Women on Boards: The Roundtable

In the UK today, women are significantly under-represented at company board level despite making up half of the national population. On Thursday 16 December the Young Fabians hosted a “Women on Boards” roundtable discussion in conjunction with BIS to explore this issue and support the Lord Davies Review. The event was hosted at the ICAEW and was attended by around 30 people. Our panel of distinguished speakers included Helen Whitehead from BIS, Baroness Goudie, Rhonda Martin from ICAEW, Averil Leimon from White Water Strategies and Arpita Dutt from Russell, Jones & Walker who were able to share their experiences and work in this area.

The discussion was aimed at presenting the views of young, up and coming women in business and covered a range of topics from personal aspiration and perceived barriers in corporate culture to business led strategies to address under-representation of women at senior management level. 

While the efficacy of introducing quotas was disputed, there was wide agreement that in order to progress the equality agenda men should be involved in the debate and that top down engagement from Boards was necessary to recognise the disparity.  Mentor and sponsor systems that challenge and promote women were supported as well as extra support and engagement with women who have chosen to leave work to have children.

One issue that became apparent was that there seems to be a point somewhere around the age of 30 at which women begin to feel disadvantaged in comparison to male colleagues whether they have decided to have children or not. Addressing this issue will require additional effort from women themselves and the organisations that employ them to proactively address career development and aspiration.

There was no clarity from the table as to whether the women present actually wanted to be on a Board, but it became apparent that transparency and monitoring of board selection would remove barriers to lack of aspiration by providing essential information as to what senior level roles entail.  

We would like to thank our sponsors ICAEW and White Water Strategies for supporting the event.

Lord Davies’ review will be published February 2011.

World Human Rights Day

You may not know it, but today (10^th December) is World Human Rights Day. Coinciding the with the day that Liu Xiaobo fails to collect his Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for his tireless efforts to promote greater respect for human rights in China, this year’s celebration is a good time to reflect on the billions of people worldwide for whom the very concept of ‘human rights’ must seem like a meaningless abstraction.

I recently returned from Bangladesh, where I spent four days visiting projects supported by UK charity One World Action. Among other things, One World Action works with local NGO Nagorik Uddyog to promote the rights of the 5.5 million Dalits currently living in Bangladesh. Dalits (often referred to as ‘Untouchables’) represent the lowest castes in the traditional Hindu hierarchy, historically engaged in trades and occupations that are considered ‘unclean’ such as sweeping, cobbling, disposing of dead bodies and manual scavenging (a euphemism for sewerage work). In an endemically poor country, these people are the poorest of the poor; Socially, economically and politically marginalised, Dalits are routinely denied even their most basic rights, ignored in public and despised in private.

The plight of Dalits living in India is well documented, having been brought to light by Ghandi as early as the 1930s. However, as most of the Dalits living in Bangladesh were brought in from India under the colonial regime, the majority-Muslim society has until recently regarded caste-based exclusion as an ‘Indian problem’ that does not concern Bangladesh, or at least a ‘Hindu problem’ that does not concern the vast majority of Bangladeshi society.

In the two days I spent visiting Dalit communities in and around Dhaka, the idea that Dalit exclusion is not a Bangladeshi problem became patently ridiculous.

Most Dalits in Dhaka live in so-called ‘colonies’, physically demarcated areas squeezed into the most crowded parts of the city. The entrance of the first colony I enter is marked by a discreet arch, covering a tiny alleyway which leads into a maze of narrow streets beyond. Like Platform 9¾, you would not know it was there unless you were shown. Hidden away like this the colony seems to physically embody the marginalisation and exclusion of its inhabitants; out of sight, out of mind. Our driver Mintu had no idea such areas of town existed and was visibly taken aback by what we saw.

