International Women’s Day

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, for securing and introducing this debate, which she has done marvellously. As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I want to introduce a note of caution. It is quite common to talk about “the woman”, which leads one to think that all societies think of women in more or less the same way. Coming as I do from India and as a student of developing societies, I suggest that it would be a great mistake to homogenise or essentialise the woman. The woman comes in many roles: she comes as a mother, as a daughter, as a wife and also as a companion. In some civilisations, woman as a daughter is not much valued and is disposed of in arranged and other marriages. Woman as a mother, however, is the subject of enormous power and considerable authority. This is what happens in India. So if one looked at women simply from the standpoint of what happens to daughters in arranged marriages, one would be inclined to think that women do not enjoy equality. However, this makes it very difficult to explain why India or Sri Lanka or other developing countries had women Prime Ministers long before we did and long before any western country. If women were treated as inferior or unequal, why should India, for example, have more women in the highest positions, as vice-chancellors in universities or as Cabinet Ministers? The explanation is that, as I said earlier, the woman can be seen in many different roles, and as long as she is seen as the mother figure she wields considerable power and authority. Women, while suffering from inequality at one level, enjoy equality at another and the picture becomes much more complex.

The other point to bear in mind is that, for some reason that I do not have time to explore, the equality of women in our civilisation—certainly after the war—has gone in hand with sexualisation of the woman, and this has created all kinds of problems. On the other hand, in non-western societies it has gone hand in hand with desexualisation because if a woman is seen as the mother then, obviously, she is not seen as an object of sexual desire. In India, a woman in a position of authority has to conceal her sexual charm if she is going to carry any kind of authority, as has happened to every Prime Minister or happens to women in any other position of authority. Here the opposite tends to happen, with the result that cultural historians and sociologists have introduced a new concept called “erotic capital”. The argument is that having charming, good-looking, beautiful women under a certain age in positions of authority generates the business a certain amount of capital and brings good will and customers who are attracted by the ambience. That sort of thing has gone hand in hand with the sexualisation of the body and the woman in the context of equality. This relationship is contingent. It need not have happened but it has happened. It has been a source of considerable worry, and those of us who are extremely anxious to fight for equality for women in all spheres—natural, spontaneous equality in ordinary relations, not just equality of rights—would have to engage in a deeper cultural critique to make sure that a woman is not understood in this way.

Having got rid of this general point, which has been exercising me for some time, I want to concentrate on what happens in our own country. The following percentages of women in positions of power in our society are striking: Members of Parliament, 22%; the House of Lords, 21.7%; the Cabinet, 17.4%, but the figure keeps changing; local authority council leaders, 12%, but local authority chief executives, 23%; senior ranks of the judiciary, 13.6%; heads of professional bodies, 33%; university vice-chancellors, 14%; academics in general, including lecturers, senior lecturers and readers, 35%; professors, 20%; editors of national newspapers, 5%; directors of FTSE 100 companies, 16%; elected mayors, 13%; senior management in the Civil Service, 31%, but Permanent Secretaries, 16%; heads of primary schools, 71%; heads of secondary schools, 38%; and heads of independent schools, 11.9%.

I have given those figures because I want to draw four important conclusions from them. First, if a position happens to be elected, the chances of women being underrepresented are considerable. Secondly, there is no difficulty at the bottom level of a profession because women are represented there in proportion to their presence in the population. As you go higher up to the middle level, there does not seem to be much of a problem either, but there is suddenly a narrow pyramid at the top. Thirdly, there is underrepresentation at the top in the private sector compared to the public sector. Fourthly, women’s representation is very poor and they are only just beginning to break through in new areas such as TV journalism or as editors of national newspapers. This tells us where we need to concentrate. Although it is striking that progress is being made in all those areas, we still have a long way to go.

Why is this the case? Whether in elected bodies or people at the top, why is this kind of inequality persisting after all the attempts? My own study tells me that four or five factors play an important part. First is of course the conscious or unconscious bias of males in positions of power. They, for all the kinds of reasons that I mentioned earlier about the way in which female equality is understood, feel uncomfortable or threatened by female presence. There is also the question of women themselves feeling slightly diffident and therefore not displaying, or playing to, their strengths as well as they could. Thirdly, there is the culture of the organisations, which, being male-dominated, sets certain norms, and women feel intimidated or unwelcome in those organisations. Fourthly, there is the question of family responsibility. In spite of all the talk, it is women who carry the family, with the result that women are not to be seen in many branches of the medical profession, with which I am familiar. For example, women generally tend to avoid those courses in medicine or those areas of employment where they might be required at any time or where there could be an acute emergency. There are therefore a large number of women in ophthalmology, but there are very few in general surgery or acute medicine.

The fifth and final point to bear in mind is that the male historically has been the standard of reference and, therefore, the criterion by which to decide how an organisation should be structured, who should be appointed and who should not be. As a result, for example, in many cases a male on an appointment panel would say: “This particular candidate is not decisive or partisan enough, because that is what an organisation requires”. The result is that women, who are not generally pushy, partisan or aggressive and are more concerned to compromise, tend to be under- appreciated and not appointed.