The sexism debate rolls on

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of news stories feeding into the debate on sexism and issues of gender in the workplace.

In a bid to increase the number of women in top positions in the UK civil service, the government has banned all-male shortlists for most senior civil service jobs. Only 37.7% of senior civil servants are women, and there is a 4.9% pay gap between men and women.

Jill Rutter, Programme Director at the Institute for Government, pointed out “not many organisations would be open and self-critical enough to publish this sort of comment from their staff.” She also went on to say that there has been a regression in equality outcomes in the civil service in recent years, and that the civil service needs to make people feel they are in an environment that values diversity.

Ulf Rinne writes about the uses of anonymous job applications in this article, saying that they reduce the potential for discriminatory hiring practices which may be conscious or unconsciously done.

Ghazala Azmat discusses the arguments for an equal split between the sexes in her article on gender diversity in teams. She finds economic performance takes a short term dip but may improve in the long term as gender diversity becomes the norm and women gain more experience at board level.

Rona Fairhead was announced as the preferred candidate to Chair of BBC but headlines downplayed her weighty business experience and focused on her role as ‘mother of three’. Fairhead is a graduate of Cambridge and Harvard, a British business ambassador, former Chair and Chief Executive of the Financial Times Group, and a non-executive director at HSBC and PepsiCo.

Journalist Laura Bates commented, “When women already face high levels of maternity discrimination in the workplace, is it helpful to report on high-achieving women first and foremost by referencing their family life?”

Nina Smith has examined evidence relating to women on corporate boards and concluded that, “the empirical results are mixed and often negative. Current research does not justify gender quotas on grounds of economic efficiency”. She suggests policymakers focus on broadening the pipeline of female candidates by helping to improve the gender balance of careers within the family, such as by encouraging fathers to take advantage of parental leave schemes.

Read more about topics related to gender and discrimination.