The first thing that hits you in the confusion of smells; open sewers mixed with frying spices and fresh laundry hung over the already crowded alleys, creating a kind of bunting of colourful dripping clothes. Then the inhabitants- not only the dozens of children that we gather as we walk around, but the thousands of flies that make the colony their home. As we tour round a maze of streets we see houses which are no more than small rooms, often home to families of eight people or more. We see the temples and community halls that provide the only large spaces for the community gather. We walk past the toilet block, an open space for showering with no separate areas for men and women, meaning people are forced to wash over their saris and lungis, denied even the privacy of their morning ablutions. The shared WCs are so few in number that they attract an even greater density of flies, gut-churning smells and angry queues of people.

But among the chaos and the squalor you also get a keen sense of a community increasingly aware of its rights and increasingly able and willing to fight for them. I met young women who were studying for college degrees, and who had chosen, rather than escaping their roots, to come back into the community to teach and lead. I met mothers who had started women’s groups, providing the training, support and loans necessary to earn extra income and provide alternative occupations outside the traditional Dalit trades. And I met men and women who through groups such as Bangladesh Dalit Human Rights were advocating at the city and national levels to tackle Dalit exclusion, improve conditions and promote new laws to protect the human rights of all marginalised communities.

A rally organised by BDERM (Bangladeshi Dalit and Excluded Rights Movement) on my fourth and final day in Dhaka demonstrated just how far the movement has come in a few short years. Cars hooted their horns and cycle rickshaws rang their bells in solidarity as Dalit protesters marched past the National Museum proudly holding signs bearing a slogan that is hard to argue with: ‘Dalit Rights are Human Rights.’ As we marched with the crowd I looked to my left and saw that our driver Mintu had joined the protest, the newest convert to a growing movement.

How best to solve gender imbalance in the workplace?

A new paper by researchers at the University of Innsbruck suggests that from a young age – three years old – boys are more likely than girls to enter into competitive behaviour, and that this observed behaviour persists through childhood into adolescence. The paper is consistent with earlier studies which find a persistent and large gender gap in the willingness to compete amongst adults, but its conclusions are more instructive – willingness to compete may be less likely to be contingent on nurture, rather than nature, than we had previously thought.

Willingness to engage in competitive behaviour is important in the context of labour markets, where competition is likely to be higher (in general) for high-profile or well-remunerated jobs. This research might have important considerations from a policy perspective when designing programmes to promote competition in the workplace. Namely, when is the right time to intervene?

It might be possible to have greater impacts on outcomes later in life by targeting intervention from a very early age (pre-three years old) to boost the willingness to compete amongst females. However, this implies that the impact of nature and nurture are more balanced before the age of three (as there are no studies into competitive behaviour at such a young age, it is difficult to know).

Of course, if willingness to compete is largely innate, then it may not matter too much at what stage any interventions occur and, on balance, programmes are likely to have greater impacts if they focus on reducing competitiveness in the labour market to encourage wider participation amongst females.

On a broader, normative point – if we accept there are differences in willingness to compete given gender, then I’m not sure which course of action is more preferable – encouraging females to be more competitive, or making labour markets less competitive? Thoughts welcome…

Stories that speak volumes: Refugee Week 14th – 20th June

“Don’t sit on the sofa. When people sit on the sofa they get red spots on them and they itch too bad. I tell (accommodation provider) but they say it’s my fault because I must not have a dog in the house. I don’t have a dog. I am Muslim I don’t have dogs”

(Beyond Borders, Nottingham’s Refugee Week publication 2010)

Sometimes it’s the simple stories that speak volumes. The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK is an issue I never stop hearing shocking stories about. A quiet man from Congo Brazzaville who had won the respect of his British community through hours of volunteering and kindness, still with torture marks on his body and a judicial review open, forcibly deported with handcuffed hands and feet carried by 4 security guards onto a plane…A Kurdish man from a political family sent back because the area was considered safe with no regard for his family’s background, dead within a month of deportation.The UK’s disrespect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its treatment of asylum seekers has long been spoken of anecdotally.

