Helen Fraser's speech to the the Women in Leadership WiLpower conference - Friday 6 February
Thank you for inviting me to this excellent event. I am delighted to be here today and especially happy that this event has been organised by girls from St John Bosco and Putney High working together in partnership.
Now, I started my working life over 40 years ago, and itâs sometimes worth remembering how womenâs aspirations and achievements have expanded and developed in that time.
In 1972 when I began, publishing was routinely run by charming men in tweeds, who would say to me as I tried to break in âmy dear girl, women never get anywhere in publishingâ. There was pipe-smoking, and polished brogues, and men who called each other by their surnames when they became really intimate.
It wasnât just the publishing industry that was institutionally sexist, nearly every sector was. When I started work it was still legal for women and men to be paid different rates for the same or similar work â it was only the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975, 40 years ago this year, that changed that. It was only in the few decades before that that the so-called âmarriage barâ was lifted in many professions â indeed until 1972 women working for the Foreign Office still had to resign if they got married. And for that matter, in the 1970s, most married women simply did not have jobs.
But there is still a long way to go until we can say that women have the same opportunities as their male counterparts to aspire to and achieve positions of leadership â and this is the case in nearly every sector of society: in politics and the police, in the media and the law, in business and in the health service. At the moment there seems to be an unwritten rule that women shall have no more than 20 per cent of the positions of authority in any sector. So women make up fewer than 20% of professors, of chief constables, of MPs, of board members, of permanent secretaries, of senior judges, of consultant surgeons, and so on, in so many professions.
We have to recognise that we are still surrounded by outdated and unhelpful female stereotypes â the ideas that âa womanâs place is in the homeâ; or that âphysics is for boysâ, still hold power. A particular bugbear of mine is the phrase that describes a woman who has a career and a family as âhaving it allâ. Now that most women who are mothers also have paid employment, itâs not âallâ, itâs the norm, but that phrase makes us sound greedy or grasping, and god forbid if you want more, when you already have it allâŚ
Stereotypes will always exist, and it would be great if women and girls could take ownership of the way we are described and represented. We need some better, more contemporary descriptors that more accurately reflect the many and varied roles women â and men â play in todayâs society. So why not âa womanâs place is in the boardroomâ, or âphysics is for everyoneâ?
So where do go from here? It is clear that, in general, girls are excelling at education, where there is visible progress, you get marks and reports and A*s and can constantly track your success. Young women now have overtaken young men at every stage from GCSE to A levels, to number of firsts at degree level, to first jobs, and even to first jobs in management[1]. Girls last year were 30% more likely to go to university than boys.
These young women who, a study by the University of Georgia in the United States found, are more âattentive, eager to learn, persistent, independent, flexible and organisedâ[2] in the classroom than their male peers do amazingly well until about thirty. But then, for so many women, there are two âlost decadesâ between thirty and fifty where they are overtaken by men or drop out of the workforce altogether.
Are the very qualities that get us so brilliantly through education and the first stages of work â such as diligence, getting on with the work assigned, thorough preparation â are these qualities somehow disadvantaging us in the battle to climb a corporate or political ladder? Girls and young women seem to be proving less adept at navigating the workplace than school and university. I recently came across the fashionable acronym VUCA â we live in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world. Schools and universities are wonderfully reassuring places to be in a way â you get constant feedback on how you are doing, and you know when you are doing well. The workplace isnât necessarily like that â itâs VUCA.
We have to ask ourselves what it is about the workplace that holds back or discourages women when they reach their 30s and 40s. You sometimes hear the excuse, âbut they all go off and have babiesâ but thatâs not the real issue. What is it about 21st century organisations that too many women in their late twenties and early thirties find discouraging or alienating? How can we make the pipeline of able and ambitious women in their thirties and forties deliver the CEOs (and vice chancellors, and cabinet ministers, and chief constables) of the future? We need organisations to focus on retention of female talent, to understand their female employees better, to take risks on women.
There are some ways in which we can help ourselves too. Colleagues and bosses are often too busy or occupied to give feedback or reinforcement that you are 'doing it right' - and what a lot of women find in their twenties is that their confidence gradually erodes. A young woman of 25 who has been in a job for two years may start to think 'maybe they don't think I'm that good' because no one has told her she is good, while the young man at the next desk is likely to be thinking 'I'm doing fine' because no one has told him he isn't. Donât wait to be told, and donât wait to be asked.
