Listen, I am not saying that we haven't made outstanding progress in terms of equality, but let's not pretend that we all have a complete equal opportunity and representation, oh and that the gender pay gap does not exist..
Let’s take a look at the statistics:
Despite women making up over 60% of new entrants into the legal profession – we are significantly underrepresented in the senior roles of the judiciary. Only 17% of Supreme Court Justices, 27% of High Court Judges and 23% of Court of Appeal Judges are women. It is important that we also point out that there has never been – since its formation in 2009 a person of colour as a Supreme Court Judge. This clearly needs to change.
Alarmingly, 17% of jobs in Education are held by women, yet despite this, they account for only 39% of secondary school head teachers and just 30% of University Vice Chancellors (with only 1% being women of colour).
We can see some of the lowest statistics in the sectors of Sport and Business (why am I not surprised?). The FTSE 100 are the 100 biggest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) – only 6% of these have a female CEO – but none of which are women of colour.
Regarding the sport’s industry – albeit the women CEO percentage is higher; 21% are Sport Governing CEO’s but make up only 4% of Premier League CEO’s.
It is also seen more generally, across many sectors, that more men than women work as managers, directors and senior officials.
We should acknowledge the incredibly high representation of women in magazines, with 80% being editors! However this statistic highlights some concerns we have regarding other areas of the media industry when we compare them. For example, only 21% of national newspaper editors and 16% of British film directors are women.
Let’s take a look at some progress –
In the FTSE 100 companies, there are no longer any all-male boards. In addition, women make up 32% of company directors – an increase from 28% in 2017.
In the NHS, 44% of Trust CEOs are women. This is a fairly significant increase from the 28% we saw in 2005.
Within Local Government, there has been promising progress in the number of women taking up leadership positions. Women now make up 34% of Local Council Chief Executives, which has risen from 18% in 2005.
But here is what I cannot ignore –
Only 6% of all Members of Parliament are women of colour. These women are completely absent from the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly of Wales and Northern Ireland (with Anna Lo standing down in 2016 from the Northern Ireland Assembly).
We have already mentioned earlier in the article the shocking underrepresentation (or complete lack thereof, for women – in particular women of colour in senior roles at universities, the judiciary and business CEO’s. There are also no women of colour represented in the highest levels of the Civil Service.
It is evident that we still have a system that is broken – only benefiting certain people in society and ignoring the rest.
By Lucy Williams
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