Last week brought news of ‘special arrangements’ by the Home Office to speed up the deportation of a group of asylum seekers to Iraq. The Guardian (Tuesday 8th June) explained:

‘Government lawyers have warned high court judges that last-minute legal challenges should not be allowed to “disrupt or delay” a deportation flight to Baghdad due to leave Britain early tomorrow…The disclosure of the “special arrangements” around the charter flight to Baghdad sparked strong concern from immigration legal experts, who said that government lawyers were trying to tell high court judges how to do their jobs…
This is the first time the detailed operations of the “special arrangements” surrounding such deportation flights have become public. But the immigration minister, Damian Green, said they were standard procedure and had been used in 16 previous flights to northern Iraq.’

This is what makes me sad. All political parties are guilty. Something is not right. Asylum seekers have the right to a fair process to assess whether they are eligible for refugee status, and most of all they deserve to be treated as human beings. Why does the UK have such a bad record on this?

Gary Young wisely titled an article in the Guardian on 26 April 2010:

‘Yes, we need an honest immigration debate. But this tough talk isn’t it. Racist fear-mongering prevents discussion of the poverty, natural disasters and wars that cause people to emigrate’.

It also encourages intolerance and lack of understanding:

“They (UK Border Agency) don’t have any idea about our background or what circumstances we have been through. For example, they would ask you about when you had to report to the police in your country: “Where is the copy of the statement now?” How can anybody make them understand that in a country in which there is no photocopier in the University how can there be one in a police station? For God’s sake don’t torture those who have already been tortured.”

(Beyond Borders, Nottingham’s Refugee Week publication 2010)

May Refugee Week 2010 be an opportunity of more of us to take a minute to understand a little more about the truth, rather than the myths, surrounding asylum seekers and refugees, and to move as a country towards a better record on this issue.

www.refugeeweek.org.uk
www.refugee-action.org.uk
www.refugeecouncil.org.uk

GUEST POST: Triple-jeopardy in welfare proposals increase risk of poverty

In this guest post, Young Fabian member Neil Coyle argues that, despite the supposed similarities in the welfare policy of Labour and the Coalition government, the proposed changes announced by the Coalition so far are regressive.

Incoming Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has announced welfare commitments including:

• Putting DWP at the forefront of improving quality of life for worst-off citizens;
• Ensuring work pays; and
• A Social Justice Cabinet Committee.

Sound progressive? Examination of the detail available is more worrying. Overall, proposals could mean the triple-jeopardy of:

1. enforced, ineffective medical tests;
2. cuts to support to find work; and
3. cuts to in-work support.

Medical tests

Labour introduced a ‘Work Capability Assessment’ (WCA) to ascertain the impact of health conditions on people’s ability to work. But organisations that supported reform have criticised WCA implementation.

Disability organisations suggest the WCA is unable to effectively ascertain the impact health conditions have on ability to work. Cases have arisen of people assessed as ‘fit for work’ being exempted from undertaking work related activity on appeal. 40% of the people who appeal have DWP decisions overturned and the number of appeals already outstrips other benefits.

Instead of addressing WCA challenges, the new Government is bringing forward wider reform plans using the assessment on all 2.6 million Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants. Labour had proposed 1.5 million IB claimants undergo the WCA at a rate of 10,000 per week to 2014. The new Government’s WCA plans will require significant additional costs – recruiting Jobcentre Plus/medical assessment staff to handle assessments and public resources wasted in costly appeals.

Support to find work

Labour provided support for people furthest from the job market through initiatives like Pathways to Work. The coalition has announced it will scrap Pathways and other programmes in favour of a single ‘Work Programme’.

But a ‘one size fits all’ approach will be ineffective at ensuring all citizens, especially disabled people, are supported to find work. At a time of higher unemployment this is doubly disadvantageous and could cause a bias in the system against helping people with highest needs to find work.

Reduced in-work support

Labour proposed a £40 per week better off in work guarantee for many people moving off benefits. The coalition has cut this proposal, instead making loose statements about ‘making work pay’ which some fear may mean cuts to benefits in the June Budget.