Some of our schools have been involved in a survey carried out by Jonathan Black of the Oxford University Careers Service, and it is striking how the career gender gap can take hold even before women and men start applying for jobs. In a survey of Sixth Formers, 28% of boys had clear plans for their first job after university, compared with 22% of girls (although, I am happy to note, the figure for GDST girls was almost on a par with boys, at 27%). Boys are more self-confident about their personal prospects than girls. Girls and women tend to be more interested in working for a worthwhile cause, looking for security and a good work/life balance, than boys, while boys and men tend to be more interested in a high level of pay â although both sexes prioritise an intellectually challenging role. When considering applying for jobs, undergraduate women feel less confident than men. And itâs not because there are any differences in the abilities or the achievements of either sex.
Confidence is key â and it is something that for whatever reason is often an issue for girls and for women. American researchers recently produced a report called âThe confidence gapâ which showed that even the most senior women executives in American business were less confident than their male equivalents.
It is an oft-repeated truism that, in general, a woman wonât apply for a job unless she ticks all the requirements, whereas a man will often give it a go even if he only meets just over half the criteria.
Now, I know itâs not very useful for me to stand here and tell you to âjust be more confident!â What I can do to help is let you into a little secret: not everyone who acts confident actually feels confident.
And hereâs another one: if you pretend to be confident on the outside, nobody will know if inside you the butterflies of self-doubt are flapping themselves into a miniature hurricane.
Miriam GonzĂĄlez DurĂĄntez, a high-flying international lawyer who works hard to support her family and her husband, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, suggests that women adopt a âfake it until you make itâ approach.
You donât have to be an Oscar-nominated actress to do this. It comes with practice. Lots of you are good at drama and love acting. So in the workplace, or at that interview, you have to act being that confident, relaxed girl.
But I donât want to take an approach that just says, if women arenât succeeding, then this is a problem for those women, so those women have to change. Frankly, if women are to achieve as much as their male peers, many workplaces need to change for the better.
In an article in the FT last month, the journalist Harriet Agnew highlighted the sexism that too many women still experience in the financial sector. She also highlighted some of the ways that corporations are trying to change this toxic culture. Itâs not just about women changing their behaviour. Organisations and companies too need to step up, building on the understanding that women may need more feedback and more encouragement.
To my mind a proper appraisal system, which encourages bosses to tell women how well theyâre doing, is absolutely vital.
Role models are valuable too. I was lucky to work at Penguin Books when Marjorie Scardino was the chief executive of Pearson, and at the time the only woman Chief Executive in the FTSE100.
Itâs important to have visible women, like Marjorie, at the top of industries and organisations. It helps women lower down in the pecking order think âif she can make it, then so can Iâ.
Senior leaders do provide inspiring role models, but for some young women I know it can seem quite daunting to reach that level of success, so in my opinion we also need access to role models who are just one or two steps ahead of where we/you are now.
So as well as role models â high-flying women whoâve reached the top of their professions â we also aim to find you real models â women at an earlier stage of their career paths, who can share their experiences.
For example, a young woman who is at university or starting out on her career can make a good role model for sixth formers like you, someone in middle management can be a good role model for a young woman starting out on her career, and so on.
In our experience when we approach our alumnae to ask if they would be willing to help a younger woman, with careers advice, or work experience, they are more than happy to give their time and share their expertise.
I am also very aware that, in isolation, simply having more female role models and real models is not enough â we have to have a wide and diverse range of women to identify with. So when we think about role models and real models, itâs important not just to highlight the achievements of GDST alumnae like Sophie Raworth (my fellow book judge on the Baileyâs), but also Charlene White the newsreader, or Samira Ahmed the journalist and broadcaster; we need to talk about Indhu Rubasingham, the artistic director of the Tricycle Theatre, as well as Rosemary Squire, the co-founder of Ambassador Theatre Group; to refer to entrepreneurs like Emma Bridgewater and indeed Putney Highâs very own Aicha McKenzie, who was our 2013 Alumna of the Year. On this note, I must say it was great to see Bianca Miller from Sydenham High School make the final two in the most recent series of The Apprentice.
If I have to give you some advice â and itâs usually expected when someone like me is addressing younger women â I would say, firstly, to practice doing stuff you are unprepared for â like thinking on your feet and improvising. Women often like to be super-prepared, but in the workplace stuff happens that you simply can't be prepared for and you have to respond. Debating, improvised comedy, and similar experiences in schools all help with that.
My second piece of advice is donât fear the fear â you need to understand that the fact that something scares you â be it making a speech, applying for a promotion, or asking for a rise â isn't a sign that you shouldn't do it â it is often a sign that you SHOULD. In the words of the famous book, feel the fear and do it anyway. In fact, I often think that a job where you donât feel seriously frightened about something you have to do once a week is possibly a job not worth doing.
