Women of the corporation

I recall running into one such woman in the airport at Melbourne. She had been appointed to the board of one of the “big” banks in the 1980s. This being the 1980s, she was still there - though in the last months of her first - and as it proved only - term. “Won’t you be going on now to emulate those other women corporate board appointees,” I asked, confident in her positive reply. Laughing wryly, she swiftly disabused me. “Hardly,” she said. “I’ve put agenda items up at every board meeting, raising issues of women and banking, women and finance, women and credit. They’re thoroughly sick of it - not because they deal with the issues but because even seeing them on the paper raises their ire or their boredom. They won’t be inviting me back.”

She of course had begun in the Women’s Movement when women came in at a rush in the 1970s. One of the original Women’s Electoral Lobbyists, she had stayed true to her feminist ethics. She remains with the crew who believe that women who “make it” carry with them an obligation to support and promote other women, rather than concentrating only upon themselves. She recognised she was a woman, that she was where she was because of other women’s lobbying, support, and putting themselves on the line so that women could succeed - in men’s sphere.

That she had held out against the seductiveness of being sucked in to the masculine ethos was a credit to her. In these circumstances, she could expect no credit or quarter from the masculine strongholds represented by corporate board culture.

With increasing emphasis on money, power and profit, and overweening aggrandisement of those who run corporations, no change can be expected - at least in the near future. ACSI research can be counted upon to continue to confirm that the corporate board woman is a rare animal indeed - and only accepted if some other board has tried her out and she has not been found wanting. To be found wanting for women - all women - remains taboo in the world of corporations and their boards.