Following is a letter sent to the Editor of the Financial Times:
Andrew Hill doesn't want us to be fixated on gender quotas in business. ("Fixation on gender quotas is a distraction" FT February 13, 2012). That sounds right, as does the idea of not wanting yet more regulation. The problem is that the voluntary approach has not worked! Women have had the vote for over a hundred years and have been in the labour market for decades and yet they are still low in the ranks and unequal in salary.
CEO's can fix the salary inequality tomorrow morning by calling in the personnel officer with instructions that women's salaries are adjusted to the level of their male peers forthwith...that would be the successful voluntary approach!
The research, the returns, the efficiency and the justice are clear, also clear is the attitude of business which drags its feet at every step. It is time to make it expensive for companies that don't comply with fines, fines and more fines...what's the bet this approach works quicker than the voluntary approach.
Onésimo Alvarez-Moro
Gender fatigue is the secret lassitude that grips chief executives and directors when asked for the Nth time to discuss targets, quotas, audits and reports aimed at bringing more women into the boardroom.
As this month’s first anniversary of the publication of Lord Davies’s report setting gender targets for UK companies approaches, businesses can expect a new assault.
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