When Katherine Graham became CEO of The Washington Post in 1972, she made history. She was the first woman ever to head a Fortune 500 company. This was no small feat for her as an individual. And for millions of women worldwide, it was a major leap forward. Graham personified possibility; she had, in effect, made it through the proverbial glass ceiling. Fifty years on, the percentage of women at the helm of Fortune 500 companies has reached 10% of the total number. This is a milestone, albeit a meager one. As an indication of where we are heading – towards equitable representation in the workplace, this achievement is worth celebrating. However, the pace of progress has been glacially slow.
The recently published Global Gender Gap Report 2022 shows that this slow pace of progress is not limited to the workplace. The gender gap persists in leadership roles, political representation, education, skill prioritization, and wealth accumulation. At the current rate of progress, it will take another 132 years for us to close the global gender gap. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded challenges to global gender parity, actually raising the risk of a regression. The changes we are making, while positive, are too small and too slow.
The question now is: Can we wait for another 132 years? The answer is a definite no. Bridging the gender gap is only possible with assertive action, and ensuring a quota for women in areas where they are historically under-represented is one way to do so.
The quota discourse
The history of the gender quota discourse dates back to more than a century ago. As early as 1913, Norway introduced quotas for women in local elections. Finland followed with the introduction of similar quotas in 1917. However, these early efforts were limited in scope and did not gain widespread traction. The idea of affirmative action and quotas first emerged in the United States as a way to address historical discrimination in early 1960s. This was later expanded to address gender discrimination. The concept of gender quotas gained momentum in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, where several countries introduced quotas for women in politics. For example, in 1983, Sweden introduced a gender quota of 40% for all political parties in local and national elections.
By then, the UN had already organized three world conferences on women – in Mexico City in 1975, in Copenhagen in 1980, and in Nairobi in 1985. However, it was the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 that brought significant global attention to the issue of gender quotas, and many countries began to introduce quotas for women in politics.
Contemporary global situation
The UN Women has been taking stock of the progress made on the commitments and actions agreed by the member States in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. A recent Progress in the SDGs: A Gender Snapshot 2022 report has made many startling revelations on the progress made across the 17 SDGs from the gender lens. Few data in the different SDGs are:
Women hold over one-third of seats in local decision-making bodies.
One in every three managers/supervisors is a woman.
Only 26% of countries have a comprehensive system to track gender-budget allocations.
Women hold only two in every 10 science, engineering, and information technology jobs globally. They comprise only 16.5% of inventors associated with a patent.
Globally, women hold just 42% of judicial positions and make a very small share of police forces (16%).
Even funding for gender equality is not keeping pace with the increasing severity of global challenges against women. Just 4.6% of bilateral allocable official development assistance goes to programs where gender equality is the main objective.
However, there have also been many important gains made in the last 25 years. As per the Women's rights in review: 25 years after Beijing report published by UN Women, over the past decade, 131 countries enacted 274 legal and regulatory reforms in support of gender equality. Parity of education has been achieved on average, at the global level, with more girls in school than ever before. Similarly, global maternal mortality, although still too high (current 211 deaths per 100,000 live births) fell by 38% between 2000 to 2017.
The European success model
Europe leads the global gender parity debate. The European Institute for Gender Equality has published a recent report which shows how quotas can accelerate progress on gender balance in politics and business. The report mentions that if women's representation in national parliaments continues to improve at the current rate, there will be gender balance by 2032.
In political representation, there has been astounding achievement.
In November 2020, women made up 32.7% of national parliaments in the EU. This covered a wide spectrum, from 49.6% in Sweden to 12.6% in Hungary. Five countries have gender-balanced parliaments, with at least 40% of seats held by women: Belgium, Spain, France, Finland, and Sweden.
Eleven EU member states have legislative gender quotas for parliamentary elections. These countries have increased the share of women in their parliaments almost three times faster than countries without quotas. The proportion of women in parliaments increased more quickly in Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland, and Slovenia after they adopted quotas.
In business, there has been a visible progress with the introduction of quotas for women. Quotas boost the share of women on boards and speed up progress.
In October 2020, the share of women on EU company boards in the largest listed companies reached 29.5%. This was an all-time high. In France, more than 45% of company board members are women. Belgium, Italy, and Sweden all have around 38% women, while women account for at least one third of board members in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland.
However, fewer than one in 10 board chairs or CEOs is a woman. This is despite the fact that the number of women board chairs has doubled since 2012.
The meritocracy factor
The quota debate often involves the argument of meritocracy. The logic is that opportunities should be based on merit, not gender. Quotas provide opportunity on the basis of gender and so are by definition "unmeritocratic". This is a myth used to justify a privilege-based status quo. Merit and quotas are not mutually exclusive. In fact, quotas are essential to a meritocratic system for they open up opportunity on an equitable basis.
Another oft-floated argument is that quotas may lead to good male candidates being overlooked at a workplace. This, the argument goes, is disadvantageous to businesses and to women, who are then viewed unfavorably or less favorably as undeserving recipients of the "quota advantage". This is also not true. The concept of men dominating leadership positions is not based on any scientific research, but a result of many decades of women's oppression and inequality. In fact, many studies have shown that organizations with women on their boards are more profitable. Furthermore, the 2008 financial collapse proved that those in decision-making positions aren't necessarily the best fit for the job.
The way forward
Decades of aspirational programs aimed at promoting gender equity have not achieved the desired outcome. However, we can all agree that gender equity is no longer a concept, but a proven way to accelerate progress. Thus, allocating a certain portion of decision-making positions for women is not a courtesy to women. It is, in fact, the only way to fill the gender gap, and we need to make sure this happens as quickly as possible.
Asmi is a student at KISC, Lalitpur
