Gender equity … pfff. It’s a jungle out there!

It’s 7am and I’ve been up for an hour. Who am I? I have nowhere to be, nothing particular to do – and it’s a Saturday.

You know, there are two types of people in this world – at least two types of women. There’s the ones who get up at the same time of day, every day, regardless of where they need to, regardless of when they need to be anywhere. And there’s those like me. Every night, when they’re finished scrolling, they open the Alarm app and think about tomorrow’s schedule.

OK, so I have to be at the office no later than 9am which means I need to leave home at 8.30am. I need to wash my hair so I need an hour of ‘getting ready time’ so that’s 7.30am. I really want to eat breakfast before I leave so let’s allow 15 minutes for that. Yep, goodo, alarm set for 7.15am. Off to sleep.

I’m sure some of my psychologist friends – actually I don’t have any friends who are psychologists – but if I did, I’m sure they’d tell me that there’s a bunch of profiling logic that relates to my two types of people.

I am a 47-year old woman. I am an over-thinker. I am definitely on the spectrum. I’m 100% certain I would have ADHD, if I bothered to do the tests – I’m sure a social media quiz would be sufficient for diagnosis but best to keep my head firmly buried in the sand. I am an extroverted introvert – or an introverted extrovert – or whatever combination means that I am capable of socialising and being the life of the party, but I actually far prefer being at home on the couch with a good book or a new (or old) Netflix series.

I am a pleaser, a fixer, a control-freak, a perfectionist, a procrastinator. I am a high functioning, highly anxious, high achiever with imposter syndrome. I appear to be highly confident, arrogant to some, but the truth is, never in my life have I felt more self doubt.

There’s so much going on, yet I have more time than I’ve had in nearly 20 years. My eldest daughter turns 20 next month. My youngest is 18 and a half. They are incredibly independent, low-maintenance and carving out their own paths. I’m super proud of them, and am allowing myself a little bit of self-praise too – they will both be at university next year, we’ve had no pregnancy scares and only one of them has face piercings. Well done me!!!

But herein lies one of my current issues. For the past 20 years, every life and (important in the context of this discussion) career decision has been made my daughter’s best interests as a priority. Will I be able to do one, or preferably both, of the daily school runs? Will I be able to attend the school assembly when one of them is receiving an award? (Not the ‘Good Citizen of the Week’ award though – what is that??) Will I be able to make the pre-5pm weekly training session? Prepare dinner, bath them and have them in bed by 7.30pm? Help them with their homework every night? Listen to their piano practice? Be present when they’re telling me the world’s most boring story? Be home, sitting on the couch, ready to pay attention when they decide, for the first time all week, to come out of their room and tell me about the latest teenage drama at high school?

And, of course, as per the warnings – children have lots of little, generally insignificant, problems when they’re young; and much fewer, but often larger, issues as they grow older. As a mother, you’re always ‘on’, waiting to address the next issue, solve the next problem, wipe away the next tear.

And then, they’re grown! They still need you but nowhere as much. They have their drivers license and now you don’t get the quick chat in the car before you drop them at their friend’s place. So you’re kind of in the dark on most things. And then you find yourself, on the couch, twiddling your thumbs, feeling this strange but vaguely familiar feeling – BOREDOM! Never in 20 years have I felt this! But now, it’s here! And it’s unnerving! What to do? What is my purpose now?

OK, let’s be clear – I’ve always had a career. And a good one. I’ve earned good money – both working for myself for others. I have carved out a reputation for being smart, savvy, commercially astute, productive and outcome-focused. I’ve held senior roles and earned the respect of colleagues, peers and industry leaders. And, despite working for a large chunk of my career and a male-dominated industry, I’ve never really felt the gender divide – up until recently.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I’ve noticed the divide at a time when I have been intentional in my endeavours to progress my career. I want a CEO and/or executive leadership role, preferably in my hometown – a large regional centre. It’s time to step-up and apply my knowledge, experience and skills to a role where I feel challenged and can achieve real results. I’m ready and I’m more than capable. I’ve held some General Manager roles and an Acting CEO role, but I’m looking for permanency and the opportunity to immerse myself in something.

But guess who I’m competing with? Men. Lots of men. A few other women but mainly men, who have been in ‘established’ CEO and leadership roles for some time. I have applied for two CEO roles, in my specialist industry, over the past two years. In both instances I was one of the recruiters preferred candidates but, in both cases, the employer panel did not include me in the final four candidates. And in both, the final four candidates were male.

WTAF? In the more recent example, the employer panel cited the other candidates having been in ‘established’ CEO roles. NB. This was not a prerequisite for the role, otherwise I wouldn’t have applied for it. And herein lies the challenge.

My career was stalled for at least 10-15 years. I was on a trajectory for leadership roles when I started out, all those years ago, but how do you have children and be a good mum, whilst: travelling every other week; staying in the office til 7pm to get the extra stuff done; working on weekends to finish the pitch for next week; going out for networking drinks with industry colleagues on a week night; completing an MBA and your AICD accreditation; playing golf on the weekend with the Chairman of the Board???

Is this ‘woe is me’? Maybe! Am I bitter and twisted? Probably a bit. Do I regret having children and being a mum? Not for one second. Not for one millisecond. But is this fair or is this something that women just need to cop on the chin and push through? Will I eventually get my CEO role? Do I just need to be patient and, in the meantime, work harder?

Nope, you know what, this doesn’t sit right with me. I want more. For me, and for my daughters. I could go on about how the world needs to be populated and until men can carry babies … blah blah blah. But the truth is, I’m a mum and I want to be at home with my children on a weeknight to feed them and bath them and read them a bedtime story. I want to be able to switch off from work at a reasonable time and not feel pressure to go out of my way to endear myself to a superior for the sole purpose of self-promotion.

So, we women want equity, not equality. Such similar words but critically important different meanings. We need equity to achieve equality.

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognises that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

In the context of gender:

‘Gender equality’ means equal outcomes for women, men and gender-diverse people. ‘Gender equity’ is the process to achieve gender equality. Gender equity recognises that women and gender-diverse people are not in the same ‘starting position’ as men. This is because of historical and social disadvantages.

There aren’t too many of us that don’t know this, or that don’t understand it once it’s laid out in front of us. I’m certain it isn’t lost on most men either! We are hearing lots about it – we are seeing gender quotas, policies and other commitments by governments and employers. But how is it playing out in reality? How are the playing fields actually being levelled?

One of the roles I recently applied for has a ‘Gender Equity Workforce Plan’ – not an equality plan, an equity plan. Part of the plan refers to recruitment processes. Yet, the employer recruitment panel did not adhere to the process. So … ???

So yes, it’s a jungle out there. But here’s what I know at 47 that I didn’t know at 27: The most dangerous thing in any jungle isn’t the competition – it’s convincing yourself you don’t belong there. I belong here. We belong here. And it’s about time the jungle adapted to us