The coalition’s tax credit proposals also cut in-work support. The threshold of income planned to restrict access to tax credits may not reflect some people’s – especially parents of disabled children’s – higher living costs and could push families into poverty.

The coalition agreement also pledges an employment law review. A weakening of employers’ obligations on parental rights, flexible working and ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ for disabled employees could make work untenable.

The ‘C’ change

Despite shared terminology and a general media focusing on similarities in the main parties’ on welfare, the combination of recent announcements represent a sea change from Labour to Coalition.

Progressives must monitor the impact of proposals on poverty.

Yobs, mosquitos and pink lights

In Britain we don’t really like children and teenagers. Just think about it – children and teenagers get a bad press. The media love to call them ‘yobs’, ‘thugs’ and ‘feral’. It wouldn’t be acceptable for mosquitos (a device that emits a high-pitched piercing sound that can’t be heard beyond the age of 25) to be used against any other section of the population to keep them away from a public place. The latest invention is a pink light that shows up acne to embarrass teenagers into vacating public areas. In short, children and teenagers are, more often than not, treated as a nuisance by society, or portrayed as something to be scared of. Yet when we think about equality we usually forget to talk about how young people are treated.

I recently told a friend that I was running a consultation event to gather young people’s opinions on things that affect them. He laughed and said “do they just grunt?”. I retorted a little defensively “If they did just grunt I would be doing a very bad job at facilitation”. The reality is so different to his perception. The young people I’m in contact with through my work have really good, practical ideas. They’re straight to the point, quick-thinking and solution-focused. They’re creative and they remind you about important, obvious things that adults have forgotten. They’re not interested in things being slick, instead they want to know whether you really care. And they’re willing to work with you even when things aren’t perfect. Most of all they bring enthusiasm, humour and energy.

The group of young people I’m talking about don’t come from easy backgrounds. They’ve got a dad in prison, or a mum they’ve been taken away from, or a dad who is heroin addict, or a family who have lived with domestic violence. And yet they show incredible resilience. We have to listen to children and teenagers and respect them, not only because they’re the future but because they are the here and now, because they’re equal citizens even though they can’t vote, and because they have so much to contribute, if only we would let them.

GUEST POST: Alastair Campbell on mental health

Alastair Campbell is the former Communications Director at No 10. Here he writes about his mental health problems and his decision to speak openly about them.

When I started working as Tony Blair’s press secretary, I knew that the ‘skeletons’ would probably come out, so I never hid the fact I’d had a nervous breakdown. I’d always been very open about it, calling it my ‘mad period’. There’s no point pretending I wasn’t mad, because I was, probably for some time up to my breakdown, and then it took quite a while to recover. I think people are disarmed when you’re up front about it.

It happened in 1986 when I was 29. I was doing a piece on Neil Kinnock in Scotland, and ended up being arrested for my own safety. After a spell in hospital, I slowly rebuilt myself with help from family and friends, and a wonderful GP. Although I might have a few grounds for complaint about the way the media have reported on me on a few occasions, I feel in relation to mental illness, I have had a pretty fair deal from them. Not everyone can say that of course. The constant linking between mental illness and violence in the media is a problem .. the mentally ill are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence.

I do understand people’s reservations about being open. People worry their job or their prospects might be badly affected. And it would take quite a brave politician to stand up at election time and say oh by the way, I sometimes hear voices, or I tend to get addicted to things, or I may sometimes go missing with depression. But I do think it would help if people in positions of leadership and authority were more open. When I first got involved with the Time to Change campaign, we did a report called ‘A World Without’ in which we focussed on great historical figures who had what today would be defined as mental illnesses. Churchill with his black dog. Abraham Lincoln was routinely described as melancholic. Marie Curie. Charles Darwin. Florence Nightingale. Imagine if any of those people had not been able to do the work they did. But even today people with mental health problems will tell you that sometimes the stigma and the discrimination it leads to are worse than the symptoms.

