Sex in the boardroom

OK, don't get excited.  The title just rather cunningly and cleverly refers to the old/current/ad infinitum "women on the board/glass ceiling" argument (see what I did there?)

Apparently, FTSE-100 firms are to set a target of 25% "women in the boardroom" by 2015 - or else.  Or else what?  I'm guessing legislation to forcibly impose it, and so do the newspapers.  Hence a journalistic outcry this week with everybody having their say...from the "about-time-toos" to the "it's-an-outrage-why-not-impose-a-female-quota-for-refuse-collecting" etc etc etc.

The second argument intrigues me the most, because it implies that we live in a fair and balanced world where everything happens as it should.  It also misses the point a little bit, because I should imagine it's less difficult to get a job in refuse collection than it is to get a job on the board at a FTSE-100 company, whichever sex you happen to be.  Seeing as the latter currently house only five female bosses, it looks as though it might be a tad more difficult for women.  Personally, I think this tentative "target" isn't a bad idea, as long as the women concerned are qualified and equipped for the jobs and the firms aren't just looking to throw Carol from Reception in at the last minute because they left it too late to actually recruit anyone.  Because the pressure will be on from the start; these women will have to be seen to be doing better than the men in order to prove any semblance of their worth.  Hopefully though, this initial pain and scrutiny will die down over time and it might become a bit more normal to find a capable and confident woman leading a board of directors.

I say this because though I've never worked for a FTSE-100 company, I have worked in quite a few offices during my working life.  I've worked with some lovely people, but in all the places I've worked the pattern has always been the same in that it's always a team of middle-aged men at the top.  Hence, regardless of your ability, without a 'middle-aged man' sort of attitude I imagine it would be hard to get anywhere close to joining them.  I once worked for a company whose directors' Christmas party would consist of a trip to the local table-dancing club, with the Managing Director buying a dance for each attendee (it's arguable as to whether or not this is better than a three-courser-and-a-silly-hat at the local pub).   Even on the basis of that one measly piece of information, looking at it objectively these men probably wouldn't be keen on appointing a female director, would they?

I'm not saying by any means that men conspire to keep women out of the top jobs.  But women do tend to be seen as the assistants rather than the bosses.  Even in the language...being called "love", "darling" and "sweetheart" in the office doesn't exactly inspire a professional and capable image.  I qualified as an HR and recruitment professional after five years' hard slog a few years ago and earned letters after my name, yet the Managing Director of the company I worked for at the time constantly referred to me as "Blossom".  Maybe I was being a bit po-faced about it, but it did strike me that that shouldn't really be acceptable in a professional office environment.  And yet I never complained about it, or any of the other endearments, mainly because it was never, ever done with contempt or in an attempt to put me down in any way.  It was just intrinsic.

I noticed other shades of sexism early on in my patchwork quilt of a career, specifically when I worked manning the phones as a Customer Service person in a small local office.  The owner of the company and his team of directors (all of them middle-aged men) would regularly ask me to make them tea and coffee, or to "be a love and pop down to the shop for some sandwiches" when they were having lunchtime meetings.  Fair enough, except there was a man sitting next to me, around my age and employed in the same role as me - and he was never asked to do any of this.  I don't know what they all did when I was off - choked with thirst, I would imagine.  Anyway, the requests started to get bolder; soon I was being asked to "cut up the sandwiches and make them look pretty" when they had clients in, and to make sure I arranged the biscuits nicely on a plate - soon all their catering requirements were taking up the best part of a morning.  I put up with it for a few weeks, and then I did what any sane person would do.  I added salt to the sugar bowl, mixed all the tea in with the coffee and bought all their sandwiches and biscuits from the supermarket's 'Economy' range and made sure the packaging was visible.  In less than a day all catering responsibilities were removed from my pretty little shoulders, and arrangements were made to install a coffee machine instead.

Men or women, a great deal of people are talented, and a great deal are good at what they do, so it's those kinds of "dirty tricks" I employed (obviously on one Hell of a larger scale!) that I would imagine people must use if they want to haul themselves to the top and stay there.  Sometimes I wonder if the real reason women are underrepresented in the boardroom is quite simply because they can't be bothered to keep playing them.