Women still remain underrepresented in leadership positions despite substantial political awareness and advances in education. According to Pande and Ford (2011), policy makers and political activists in several countries have introduced gender quotas in politics to achieve a gender balanced political platform. The policy makers have raised an interest of formulating a gender quota to ensure women also take leadership positions in the business corporate world. The paper discusses the reasons why there aren’t more women in leadership positions, the approaches to change the situation and the assessment of the success of the selected approach.
Three most persuasive explanations for why there aren’t more women in leadership positions.
Gender based roles and preferences.
Women are always held up with domestic responsibilities such as childcare. Such responsibilities impedes them from advancing in their career. They spend more hours taking care of the children while at the same time lowering the number of hours they work. This has a significant impact on their experience. As the case for most companies, experience is required for promotion and political parties use experience when carrying out candidate selection. As a result of less experience. Less women are selected (Pande and Ford, 2011).
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Gender based discrimination
Male leaders have personal tastes which causes their preferences. Gender based discrimination is rooted in the social norm. Most men believe that political or corporate leadership is only and always reserved for men. Gender discrimination is also evident in voting activities. According to Valenti (2014), Hillary Clinton suffered gender based discrimination during her quest to become the President of America. She suffered sexist remarks and campaigns from the conservative male gender. Discrimination is also evident during political campaigns. The Republicans for instance planning strategies against Hillary Clinton to become the President (Valenti, 2014).
The voters and employers also lack information on the performance of women in politics and the corporate leadership. The lack of information may result in a belief that women are of average performance. The systems of selecting political and corporate leaders restrict may hinder the demand for female leaders. Most companies’ board of directors are dominated by males who are favored by the selection system. Women lack access to informal networking opportunities because of low level of female leadership on boards.
Lack of self-confidence.
Women lack motivation because there are a few women in leadership position who should inspire them. The few number of females in leadership makes others get less information about any open positions for them to take them up. Pande and Ford (2011) state that women lack role models or any female predecessor for whom they can emulate for them to be successful. Women also prefer a non-competitive environment. Therefore, they are less motivated to contest in male dominated areas such as in elections or in competitive corporate positions.
Approaches to change the situation.
Introduction of gender based political quotas.
The design of political and corporate leadership quotas to increase female leadership can help in increasing the number of women in leadership positions. Many countries in the world have formulated policies to ensure women take up leadership position both elective and corporate positions. Female based quotas ensure that women the number and the roles of women in decision making are well represented. In elective positions, several countries have reserved a certain percentage of the total number of elective legislative positions to ensure that women are represented. Pande and Ford argue that “South Africa for instance implemented the quota system at the local government level enhance and encourage women to take political leadership roles. Other countries has adopted voluntary party quotas. The voluntary quota means that a political party commits itself and nominates a specific percentage of political female contestants for the electoral lists”.
The approach has been successful in many countries around the world where the number of females in elective houses increased. The political quota system ensures equity of leadership between the two genders. According Pande and Ford (2011) explain that “the overage female representation in legislative leadership positions is at 22% in countries employing the use of the quota system and it is 13% in countries where the quota system is not implemented”. The reservation of a specific number of political seats for women has been successful in increasing the female leadership to a targeted level. Countries such as India, Eritrea and Burundi that have set the quota percentage to be more than 30% has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of women leaders both the national and sub-national level.
Introduction of gender based corporate board quotas.
The gender gap in the business corporate world can me tackled by the implementation of the corporate board quotas. Countries such as Norway have introduced the quota system among its public limited, state-owned and inter-municipality companies. The number of female representation on management boards in Norway increased substantially. In Norway, the number of females representing increased the targeted 40% in 2008 from 15.9% in 2004. The corporate gender quotas have enhanced efficiency in the labor markets.
- Chin, Lau. Women and Leadership: Transforming Visions and Diverse Voices. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2008
- Greenfield, Daniel. “Can anyone stop Hillary? Why not? Hillary has never won a competitive election.” frontmagemag.com. 1/17/2014.
- Pande, Rohini and Ford, Deanna. 2011. “Gender Quotas and Female Leadership: A Review,” pp.1-42.
- Valenti, Jessica. “Sexism for the win! Could prejudice bring it home for Hillary Clinton in 2016?” washingtonpost.com/opinions. 1/24/2014.