One of the reasons I’ve wanted to be open about it is that I know from my own recovery that it is possible to take strength and hope from the experience of others who’ve gone to what feels like hell and back and lived to tell the tale. I have written a novel, All In The Mind, based in part on my experiences of depression and psychosis, and have also done a documentary, Cracking Up, which can be seen on my website and I have been really pleased with the response to both. Barely a day has passed since when someone has not come up to me and said that something that happened to me, or one of the characters in the book, was something they could relate to directly because of their own experience, or that of a relative or friend. If it is true that One in Four will directly suffer a mental health problem, that means we all know someone who will, even if we don’t ourselves. If anything I think One in Four is an underestimate.

I think attitudes are changing slowly and I hope I have been able to help in that. I am very glad that the Young Fabians have decided to take up this topic. I know that a lot of young people are struggling with mental health issues, and although my advice to them would be to be open and honest, the truth is stigma and discrimination still exist, and openness might be the thing that leads to someone being rejected. But I still feel it is the best approach. We need to get to a situation where people can feel as open about saying they have mental health issues as they are about saying they have cancer or a broken leg. We are a long way off that, but I am confident that one day we will get there. It is in many ways the last great taboo. But racism, sexism, homophobia have all been challenged and to a great extent eroded because of people taking up the issues and campaigning on them.

We can do the same for the stigma and taboo surrounding mental illness, and I wish Good Luck to the Young Fabians in their role in that great cause.

Harassment of disabled people is a scourge on society and a key challenge

I was recently at a social care event when I was reminded of the horrific murder of Steve Hoskin, a Cornish man with learning disabilities. Having dealt with loneliness and isolation he befriended a couple who tormented him, eventually forcing him to take his own life by jumping off a bridge. A few weeks later I read that a man in Manchester , David Askew, also with learning disabilties had died of a heart attack after confronting people who were harassing him on his doorstep. He had suffered 17 years of abuse. This was also on the back of the case of Fiona Pilkington which gained significant public attention in 2007, as she took her own life and that of her learning disabled daughter after sustaining years of torment.

It was on the back of the Pilkington case that the Equality and Human Rights Commission initiated an inquiry into the safety and security of disabled people. In their research so far, they have concluded that the basic human rights of being able to live free from persecution and torture is denied to many disabled people. This is something that most people would find shocking and equate with oppressive regimes in distant lands as opposed to British Society – but in many cases, for people with mental health problems and learning disablilities in particular, it is an everyday truth.

In defining the key challenges we face to make a more equal society, surely this is a key one. In each of these tragic cases there must have been public servants, local officials and communities who knew of the harassment of these people and thus were in some way complicit in it. As a society we must all take responsibility, not only for turning a blind eye but also, in the case of Steve Hoskin, and certainly many others, being complicit in the isolation which lead him to seek solace in people who intended to manipulate this vulnerability.

What is clear is that a society we still regard disabled people as being intrinsically vulnerable – however these deaths illustrate that their vulnerability is not inherent. It is a function of a society that permits people to prey on those who are the weakest. In the fight for gender equality and against racism there must also be a battle cry for equal dignity and respect for disabled people.

The response to disability hate crime cannot be a return to protectionism, segregation and paternalism however. Instead, we must examine ourselves, our prejudices and behaviours whilst ensuring that disabled people are able to make their own choices and control their lives. And where there are dangers to disabled people and their freedom restricted the Police, Housing and other services must act swiftly to both diagnose and respond to disability hate crime. It is good news that this week the Crown Prosecution Service pledged to identify and prosecute such crimes.

GUEST POST: Fighting the stigma

Matt Murray is a Young Fabian member. In this guest post, he writes about the difficulties encountered by people with mental health problems.

The Labour government has elevated equalities from merely a peripheral issue and as Young Fabians we have been leading the call for a progressive social agenda. Removing inequalities goes beyond policy decisions and includes a societal dimension of tackling stigma and discrimination whilst also encouraging aspiration and well-being. It is especially important that we fully recognise the impact on mental health that the economic recession has caused on young people and their prospects.

