Quotas for Women or Just a Level Playing Field?

Spare me ‘the level playing field’ excuse or ‘getting there ‘on my own merits’.

This highly convenient slice of rhetoric suits the suits at the top. It aims to pluck at the guilt strings touting this myth that women must fight the good fight with no help or extra investment. So, do men receive no extra help or support to get to the top? Have we forgotten about ‘the old boys’ or The Freemasons network’? Not least the very fact that all women over 21 did not have the right to vote until 1928. Thereby ensuring that men have had all the political and powerful advantages for years before women achieved equality. In short, men have been enjoying ‘all me
n shortlists’ and ‘all men quotas’ allowing them to reach the upper echelons in business and government.

Unlike the Tory leader of Brentwood Council, I’m quite comfortable with the fact that now is my time to enjoy the same level of support and investment to ensure that I have the opportunity to achieve. I will not cow-tow to the idea that for me to eschew support, as men did not before 1928, would be a sign of weakness and inequality.

If you believe that quotas and all women shortlists are unnecessary then by default you must believe that men are better ‘at this sort of thing’ than women, as statistics show that there are more of them, in government and in the boardroom. You are then part of the problem.