Still a fight in workplace
that a South African woman would need to work two months more than a man to earn the equivalent salary that he would earn in a year.
Property mogul Xoliswa Tini, of Xoliswa Tini Properties, said the gender pay disparity could be attributed to the fact that men can be more flexible in their working hours as they are generally not homekeepers, many women take up to six months off for maternity leave at any given time, and generally women retire before men do.
She added: “When a woman gets home she has to prepare the evening meal and take care of the children while a man can get home, go straight into his study and carry on working deep into the night.
“Then you look at things like maternity leave . . . yet no matter how many children a man has, he carries on working throughout.
“Even when one of their children is ill, it’s often the woman who takes time off to look after them.
“Men can travel all over the world at the drop of hat because they know their wives are at home looking after the children. These could be some of the reasons employers may favour men over women.”
Christelle Colman, chief executive officer of Europ Assistance South Africa, agreed, adding that women often felt compelled to act like men in the workplace.
“In my years of experience as a CEO, both of a local business and now of the local arm of a global organisation, I have noticed how the majority of women in senior positions shy away from having the gender discussion.
“In the boardroom and workplace, they feel like they need to be more like men, almost genderless, so that they ‘fit in’. They do not acknowledge that as women we are different, many of us are working mothers . . . we have different needs,” she said.
As a remedy, Gauteng branch BWA chairwoman Nobuntu Webster said a shift in mindsets is necessary.
“How we depict women in society through media and advertising for instance, how we position the role of women within social constructs – these are some of the ways we can begin to change the way women are viewed in the business world.
“It is also true that there are women who opt out of senior positions in order to focus on their families.
“The business environment needs to be more conducive to raising families – and a number of global companies which have been intentional when it comes to this have scored well when it comes to talent retention.” — zisandan@ dispatch.co.za