If women ruled the world, RTÉ would still be a mess

THE Women in Media conference is the kind of networking event at which men have traditionally excelled. You know the score; a clique of top people get together to slap each other’s backs and in this case, discuss issues like how being a woman affected their career. In 2015 the event struck gold, even by its own self-aggrandising standards, attracting heavy hitters Moya Doherty and Dee Forbes to its Ballybunion venue to take part in a panel discussion about, well, the difference gender made to their career.

Often billed as the event where the then RTÉ chairwoman Moya cemented her acquaintanceship with the dynamic Dee who was then with the Discovery Channel and the following year became RTÉ director general, it saw both women sing from the same hymnsheet, urging women to be more confident in the workplace, while not falling into the trap of behaving like men.

Today, that rallying cry about sisters doing it for themselves seems particularly hollow, coming against the deafening chorus of scandals emanating from RTÉ.

During a historic era for gender equality when it was led by two women with any number of women in top executive positions, the State broadcaster seems to have behaved with a more flagrant disregard for the license fee payer than normal.

THE deal hammered out between Forbes and Breda O’Keeffe, which saw the accountant trouser €450,000 even though no cost savings were made from her ‘redundancy’, seems straight from the nod and the wink playbook of entitled male business leaders, feathering their nests in backroom deals or over the 18th hole.

The manner in which the Toy Show The Musical fiasco was rammed through without proper consultation and risk assessment speaks of the same arrogance and abuse of power that corrupts boardrooms when normal checks

and balances are swept aside by the domineering authority.

On top of that, is the two fingers shown to the public by their lack of engagement with Oireachtas committees, with Forbes absent due to illness, O’Keeffe due to ‘stress’ and Doherty due to ‘family and personal reasons’.

So much for the collaborative spirit and instinct for fairness that women are said to possess because of our historic repression.

Forbes’ tenure at RTÉ nails the feminist myth that women at the top echelons are more effective than their male counterparts. It also torpedoes the corollary which is that while one woman may work wonders at the top, two women make for an unstoppable force altogether.

WE SEE that magical thinking in the speculation about how having Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly as first minister and deputy might benefit the North’s entrenched politics. Okay, both women share a lived experience as mothers, daughters and partners. But so did Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill. What difference did that make?

There was similar optimism when Frances FitzGerald’s time as justice minister, coincided with Noirín O’Sullivan’s appointment as Garda commissioner and a female DPP, attorney general and chief justice. Unfortunately the macho area of crime and punishment was not shaken up by this all-female team. Instead the Maurice McCabe affair forced FitzGerald’s resignation and O’Sullivan retired under the weight of scrutiny from legacy issues like Garda breath tests and the whistleblower saga.

In an organisation like RTÉ, not unlike the Garda Siochana or the Department of Justice, it’s the deepseated culture engrained over decades that overwhelmingly influences the decisions of those in power. Their gender is neither here nor there.

But don’t get me wrong. The lack of evidence about women’s superior skills does not undermine the cause of equal opportunities.

Women should be as visible as men in the top levels of society, the gender pay gap should be eliminated while

positive discrimination and quotas must be imposed on sectors that still resist them.

All these are advances, marks of a progressive society. It’s just that reform should flow not from the false promise of female superiority but from society’s commitment to fair play and equality.

From the conviction that says that far from a male monopoly, messing things up at work is absolutely an equal opportunity area.