Female success isn’t at the expense of men

INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day is coming round next week and it’s a reminder that here in Britain we are privileged to live in a free society where both genders can participate in democracy and enjoy free speech – something that cannot be taken for granted with dark forces abroad in the world.

Yet an awareness of our relative good fortune should not stop us from looking at the inequality that still bedevils the work place.

The gender pay gap in this country is higher than the OECD average and we still have only a small handful of women in chief executive roles at top companies.

Many companies have made serious efforts to get more female directors into the boardroom, and to help women with children navigate work and home. So why does equality still look like a distant dream?

My personal theory is ‘the snowball effect’. While outrageous sexism is relatively rare these days, for fear of lawsuits if nothing else, many women experience small, but repeated episodes of discrimination – of being overlooked, not listened to, assumed not to be ambitious and so forth.

These may be unconscious on the part of the man – or woman – doing the discrimination, and they may be brushed aside or barely noticed by the woman on the receiving end, almost like a single flake of snow that seems to melt in a second.

Over the course of a whole career, however, these i ncidents, each apparently insignificant in itself, adds up to a giant snowball: a big drain on energy, confidence and advancement that an equivalent man does not experience.

So, the discussion needs to move up a gear from the rather facile ‘war of the sexes’ debate that is usually conducted. Despite the nonsense spouted by the ‘men’s rights’ brigade, female success does not come at the expense of male failure. If we can harness female talent effectively it will have a major impact on economic growth and as a consequence, all of us will benefit. The estimates are that hundreds of billions of pounds could be added to GDP if more women started their own businesses, or were able to find a way back into the work place after having kids, or were simply promoted to reflect their true potential.

Woman-power could make far more of a difference to the UK economy than whether or not we vote for a Brexit. And it’s a gift that keeps on giving. The Mail runs an award programme along with Everywoman and NatWest for Mumpreneurs who combine work and home. One striking thing is the impact it has on kids – when children see their mothers energised by a job, or by setting up a company, it is an incredibly powerful role model for the next generation.

Discrimination against women in the workplace and in business must just stop. It’s not fair, and we can’t afford it.

East’s moral compass

WELL done to Warren East, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce, for doing without the huge perks showered on his predecessor John Rishton.

The latter, who stepped down part way through the financial year, received more than £80,000 in benefits. It doesn’t necessarily sound a lot by the standards of executive rewards, but without wishing to sound like a Corbynista, that sum (covering only part of the year) is not far off four times the average wage and is well in excess of what many in Rolls’ Derby factory will earn in a full 12 months. Some £47,000 of that was for housing costs to cover stays in London, where Rolls has its head office. Over his less-than-stellar tenure at Rolls, Rishton received almost £450,000 in housing allowances for sojourns in the capital.

Shareholders ought to have been paying more attention to the small print of the remuneration report.

Executives who hoover up the perks are a bad sign. It should tell investors that the boardroom is in the grip of delusions of grandeur. It is a sure-fire warning that their holdings will sooner or later plunge in value.

Remember Fred Goodwin and his fleet of Mercedes cars, painted to his specifications in the precise shade of RBS blue and upholstered with leather in the exact corporate yellow hue? A deafening warning klaxon, for those with ears to listen.

The largesse at Rolls was unacceptable at a time when the company was issuing profit warnings and making job cuts as well as undergoing a Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery and corruption overseas. But it is unacceptable at any time from a company that still stands for the best in British manufacturing.