Working Women article - APP 18/06/2009

Working women still disadvantaged
AAP http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/2513280/Working-women-still-disadvantaged
18/06/2009

Women are disadvantaged from the moment they enter the workforce and the trend continues as they climb the corporate ladder, an equal opportunity group says.

The Equal Opportunity of Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) released a report by Macquarie University, highlighting the hurdles working women continue to face. It shows women remain dramatically under represented in senior leadership roles. For every woman serving as a board director in Australia, there are about 12 men in board director positions. The report also says women at the executive manager level are either funnelled into support roles or fare badly in the wage stakes compared to their male counterparts.

"Sadly, regardless of which way you look at the data, women are still disadvantaged and their skills are being underutilised," EOWA acting director Mairi Steele said. "More women are leaving university with qualifications and yet as soon as they enter the workforce there is a gender pay gap." She said fewer doors were being opened for women seeking to enter senior executive positions. Assumptions were made about women's ambition and their commitment to their careers, she said. "At the end of the day, women are still subjected to bias and discrimination. We eventually have to look at corporate culture," Ms Steele said.

The report -- Pay, Power and Position: Beyond the 2008 EOWA Australian Census of Women in Leadership -- was released as part of a Symposium in Canberra. Federal Minister for the Status of Women Tanya Plibersek took the opportunity on Wednesday to remind Australians how far women had come. She noted Australia now had a female Governor-General in Quentin Bryce, while Julia Gillard was the deputy prime minister. "Many women have achieved high office, good pay, significant influence, but I do not think we can say yet that equality has been won," she said.
"Not when so many women are stretched between paid work and caring obligations, unable to perform their many roles as well as they want. "And not when women earn 83 cents for every dollar men earn." Ms Plibersek and Ms Steele said it was up to individual businesses to ensure real change occurred.