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REFERRING TO THE number of votes she received in the 2008 presidential nomination race, Hilary Clinton famously said “the glass ceiling now has 18 million holes.”
From my own perspective, I can say with confidence that those holes keep on getting bigger – big enough for ever-increasing numbers of women to climb through and reach the very top of their chosen career.
Sectors such as marketing, PR and my own area, recruitment, have never really suffered from a gender imbalance. Likewise, the IT industry operates a very level playing field when it comes to employing staff at all levels. Finance and accountancy are also seeing more women rise to senior levels. There may not yet be as many female CEOs and senior partners as males in these professions but the trend is definitely encouraging.
But make no mistake, there are still challenges, particularly in traditionally male-dominated sectors. But the obstacles preventing women reaching their full potential in the workplace are being steadily dismantled.
This is a process that requires input from both sides. Women need to be more open to pursuing careers in these sectors, and employers in those areas need to be more open to addressing the issues that continue to hamper female progress.
Some sectors continue to be male-dominated simply because there are not enough suitably qualified female candidates to fill the roles and some because their culture is not conducive to women employees aspiring to senior rank. But we’re increasingly seeing employers taking tangible action to break down those remaining barriers.
For example Engineering Ireland, the professional body for engineering and engineers in Ireland, is taking huge steps at second and third level education level to ensure that they encourage more interest from female students in pursuing a career in engineering, thereby helping ensure a pipeline of female candidates are well equipped for senior roles into the future. Likewise, the legal sector is keenly focused on making changes to its culture to ensure it is attractive to female candidates and employees. In the last 12 months, the top ten legal firms have been looking carefully at their benefits packages, most notably their maternity policies. This is specifically to ensure that they operate in a way which enables them to attract and retain high quality female employees and retain them for the long term.
All too often in environments that don’t handle maternity leave well, employers miss out on benefiting from the skill, knowledge and experience of female employees and the female employees in turn miss out on achieving their full career potential. The legal profession is just one area working to change that situation. We are also seeing other sectors from finance to manufacturing putting much more focus on ensuring they are equally attractive to both sexes.
Manufacturing and supply chain and logistics are still tough nuts to crack for females but even that tends to be more generated by the availability of suitably qualified female candidates than any real reluctance to employ them.
Which brings me back to my belief that it requires commitment and determination from both sides to truly maximise the career opportunities open to women. Sometimes that famous glass ceiling metaphor does harm as well as good. Recognising it exists is a great incentive for change. However it can also be demotivating and lead women to believe that more opposition and hurdles exist than actually do in terms of them pursuing certain careers.
More and more positive changes are happening all the time, and more and more sectors are genuinely open to female candidates with the right qualifications. So my advice is, if you think you’d like to work in a particular area don’t be put off by negative perceptions and third party anecdote. Find out for yourself and you might be pleasantly surprised.
I’ve been encouraged by the changes I’ve seen over the past several years in the attitudes of employers towards employing women at senior level and in the ambition of female candidates who are not prepared to accept a “this far and no further” limit to their ambitions. I think it all bodes well for a future where there are many more holes than glass in that infamous ceiling – enough even to make it shatter completely.
Mairead Fleming is the Managing Director of Brightwater Recruitment.
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As an occupational therapist (a profession which is mainly composed of female practitioners) I’d love to see similar strategies to attract men to traditionally female occupations. The male OTs I know love their job and surely gender balance can only benefit all professions.
While gender balance is an admirable goal across all sectors and there should without doubt be increased encouragement of female participation in sectors/not normally associated with high female participation, I’m not sure that strategies suggested like better maternity benefits or female quotas (E.g. Politics) is the way to go.
More fundamentally the issue that needs to be addressed is a sharing of responsibility in the domestic situation. I could understand why an employer might be reluctant to choose female candidates within or close to a certain age bracket. I don’t believe it is a question of skills, education, ability or qualifications. Females have all of these things the same any man might have.
But when you start to talk about strategic positions, longterm management, key positions in industry that are highly demanding etc an employer tales the risk of losing a key employee for 6 months or more if a woman gets pregnant. Maybe she decides to have another child within a short space of time afterwards. It is very difficult to replace people in key positions, particularly where corporate, industry, client etc knowledge is fundamental to the job. It is difficult to expect organisations to be able to function to its potential when such situations can impact on strategies.
What do we need then? Shared maternity leave between both parents (at current rates). Make men as risky as women for employers in the sense might be one thing.
Good points.
You also must always factor in personal choice too. I’m a stay at home father by choice, although I also work I have the flexibility in my job (I work nights and shorter hours than most) to allow me to be the primary parent. However, none, not one of my male friends would want to stay at home to raise the kids, or share maternity either. That must also be respected. What couples decide within the confines of a relationship comes first, and everyone and everything else comes second imo.
I believe my scenario may be also a way forward in that regard for some at least, as the concept of flexi time is one that has not been adequately explored in Ireland.
Agreed fully. It will be a family choice but of a couple between them decide (if the law was there) that the male would get the majority of the maternity leave grand. If on the other hand 90% of couples decoded that the female would take all or the majority of the leave then it would have to be accepted that high flying careers are going to be much more difficult to achieve and the blame for which does not fall on employers.
What about women that have three pregnancies on the trot,where does that leave an employer when they not only have to pay for maternity leave,but have also to hire in replacements at even more expence,it may be ok for taxpayer funded state companies and large multinationals,but for a lot of SME’s its no surprise that employing women is just not an option.
I run my own business in a majorly male industry and am regularly told by people in that industry that I am “unusual” (thanks guys). All of my clients are also in a (different) majorly male industry and they all treat each other (and usually me) as equals. I think it depends on what you do.
Are you an agent for strippers?
Real obstacle to work is unaffordable welfare handouts coupled with Shinner mindset of living on dole for life
That may be an obstacle to you. It’s not an obstacle to most other that earn an average wage in Ireland of 35k.
Something tells me you’re on shit money and would prefer to be on the dole but mammy and daddy won’t let yu perhaps?
Either way, you’re on shit money and want to blame everyone else.
I agree: maternity leave and paternity leave is a real problem in private companies in Ireland. Our employer is not able to provide a volunteer holliday without payment. In reality it is poor management. To their opinion they give too much holliday for workers.
I think you’ll find that particularly in tourism industry hat’s especially true. For a restaurant worker or bar staff, or many hotel staff to get holidays or maternity leave is unheard of. It’s wrong that that happens. It’s cultural.
However in Ireland, it’s very hard to catch people that work after 9 to 5 because the people that need to be out at 12pm finding those being exploited, only wok 9-5 Monday to Friday.
The headline on this made me think it was another column on prostitution
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