Just like men, women not infallible

While we continue to expose the fascinating madness of men, making inflated, compensatory claims for the ability of women . . . won’t be a big help.

I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman. And sometimes we’re so thrilled with ourselves we could burst.

Theresa Gattung got a roomful of ‘‘thunderous applause’’ last week at a forum discussing equal pay and gender diversity in business. The (I suspect overwhelmingly female) crowd went hand-clap wild when she said if a woman had been in charge at Fletchers there would have been none of the massive losses the company announced last week.

I’m not sure what that meant other than sisterly solidarity. I don’t believe Gattung is an expert on the construction business, any more than I am, but none of the bosses or the board have experience in it either. Call me surprised.

Chairman Sir Ralph Norris fell on his sword as he announced the latest figures, good manners for which he deserves a patter of decorous drawing-room applause, but also a raised eyebrow.

Had he only been a woman there would have been good news for shareholders, and healthier lunches for board members, Gattung maybe meant. Lots of salads would have helped. Women are endowed with special gifts and insights, but all we get from the workplace is poor pay, roaming hands, and pinched bottoms.

Not everyone thought Gattung did a sterling job as head of Telecom, for that matter, though it was the peak of her career. Its share price halved during her tenure, when Telecom still had a monopoly on communications. One former staffer referred to ‘‘constant internal PR spin which had no basis in reality’’ at the time, which sounds very nineties. Can we forget that other female role model of the era, former head of Winz Christine Rankin, with her distinctive earrings and long legs?

Rankin was reportedly known as Christina the Astonishing at Winz, after a 12th century Belgian saint who levitated at her own funeral. She is still alive, of course, and memorably descended from the ceiling on a flying rig at a 1999 Winz senior managers conference, dressed in a silver suit, with a backdrop of images of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and naturally enough, herself.

Women do things differently, and better, see. A year earlier Winz spent $100,000 on a mock wedding between the NZ Employment Service and Income Support. I wonder who did the flowers.

Christine had a sense of humour, I’m sure. At $250,000 a year she was certainly paid a lot less than Gattung, who could have chuckled all day on her $3 million-a year package, with a parting gift of an extra $5.4m when she resigned. Gattung later said that three-quarters of her top executives left within two years of her resignation, a more ambiguous remark than she may have intended, since Telecom was criticised for being overstaffed.

Paul Reynolds, who succeeded her got a $7m salary, which, she explained in a book she wrote, was because he was a man. He left with a far smaller parting gift than her, however, a mere $1.75m handout that wouldn’t have bought him a respectable wristwatch.

Since those heady days much has come to light about male sexual harassment in the workplace, but surely the weirdest example – expressed as bullying – emerged in Rankin’s Employment Court claim for $1.25m after her chief executive contract was not renewed. She lost the action, but gave damning evidence against then State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham and Mark Prebble, then head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

She described a meeting with Prebble in which he said her earrings were a sexual come-on, her short skirts a distraction, and that he could distinguish her breast moving behind her shirt. Her dress sense was offensive to him, he told Rankin, and he advised her to shop at chain stores.

I attended those hearings, in which Rankin was the target of extraordinary, unkind male behaviour. Like Chief Employment Judge Tom Goddard, I thought she’d had, ‘‘a harrowing experience and deserved sympathy,’’ though he said no legal wrong had occurred.

Legal wrongs are distinct from moral wrongs, as behaviour in some law firms may vividly demonstrate. Wellington firm Russell McVeagh has been in the spotlight for, according to a former employee, having a culture rife with sexual misconduct, and a ‘‘boys’ club’’.

The unnamed woman alleges sexual abuse of employees, sex and drug taking within the workplace, openly ranking women’s looks, and the use of company money to attend strip shows. Female partner Pip Greenwood has admitted the firm let down former (female) staff, but where are the repentant male partners?

While we continue to expose the fascinating madness of men, making inflated, compensatory claims for the ability of women, solely on the basis of gender, won’t be a big help.