By Siri Lindstad
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| Illustration: Trude Tjensvold |
It is actually those who recruit people to various positions, within both business and politics, who have the power. This
is claimed by Drude Dahlerup, Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University.
“Therefore pressure needs to be applied on the recruiters, if we are to achieve a better gender balance within business. Women
are better represented in positions filled by public elections than in those filled by appointment. In recent decades, there
has been a focus on female representation in public life, and the parties have been pressured to nominate women.”
“Many believe that it is the voters who decide who will be elected to the political assemblies, but in reality it is actually
the parties who decide. They are the ‘gatekeepers’ and have as such been under pressure over the last few decades.”
The Norwegian electoral system also promotes a more equal gender distribution in politics, according to sociologist Mari Teigen
at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo.
“Many countries have a selection process in politics which is similar to recruitment processes within the business sector,
where single electoral candidates are used. In those cases only one person is nominated by the party in each electoral area,
and when only one person can win, there has been a tendency to let a man top the list. In the Nordic countries, however, contrary
to countries such as the USA, Great Britain and France, we have another kind of selection process in politics, with several
candidates for each electorate. This promotes a better gender balance,” says Mari Teigen.
An increasingly obvious paradox
Within the world of business there has also been a long tradition of filling top positions with persons who have a different
kind of professional and experiential background than one typical for many women. Primarily, these have been economists, lawyers,
engineers and corresponding professionals.
“But then the proportion of women in fields of education where industry recruits started to increase strongly, without there
being any corresponding growth in the proportion of women in top positions. On the contrary, everything has developed much
more slowly than one would have expected. This is a paradox which has become very clear to many during the last few years,
not least to politicians, but also to the NHO – Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises and other actors in the public sphere
of economic politics,” says Mari Teigen.
“Partly, this is explained by the gender segregated labour market in the Nordic countries, with a large public sector offering
more female dominated work places,” Teigen thinks.
“Another question is to what extent companies have been trying to recruit women, and whether there have been barriers for
women who have looked for employment within the business sector. This is the sector characterised as having done least of
all in order to attract women.
At the same time, large parts of the industrial sector offer a kind of working hours culture which, at least seemingly, requires
a total involvement in one’s work, as a kind of continuous activity,” Mari Teigen points out.
“This certainly functions as a kind of exclusive mechanism, which is not as effective within other sectors.”
We think we are on the right track
But why does this situation not correct itself as more and more women get a higher education and management experience, for
example, within politics?
In their book Menn imellom. Mannsdominans og likestillingspolitikk (Between men: Male dominance and gender equality politics),
Mari Teigen and political scientist Hege Skjeie use the so called travel, or on-our-way metaphor. It refers to a notion that
we are on our way towards complete gender equality. There might be a few obstacles on the way, points which compel gender
equality as a principle to be abandoned, but despite this we do not lose our belief in being ‘on the right track’.
“It’s a kind of childish faith that we have, believing that generally things concerning gender equality are steadily improving.
This includes a perception that since things move within politics, they will more or less automatically do so in the business
sector, too,” Drude Dahlerup notes.
We in the Nordic countries have also for a long time been able to boast of our good reputation in the rest of the world, as
nations with a good level of female representation within politics.
“These two notions are deeply rooted in the Nordic way of thinking. But both have actually been shaken during the last couple
of years. Firstly, there are other countries, on the south side of the globe, that challenge us when it comes to the percentage
of women in the national assembly. Rwanda and South Africa are two examples of this. Secondly, there is actually no automatic
progress, as is evidenced by the situation in Denmark,” Drude Dahlerup points out.
Denmark has not moved an inch in the last four elections, with a female proportion of 38 per cent in the parliament and of
27–28 per cent in local elections. The number of female mayors has decreased.
“And to that everybody says ‘What? Things were on their way to getting better!’ In other words, there is a need for a new
perspective in the Nordic countries, for a realisation that things don’t just happen automatically.”
Three theories on stagnation
So why have things not happened automatically, after we had made such a good start? Drude Dahlerup sketches three theories
that in different ways explain the developments within female representation:
“First of all there is the perspective of gendered power. This is the perspective which speaks of a glass ceiling in business
or politics and of how patriarchy reproduces itself,” Drude Dahlerup explains.
Pessimistic advocators of this perspective suggest that power exits the places women enter. Or possibly that women enter only
when power has already exited.
“The problem this claim entails is that there are areas where there has been a relatively positive development. For example,
Norway has previously had, and Iceland now does have, a strong female prime minister. The influence of the national assembly
does not depend on the proportion of women, but on a number of other factors, such as whether there is a minority or a majority
government.”
The second theory Dahlerup calls the theory of ‘lagging’. It is a reaction to the pessimistic perspective on gendered power.
“This approach includes those who think that our continued gender imbalance is due to a natural lag, and that before women
can reach the top they must enter and make an impact at lower levels. The problem with this approach is that women in the
Nordic countries have reached the middle level on the labour market and have as extensive an education as men, without reaching
the top positions. No, everything does not develop over time. We can see stagnation on several fronts.”
