Sexism starts at the top
IN 2016, former Cell C Chief Executive Jose Dos Santos made his (in)famous remarks in an internet radio interview that “women do have a bitch-switch”, and this triggers fights among women far worse than the arguments men get involved in. The statement drew condemnation from only a few people, while women executives at Cell C came out in Dos Santos’ support.
Last year, former Imperial Group Chief Executive Mark Lamberti referred to chartered accountant, Adila Chowan, as a “female employment-equity” appointment. He said this in front of fellow managers - it was a joke among men.
Months later, SA Institution of Civil Engineering Chief Executive Manglin Pillay told the world that women do not belong to the engineering profession.
Although Lamberti subsequently resigned, and Pillay apologised for the comments, it was the deafening silence from corporate South Africa that shook the world. The silence cast a long shadow on the extent to which the C-suite has become complicit in the discrimination that women face daily in corportate SA.
In many instances of sexual harassment, it is the women who get the blamed. Remarks such as, “aren’t you flattered by such attention” or “don’t you think you may have invited it” become the baton with which complaints are bashed.
Just last year, a study by research firm Jack Hammer found that the representation of women in the Top 40 listed companies on the JSE is dismal. The study said at the time that only former Absa chief executive, Maria Ramos, stood out as the proverbial sore thumb among the country’s top companies.
Jack Hammer said the number of women leaders in South Africa’s largest companies had fallen to the same levels as in 2015. And while there had been some improvement in transforming the C-suites, female representation at board level had in fact declined from 21% in 2015 to 19% in 2017.
Another study by Columinate said that 30% of women out of a 1 000 research pool, had at some point reported unwanted sexual advances in their workplaces, which they said came in many forms – 15% percent of the advances were verbal while 38% turned physical with unwanted touching.
An REMchannel report by PwC released earlier this year also found that female representation at senior management and executive levels in South Africa is on average only 20%, with 61% of the women remunerated below the median of the sample, compared to just 39% of men. By contrast, 63% of men are remunerated above the median, compared to just 37% of the women in the sample.
The survey looked at remuneration data for more than 550 participating organisations and just over 4 000 senior managers and executives.
Such figures should be alarming to every levelheaded South African. They should be a clarion call that discrimination against women and sexual harrasment in the workplace is rife. Legislation alone cannot turn the tide against this scourge. Corporate South Africa needs to be part of the solution instead of being a key component of it.
Women should not have to protect themselves from men. They should feel safe and secure with us as men. President Cyril Ramaphosa
Someone asked me in an interview a few days ago if I thought we had a successful Women’s Month this year. And I thought to myself, how? When we’re dying for being women. As far as I’m concerned, women in my country are an endangered species. Stop killing us! Miss SA Zozibini Tunzi
If you are not there as a father or as a mother in your child’s life, somebody is going to take that place, and you are not going to like the results of that. Tusani Kunene AHF National HIV Prevention Manager