'Stupid curve' sidelines women's careers
By Carol Nader | theage.com.au | 19 July
Talented women are being wasted in and lost from the workforce, the head of the government body promoting equal opportunity says.
Anna McPhee, director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, told a women in management forum in Melbourne yesterday that a "stupid curve" proved that women's career progression was being blocked.
Although almost the same number of women as men were in the workforce, women were virtually absent from leadership roles. Ms McPhee said only 12% of the executive managers in the 200 biggest companies on the Australian Stock Exchange were women. Only four women were chief executives; fewer than 10% of directors of those companies were women.
The term "stupid curve" was coined by former US Deloitte boss Mike Cook in reference to the over-representation of men in management. Ms McPhee said Australia's stupid curve showed the female talent that business had wasted for too many years.
Despite a perception that few women had leadership roles because they chose to become mothers, most women were "pushed".
"Whilst the pull of competing priorities of raising children, caring for the elderly and participating in the community is real, the push from a hostile, non-inclusive workplace that does not see women as leaders is greater and ultimately more powerful," she said.
Ms McPhee said research she launched this year found that two of the five most common reasons for women to leave a job were difficulty in progressing and a lack of clear career development.
"To have children or to create more work-life balance did not make the top five," she said. "The talented woman is not choosing to leave in the real sense. She had no choice. Her skills, style and talent are not valued in the organisation because she is a woman."
Despite such measures as paid maternity leave, flexible working practices and pay audits, business had focused most effort on "fixing" women - on assisting women to fit into the masculine culture.
Women were under-represented in leadership positions, because however much they tried to fit in, they were ultimately rejected because of their difference, Ms McPhee said.
About 59% of women with children under the age of four were working, with this number set to grow. And just under 70% of couples had dual incomes. Women wanted and needed to work.
"If business is serious about stopping the leakage of talent from within their organisation … they have got to stop fixing the women and start fixing the business environment and culture," Ms McPhee said. "The stupid curve is indeed stupid."
First published by TheAge.com.au on July 19 2008
Visit theage.com.au for the latest news updated throughout the day
