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“ I am appalled to read that the EWA report reveals that women are still expecting the business world to adapt to their needs. I am a female businesswomen who has worked in male dominated markets for the past 38 years. I have acheived Senior Management positions in multi national organisations, I now sit on preside over Boards, not because I am a woman but because I am the right person for the job.
I work with, manage, network with and develop my networks within the business marketplace by successsfully adapting to my environment and being relevant, well informed and pro-active. It insults me to think that I need special conditions applied to me as a female inorder to succeed.
It is about time women stopped blaming external influences and started realising that if they are to succeed THEY must adapt not expect their environment to do so. Yes senior roles are appointed often through referrals, that does not exclude women, it simply means that the women have to develop their own position in those networks - it is not a closed shop and there are plenty of successful women to prove it. Remember women have only been seriously competing in the workforce since WW2 we have a number of years to go to catch up with our male counterparts.
The fact that the article states that "Some 40 per cent of women thought a company setting internal achievable targets for gender representation was another vital initiative." is frightening - I would not want a position offerred to me based on it achieving a gender initiative.
In closing if, as serious business women, we want to "play on an even playing field" stop asking for special rules ! ”