Reply]

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