SINGAPORE (TVBS News) – The global labor force participation rate for women is 30% to 40% lower than men. Studies show that women are also less likely to work in formal employment and have fewer opportunities for business expansion or career progression.
With this observation in mind, the Milken Institute invited the former prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, to share her take on women in leadership on the last day of the Asia Summit.
The 27th prime minister, who is currently the chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, explained on Friday (Sept. 30) how leaders need to re-align values with strategies in these changing times.
“We’re having the right conversation,” Gillard said. “I’m a big believer that you can’t fix things unless you name them, see them, analyze them, categorize them, and then ultimately developing evidence based strategies that will change.”
The problem with issues about gender equality, however, is that everybody thinks they know, pointed the former Australian official.
“In gender equality, I’ve seen a lot of people of goodwill that thought that they knew, but they created a lot of programs that are about for women, about changing women, rather than doing the deep work to say, what our strategies in our business that are holding women back,” she continued.
According to a U.S. survey, 70% of the time a woman’s personality trait is referenced in a performance review, it is referenced in a negative way.
“It’s frustrating that the World Economic Forum tells us that at current rates of changes we’ll be around 130 years before we get gender equality globally,” she said.
“In this world where consumers are facing businesses,” she added. “Consumers are much more looking through to see whether corporations actually live their values or just kept them.”
Gillard predicted that there “there will be more of these emojis for businesses that just pay lip service to equity.”
“Sexism has global manifestations, but the starting point is different in various countries,” she went on.
“In many parts of the world, we’re still fighting and struggling as to should girls be able to go to school, or at least should they be able to go to secondary school or should they be forced to drop out or go into world in marriage which they hit adolescence.”
To the former Australian official, we need to move beyond the pretty faces with better government regulations that improve women’s participation in labor so that men and women can enjoy a fair start from the beginning.
