Women‘s rights and the economic need for change

The year my mother married my father, 1970, was the year of the Equal Pay Act in the UK – an effort by second wave feminists to get the welly of Parliament behind the initiation of change and protection of the economic rights of women more demonstrably.

Asking Google about the state of the gender pay gap today, it spat out that while the gap is closing (median disparity being 6.9%, down from 7.1% in 2024), estimations suggest it will take another 40 years to fully eliminate the disparity.

Really?

So, it has taken nearly 60 years of repeatedly exposing the entrenched nature of such a pernicious and evidently sexist financial system, in a world now that definitely requires women to be bringing home the bacon, just as much as their male counterparts. And yet the well-articulated problem still requires another 40 years (a whole generation or two into the workplace) to fix? 

Again: really?

Google also shared with me that the gap is driven by factors such as occupational segregation (women in lower paid roles), the 'motherhood penalty' (more on that in a mo) and vertical segregation (fewer women in senior roles – no surprise there if the first two points are true).  And unsurprisingly, while the gap remains small for employees in their 20s and 30s (at least there's progress there), the gap widens significantly for women in their 40s. (No shit, Sherlock.)

Why do women keep having to put their hands up and make it clear to the (usually) men in power that this is not only deeply unfair, and sits alongside and within the wide range of abuses towards women and girls worldwide – but economically insane? 

Not only does the economy need all hands on deck, it remains vulnerable while it remains this sexist. We need a new system – one that is not predicated on an outdated version of patriarchal professional or financial success but allows for different kinds of success. 

We need to shift the dial, so that women (repeatedly blocked from living a life that works for them) can design the right mixture of work and parenthood to feel success both at home and at work – alongside partners that are also making adjustments to the expected norm to both parent more (it's their child too) and enable the women in their lives to succeed. 

I agree, we can't ‘have it all’ – but that is only if we use the existing metrics of success to decide what ‘having it all’ actually means. When my mother married my father in 1970, it was still the cultural prevailing wind for women to give up any thought of a career in order to raise a family. I care about this motherhood penalty.

I care that she was frustrated by motherhood and lacking the opportunity to succeed professionally. She had to choose, whereas my father never did. I care deeply that women are still expected to do the same and suffer (economically, physically, emotionally, professionally… I could go on) when the systems do not budge to make way for new versions of success. 

I care that while there are more men who would like to see a more even playing field (in and out of work) the system makes it virtually impossible to implement that version of what success might look like for them. Only 1% of mothers and 5% of fathers have taken up the shared parental leave option since it was introduced in 2015. I am certain that more than 1% or mothers and 5% of fathers would like that option – so what is in our way?

When women become mothers, and I have seen hundreds explore this dilemma, they don't want to give up work, but they do want to be able to parent their children (I know that increasing numbers of fathers feel the same.) 

However, the working culture and expectations of our employers can be unforgiving (the 'financial bottom line' being the line most to blame here) and do not entertain the possibility of new ways of measuring success at work – they just expect you to fit right back into a system that has – for EVER! – treated women as lesser and less valuable. 

I ask women “what would you like your return to be like?” Invariably, women returning after maternity leave need time to adjust. They need patience and trust from their employers to assess and recalibrate. They need stability and predictability from their careers – and most of all, they want their work to have greater meaning and purpose. They return as people who have created life! 

These are your most valuable and potent employees – and yet it is they who suffer.

It is a system that needs redesigning – and that is why I care about Return-to-Work interventions. This is not about ‘supporting’ a mother (how patronising) but creating the right conditions for them to thrive in an environment that is not designed for them to succeed. They deserve better. We all deserve better. And mothers, in my humble opinion, are forces to be reckoned with that companies are ignoring at their peril.

My work over the last 10 years – coaching mothers returning to work – is the piece that gives me most impetus and desire to make an impact. I too found my purpose when I had children and wanted my contribution to be felt more widely than the people I directly coach. This is one of the levers or organisational and cultural change that I can actually do something about.

I do not want my own daughters to feel less valued, less valuable and less important than the boys – especially if they choose to be mothers. Importantly, even if they don't have children – I want them to understand how the system so repeatedly, obsessively, works against women. Those boys sure are finding it hard to share.

I would shout ‘viva la revolution!’, but our collective voices have got hoarse from the 56 years+ of shouting. By talking to women through coaching, we can quietly start to design and act on organisational change that will have lasting and positive impacts in our working and personal lives. Maybe, just maybe, I can help shift that (very sticky) dial.