Be prepared to take risks. Be brave. Psychologists have found that while there are very few verifiable psychological differences between men and women, one that does seem to be consistent is that men enjoy and seek out risk more than women. In publishing, risk taking is ingrained in what the business does. I remember at Penguin when we were offered the first Jamie Oliver cookbook â he was a friendly 22 year old with a TV series in the offing, and we really wanted the book. But we couldnât make the initial costings work. In the end we found a way to âfixâ the marketing spend so that it all came out as it should, and a multi-million pound career was born â in fact when I left Penguin he was almost a division of the company all by himself. But of course not every risk works: and of course, with risk, comes mistakes. Iâm glad I wasnât one of the eight publishers who turned down Harry Potter, but they are still explaining it to their colleagues, and themselves, even now.
I would say that â when looking at young women who stand out from the crowd â a preparedness to take risks (whether to voice an opinion at a large meeting, to go against a crowd view, or to pitch with passion for a course of action) is one of the markers of future success. All the exams in the world wonât prepare you for the independent thinking you will have to do in the world of work.
Remember, sheep don't get promoted. Itâs about being visible, being heard, developing your distinctive voice and approach. Donât wait to be asked.
Grace Hopper, an American who was a computing pioneer, as well as a Rear Admiral in the US Navy, is reputed to have said âIf it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologise than it is to get permission.â Donât wait to be asked.
There is a phenomenon called the tiara syndrome, which is the name given to some womenâs conviction that their work will be 'speak for itself' â that if she works hard, and does well, someone, somewhere will notice and pop a tiara on her head and say âgood jobâ. But in reality, you have to speak for your work â otherwise it, and you, wonât be noticed. Donât wait to be asked.
Put yourself forward. Willingly volunteer for any work that is offered; when youâre starting out, be prepared to work on weekends and evenings; pile in when there is a big group task. Make yourself indispensable.
Iâm sorry to say that, sometimes, workplace dynamics can make it harder for women. There are studies that suggest that in business meetings, women are more likely than men to be interrupted when theyâre speaking. And plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that women will sometimes have their ideas dismissed which are then accepted when suggested a little later on by a male colleague. I once saw a brilliant cartoon in the New Yorker magazine, depicting the chairman of a board meeting saying âThatâs an excellent suggestion Miss Jones. Perhaps one of the men here would like to make it?â and itâs funny because all too often it is true.
If thereâs one thing I hope to help achieve in my role, and itâs something perhaps the other women speaking today can help with too, itâs to make owning your achievements â blowing your own trumpet â more socially acceptable for women. I get the feeling that part of the apparent lack of confidence that young women say they feel is actually because they still donât feel itâs socially acceptable to appear confident.
Itâs not far off from what the wonderful journalist Hadley Freedman calls âself-deprecating Touretteâsâ, or constantly putting yourself down or belittling your achievements. Itâs the impulse to say âI was luckyâ or âit wasnât really me it was a team effortâ or âI was just in the right place at the right timeâ â when actually the truth is that it wasnât just luck, you make your own luck, and it wasnât just the team, it was you too, and you didnât just happen to be in the right place at the right time, you made sure you were there and well-prepared for what was to come. Could you imagine a male leader saying any of those? Or, for that matter, any number of female leaders in politics or business or sport, Angela Merkel, or Karren Brady, or Jessica Ennis?
But again that is gradually changing, and as more women achieve positions of power and influence, people of both sexes become more used to seeing women exert that influence and power. I really hope that, by the time you are working, things will be different.
There are plenty of positive signs and reasons for optimism. As I mentioned before, women are doing better at every educational stage, at first jobs, at first management jobs; and the gender pay gap is slowly closing for the under 40s. If we can keep women in the workplace through their thirties, there is a chance that women will start to break the 20% barrier.
I will leave you with another great quote from Grace Hopper: âA ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for. Sail out to sea and do new things.â
[1] According to the recent CMI White Paper on Women in Leadership, at the junior level, 69 per cent of the executive workforce is female. However, just 40 per cent of department heads are female and only one in four chief executives (24 per cent)
[2] Non-cognitive Skills and the Gender Disparities in Test Scores and Teacher Assessments: Evidence from Primary School by Christopher Cornwell, David B. Mustard and Jessica Van Parys. Christopher Cornwell is a professor of economics at the University of Georgia. David B. Mustard is an associate professor of economics at the University of Georgia. Jessica Van Parys is an economics PhD student at Columbia University.
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