Lack of societal understanding of the variety of conditions and the impact on sufferers’ lives has led to an attitude that ‘unseen’ mental illness is less important than ‘seen’ physical disabilities. The government’s report on Mental Health and Social Exclusion, published in 2004, identified stigma and discrimination experienced by people with mental health problems as the biggest barrier to social inclusion and 55% identified stigma as a barrier to employment. It is therefore of no surprise that those with mental health conditions may not feel comfortable with being honest about their conditions when applying for jobs for fear that disclosure may harm their application. If applicants choose not to disclose their mental health conditions then they will ultimately suffer from a dangerous lack of support in the workplace, if such support exists.

Evidence shows that more than one quarter of the population still think that people who have mental health conditions should not have the same rights to a job as anyone else and fewer than four in ten employers have said that they would recruit someone who had a mental health condition. Despite these misconceptions many people with mental health conditions are successful in their jobs and people must be allowed to reach their full potential.

The economic recession has provided a backdrop of greater difficulties for young people with mental health conditions. Increased levels of unemployment amongst young people, who already experience the highest levels of developing mental health conditions, have exacerbated the stress and worry for young people facing bigger competition for jobs. Many businesses are also not pro-active in advertising support for positive mental health in the workplace to potential applicants, even where such support exists.

Poor standards of practice in the workplace regarding mental health does not only affect sufferers but Dame Carol Black’s review of the health of Britain’s working age population estimated that the economy loses over £100 billion a year through ill-health and associated sickness absence and unemployment. Mental health accounts for between £30 and £40 billion of this. Government aims for reducing incapacity benefit claims are unlikely to succeed in the recession and a renewed focus on getting people into work is needed.

The government are recognising the importance of mental health in the Equality Bill. On 7 December 2009 a cross government approach was launched on mental health and employment titled: ‘Working our way to better mental health: a framework for action’. The report provides strong commitments to further increase mental health provisions but there appears to be a lack of focus on young people with mental health and the associated problems that exist in finding and holding onto employment.

GUEST POST: Why we need YF Women

Debbie Moss is a Young Fabian Member. Here she shares her reflections on the launch of YF Women.

Last night I attended the launch of Young Fabian Women, a new initiative to support young women with an interest in progressive politics to engage in policy debates and stand for election.

Many women of my generation may question the need for such a project. Our political consciousness has developed in the context of female cabinet ministers, all-women shortlists and equal pay legislation. We are confident of our right to a career as well as a family, and to aim as high as our male peers. Speaking at the launch, Patricia Hewitt reminded us how far we had come, thanks to the organising drive of the sixties sisterhood, but also how far we have to go. Women of my age have rights and opportunities, many guaranteed by laws passed by Labour governments.

But we must not be complacent. Lack of representation remains the most visible challenge. Fawcett Society research shows that at the current rate of change it would take around 20 years for 50% of Labour MPs to be women. It would take the Tories a terrifying 400 years.

Making our voices heard matters beyond Parliament. Earlier this week I was talking to a group of sixth form girls, who told me they took part in a debating society with the boys’ school next door. Their distinguished-looking male teacher shrugged and said “hardly any girls turn up, and when they do, they let the boys do all the talking”.

But can we really let the boys do all the talking? After all, female policy makers have been instrumental in making sure healthcare, childcare and care for the elderly take centre-stage in our political discourse. Even Cameron’s Conservatives (when “on message”) pledge their allegiance to the NHS and acknowledge the necessity of a national care service. These are not “women’s issues”, they are social justice issues. But it is equally important that women contribute to debates on foreign policy, constitutional reform and the economy.

We cannot know whether equal representation in Parliament and in the boardroom would have prevented the banking crisis or the expenses furore, but women are equally affected by the repercussions of both. So I hope that Young Fabian Women will encourage us to share ideas and support each other in the next phase of the battle for equal representation.