Pressing, but little progress

photographer Kevin Stent caught this image of Christchurch’s Aaron Kingi getting a bit of air during the Bowlzilla skateboarding competition in Wellington yesterday. The event, now in its third year, saw a field of Kiwi and international skaters take to the Waitangi Park bowl in the central city.

On Thursday I went around saying to every woman I met, ‘‘happy International Women’s Day!’’, as if it were Christmas, Easter or everyone’s collective birthday. I took pictures of all the smart, sassy women in our office and celebrated them on the internet. Hooray!

But the more I thought about it, the less it felt like a celebration.

Yes, I’m grateful the suffragettes fought to allow me to vote, own property and to be able to withdraw money from my own bank account without my husband’s permission – but it’s not enough.

The hashtag doing the rounds this year is #pressforprogress, but we’ve all been doing an awful lot of pressing for quite a few years, and we don’t have too much progress to show for it.

The number of women in the top echelons of business has declined to the lowest level in 14 years and 25 per cent of companies in the NZX50 have no women on their boards at all, despite overwhelming research that businesses’ bottom lines benefit from better gender representation.

Four per cent of venture capital funding goes to women, but not for lack of women with great ideas giving it a go – just ask entrepreneur Jenene Crossan about the ‘‘creative’’ ways she’s been turned down.

‘‘There’s not enough female talent’’ is still quoted in surveys that delve into why so few women make it to the top, despite the chair of Spark, Justine Smyth, saying that’s utter crap and managing to lead a gender-balanced board.

Let’s not forget how much more common it is for women and girls to be sexually assaulted and murdered than men. Oh, and how I will still be called a ‘‘feminist b .... ’’ and a manhater for suggesting it should be any different.

When I hosted the now-defunct early morning business show on TVNZ the better part of a decade ago, I remember interviewing (lovely) men 95 per cent of the time, but the odd fascinating woman, such as Diane Foreman, would crop up.

I figured the endless succession of navy pinstripe suits would soon be punctuated more regularly by women. The evidence would suggest if the show still existed, the guests’ attire would still be dominated by ties and pocket squares.

Yes, we’ve got a female Prime Minister, Governor General and Chief Justice again, but if we’re honest, nothing is all that different from the last time we had the trifecta, other than the names on the door.

I went to an event on International Women’s Day and listened to some depressing stats about how stressed and anxious corporate mothers are compared to any other group.

They’re pushing for progress, but pushing, also, simply to make it through the day.

We must keep pushing for progress, but they say the definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I think it is time we went back to the drawing board in order to take the fight for equality to the next level, because the current methods aren’t working.

How many robots do you own? How many of them do you think would be better at running the economy than Steven Joyce?

Let’s not forget how much more common it is for women and girls to be sexually assaulted and murdered than men.