Female graduates in Scotland are still missing out on top jobs to male counterparts, according to a report published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission this week. The report identified fourteen industries and examined the representation of women versus men within these industries. Women were underrepresented across the board. The commission has emphasised the particular discrepancy in this underrepresentation: many Scottish female graduates actually achieved better grades than male graduates. The imbalance of the sexes is apparently entrenched in the Scottish economy.
Kaliana Lyle, Scotland Commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission pinpointed the problem. She argues that immediately after graduation, young women in Scotland are selected for roles; it is not until a few years later that the discrepancy manifests, when young women are passed over for promotion and start to stagnate in middle-management positions, or leave the workforce altogether.
An imbalanced workforce impugns any organisation as retrograde and reactionary. Today, more women are educated to degree level and therefore it stands that more women ought to be in top managerial positions. It implies that female talent is being quashed, or worse, ignored and it also implies an attitude of institutionalised sexism that must not be allowed to ferment any further.
Any woman who is passed over in favour of a man for a role that she believes that she deserved must highlight the problem to the board who made the selection. There will probably be no way to reverse the decision. But challenging the decision ignites a new attitude - however slow to catch - that the female candidate will not sit by blithely and accept career stagnation. Of course, anyone who is passed over for a promotion that they feel that they deserved ought to follow this protocol. But it is particularly important that women engage with and challenge the prejudice that a woman will accept the stagnation of their own career in favour of a man's. It is a model that has - and to an extent still does - exist in the marital unit and in some senses, it has been replicated in the workplace. The only way to destroy it is to speak, to challenge and to persevere. Females won the workplace and now they must claim everything it can offer.
Phoebe, GRB Journalist