The third theory is a hypothesis presented by the Danish researcher Ulrik Kjær, called the theory of satisfaction. It claims
that the increase in the number of women in leading positions stagnates before we have achieved a proper gender balance, since
it is felt that we have gained enough with, for example, a female representation of 30 per cent. We sit back and are satisfied
with that result and feel that there has been enough talk of gender equality.
Sweden and Norway still hungry
“This notion could explain why Denmark has stagnated; but why do we then not see the same stagnation in Sweden and Norway, where there is, after all, a higher degree of female representation? Why is Denmark satisfied with 30 per cent, while Sweden and Norway are still hungry?”
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| Drude Dahlerup. Photo: Marie Swartz |
A fourth view, which is also the one that Dahlerup herself holds, concerns the significance of the debate on gender equality
and the pressure from the women’s movement. According to Drude Dahlerup, the pressure for a more gender balanced political
representation has primarily emerged from the women’s movement both within and outside of the political parties. She thinks
that similar pressure is now needed if changes are also to be realised within the business world.
But where should the measures be channelled? One measure that the politicians in Norway have chosen to implement, is the law
on gender representation on the boards of public joint stock companies. The previous leader of the Christian Democratic Party,
Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, was one the first advocates for introducing the law. In an interview for NIKK magasin 1/08, she
said that she hoped that the quota law would pave the way for alternative ways of thinking within the corporate world – also
among those who are not actually covered by the law.
“We must give women the self-confidence to dare take on both commissions of trust and top jobs. These things do not happen
overnight,” Svarstad Haugland said.
Politicians should keep away
The Swedish economist Anita Lignell Du Rietz thinks, however, that another kind of thinking is needed. She would like to see
the politicians keep out of the issue completely.
“I think that the extent to which we are ruled by the politicians is absolutely terrible as it is. We women think that we
are weak and not competent enough, having let men take the power and money from us. But this is because we haven’t had a chance,”
says Anita Lignell Du Rietz.
She is researcher at the Centre for Business History in Stockholm, and earlier this year she published the book Svenskornas
företagsamma historia (The enterprising history of Swedish women). There she describes the entrepreneurship of women, particularly
over the last hundred years, and shows both what battles they have fought and what victories they have won, despite strong
opposition from powerful institutions – such as the state and the trade unions.
“Men’s enterprises have been given priority in the economic politics, that is, the large companies producing goods for export,
such as Volvo and Saab. These companies are no longer able to compete on the global market. Nevertheless, we carry on the
same institutions and rules which do not fit small enterprises.”
Du Rietz points to the fact that when these large corporations were being built, with state support, women did not have the
opportunity to partake in this growth.
“But now we have all the opportunities at hand. Therefore the tax pressure must be lifted, so that women can have the chance
to build their own enterprises. Instead of getting a place on the board of Volvo or Saab, women should be able expand their
own companies, create a new H&M, a new Ikea and so on. These are areas where women have proved that they can run a business,
but they must begin at a small scale, as the men once did,” Du Rietz emphasizes.
What is it, actually, that bestows power in the world of business? Ownership or management? Anita Lignell Du Rietz has no
doubts:
“We have, to a large extent, built the economy in our democracy on people being wage earners. The capabilities of women are
not, however, being developed as employees, but as company owners. The power gained by serving on corporate boards is also
not the kind of power that gives money and freedom. Besides, the total number women who are on these boards is small. What
about the other women? And when the women’s own enterprises have grown big enough, they will hardly want men to enter their
boards over their heads on the basis of quotas,” says Du Rietz, who opposes laws that require a certain gender representation
on corporate boards.
Varied financial landscapes
The Swedish business sector differs from the Nordic neighbouring countries exactly by having, for a long time, been characterised
by a few dominant large companies that have grown in close cooperation with public clients. This is documented by Tomas Nilson,
researcher at the University of Gothenburg, in his study Kön och makt i svenskt näringsliv (Gender and power in Swedish industrial
life). According to Nilson, Sweden therefore lacks the large middle class found in, for example, Norway and Denmark.
Among the Norwegian middle class it is obvious that men own much more than women do, Mari Teigen confirms. But she also notes
that when it comes to the large Norwegian corporations, the pattern of ownership displays a different structure, since purely
private ownership is relatively marginal.
“The large capital is owned by the state, by foreign investors and other forms of institutional funds, as for example the
Government Pension Fund Folketrygdfondet, which, quite simply, is all of us. I would therefore say that the image created
of private ownership in Norway as consisting primarily of individuals, has been a bit of a bluff.”
Blurred boundaries
Mari Teigen also thinks that the line between the fields of politics and the fields of finance has become more blurred during
the last 10–15 years.
“This might be a kind of response to the New Public Management thinking, which has become dominant. The market is given the
opportunity to have more of a say within public enterprises but also in the political field, and thus some of the power there
is renounced. And then finances are correspondingly politicized to a certain extent, for example, by introducing a law on
gender quotas for corporate boards.”
“But I wish to emphasize that this only has a very limited effect, and that it’s only a few women in top positions who thus
gain more power and more opportunities within the financial field. However, I still believe that these kinds of measures can
have an affect both at a symbolic level and as a role model,” Mari Teigen concludes.
Siri Lindstad is a free lance journalist specilising in gender and gender policies.
The article was first published in NIKK magasin 3.2009 © NIKK
