The glass ceiling and women.....it is slowly being lifted

I am a suffragette from way-back-when. I was labelled with this word whilst working in the operating theatre during my nursing training days whilst I voiced my opinion to the ‘then’ surgical registrar whilst I assisted him during a procedure. He then referred to me from that day on as a suffragette, a label I feel proud to hold onto to this day – oh and might I add he dated me for a couple of months after that so he also felt comfortable with my outspoken approach to the powers of being a female.

The day women won the right to vote back in around 1893, was clearly a day when many men or maybe I should say most men swallowed with difficulty. History shows us that women seemed to have been created for the purpose of breeding and then child rearing, cooking, cleaning etc etc. However, thank goodness, gone are those days. Yes clearly we are required for breeding purposes and quite frankly any man who had to endure hours and hours of labour pains let alone birthing, in my and millions of other female’s opinions, would not be a good idea. However I must give credit where credit is due and let’s face it anatomically male musculature clearly allows our men to be physically more apt when it comes to laborious duties involving the expanding and contracting of the old muscles and that is a great thing. Don’t get me wrong, nobody adores men more than I and socially I usually feel more cerebrally stimulated listening to male conversation than those of my  own sex but there is no doubt that women are extremely capable at pulling in the dollars when it comes to employment as men are….just ask Westpac’s CEO Gail Kelly. There are more females than ever entering into the world or law, medicine, IT, engineering etc, and quite frankly I feel the boys feel very threatened by our presence in these male dominated professions.

We are repeatedly hearing the anecdotal comments regarding the corporate world allegedly trying to get rid of the ‘glass ceiling’ when it comes to women in corporate/CEO positions and indeed all top positions including political via the media, it is going to take an army of women to get this going. Mr Rupert Murdoch (born Keith Rupert Murdoch) and his News Ltd empire, clearly has a very strong hold on influencing our political views and controls most of what people read, watch and hear when it comes to Australian politics. Being a capitalist and as Australian political history shows us, capitalists and the Liberal party go hand-in-hand here in Australia, Mr Murdoch has, and this is not just my opinion but those of Australian advertising companies along with truly honest males, Rupert has a clear dislike for Ms Gillard and her Labor Party. We hear EVERY DAY AND I MEAN EVERY DAY currently Julia is clearly being pushed out by Rupert thanks to his media control. Julia cannot walk, talk, blink, breathe, dress, eat or do anything right in ‘his’ (the media’s) view. A recent male advertising guru agreed on national TV that Julia is being given an extraordinarily hard time and he believes it is mainly due to the fact that she is a WOMAN! Yes, admittance by a male.

Here is our first female Prime Minister, a graduate of law who became a partner at 29 at the firm she was employed by….is no mean feat. Clearly a tough and highly intelligent female who has had to contend with a male dominated political party from way back, during her uni student days and so knows that the boys are tough nuts to crack, but oh how she managed to do it at our last federal election.

During a recent TV interview an advertising mogul who admitted to the rough treatment of Julia by ‘the boys’, he was quick to state that he felt Julia was a very strong female and he had the utmost belief in her that she is strong enough for the clear ‘stirring of the pot’ she is currently enduring as a female prime minister and will no doubt have to endure this agitation for some time to come, maybe even forever.

Julia is lacking talent in presentation and marketing. Is Swanny any better at selling? No and this is the problem these two face. You cannot take away from the Howard and Costello or Hawke and Keating advertising campaign that they managed to ‘sell’ their party’s strategies hence their political longevity. Yes, they suffered from verbal diarrhoea and it worked. Yes, Julia needs to scrub up on her salesmanship big time, however, support/teachers for this absent talent come from the back rooms advisors of Labor. They are clearly not stepping up. Why? Because they want her out too maybe?

My thoughts…….hang in there Julia…..you are a forced to be reckoned with…..yes we do live in a world where it is clearly dominated by the attitude of “jobs for the boys” and the lack of CEO female positions talks for itself. Quite frankly whether you were Liberal or Labor, you would be given a damn hard time by many due to you being female. Yes, we have to change things and yes it will be left to the females to do so unfortunately. Are we not capable of managing these top positions? Absolutely not. Do the men feel threatened by females moving up the corporate ladder? Understandably and absolutely yes and that is a pill they are just going to have to learn to swallow. We gals are more than capable of holding these top jobs. Some would say no thank you and that is fine. Many would say yes please and to those ladies I say hold on because your day is fast approaching.