Gina Rinehart and how self-styled “progressives” are keeping the boardroom male

Cross-posted from Major Karnage.

IN MY line of work, I get to spend quite a lot of time in high-level boardroom meetings with people who all sit on corporate boards. I also have a few relatives who have sat on various boards in their time and my extended networks include quite a number of others. This means that while am not on any corporate boards, I am not a stranger to them either.

I still remember the first time I was at one of said meetings and a female colleague muttered to me, “do you notice anything particularly… male about the room?” The truth was that I hadn’t. While I had definitely noticed that I was the youngest person in the room by at least a decade (two if you didn’t count her). Until she pointed it out to me, it did not occur to me that she was the only woman there.

That incident jolted me into awareness. Since then, I have been paying attention to the gender balance when I am in corporate settings and a lot of observations have struck me that anecdotally support the mountains of research showing that the boardroom is simply not a place for girls. Not once in the last couple of years have I ever seen anything that even comes close to gender balance. Several times, there have actually been no women present. I also find that the “higher-level” the meeting, the less women tend to be invited.

That said, there are other observations that I can make about people in boardrooms than merely their gender. They are generally very sure of themselves – often manifesting as arrogance, but always including a calm and confident demeanour. They are hard-working, ambitious and persistent to the point of obsession, they know what they want and they make it happen. They are uncompromising – they expect the best and will not accept anything less. They are often very blunt and straight-talking. They can be friendly and charming when they want to, but they can be aggressive and intimidating when they have to.

I note these things not as a criticism of the corporate world and certainly not as an affront to the people that I am writing about. I have a tremendous amount of respect for most of them, they work harder than anyone else I know and they do amazing and under-appreciated (if not under-paid) work, without which our society could not function.

I MENTIONED those character traits is because of a common thread running through them: they are generally “alpha male” traits, they are not things that women are “supposed” to be. Women are loving, conciliatory, family-oriented and selfless. Women are neurotic and emotional, they doubt themselves, they shut-down and cry when bad things happen and they panic when they are stressed. They are not confident, ambitious, persistent and aggressive. When shit hits the fan, they are the ones panicking and screaming, not the ones who take-charge – at least in most sitcoms.

Again, I am not trying to say that it is a bad thing for someone to put others first, display their emotion and focus more on relationships than outcomes. I am trying to say that doing this is unlikely to get you ahead in the corporate world (or in other areas of public life). If you doubt yourself, the person who believes in themself will get the pay-rise or the promotion. If you shut-down and cry or panic, someone else will take charge. If you compromise, someone else won’t and they will have the better result in the end. Potential alone can only get you so far, there is not a lot of room at the top and to get there requires hard work, sacrifices and, above all, wanting to be there more than everyone else.

The public image of most successful women in Australia does not fit the stereotype of a high-powered Director. I say “public image” because, from my experience, the women who get to these positions do have most of these traits in private, but are able to create a persona that comes across as more “feminine” when they want to.

I refuse to believe that the corporate exec described above is actually gender-related. I know plenty of men who do not act like that. That character is simply how a person needs to act in order to reach the top of the corporate ladder – possibly the most competitive position anyone can aspire to reach (except maybe professional athlete). Other high-profile positions (rockstar, politician etc) require a huge amount of luck as well as hard work, becoming a CEO or company chair is about nothing except ability, attitude and work ethic.

THERE IS one very notable exception: Gina Rinehart. Here is a woman who is overweight and unattractive, but clearly not too concerned about her appearance and uninterested in the world of glamour and fashion. She is abrasive, intimidating and even a bully. She is willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants, without regard to the way it makes her look or the people she is offending. She is ambitious, single-minded and dedicated to the point where she supposedly goes without any of the frills that other billionaires afford themselves so that she can re-invest all her money into her company.

She is also not a “loving mother” figure by any stretch of the imagination. She isreportedly quiet and reserved in person and she keeps her personal affairs completely private. What did leak last year was that, having judged her children as inept for running her company, she offered them each $300mln a year in return for signing-away their shares. When they refused, she fought them all the way to the High Court – becoming estranged in the process.

Meanwhile, her achievements are incredible. She inherited a floundering, debt-ridden mining company that was making its money from a lucky break and transformed it into a hugely profitable, gigantic operation – becoming the world’s wealthiest woman in the process. She is now in the process of planning the biggest Australian-owned mining development in history and is funding it entirely on her own.  Yes, she was born into some wealth due to a lucky find by her father, but many people born into wealth spend their lives turning a large fortune into a small one. She turned a small fortune into a gargantuan one.

And yet she is being punished for this – not by the Andrew Bolts and Alan Jones’ of this world, but by the very people that would generally be the first to jump to her defence if she hadn’t made the unfortunate mistake of being a Conservative and one of the mining magnates vilified by Wayne Swan. Oh, as well as committing the awful sin of giving jobs to people who weren’t lucky enough to be born in Australia.

The best (but not the only) example was the abuse she received from David Marr and Miriam Margolyes on Q and A last month:

Note: I did not criticise the others as Barry Humphries was playing a character, Tony Jones was trying to defend her while still maintaining his “distance” as chair, Jacki Weaver seemed a little stunned and John Hewson later said he regretted not arguing but felt overwhelmed. Also, Marr and Margolyes were the two noted “feminists” on the panel.

THAT INCIDENT did receive fairly wide coverage – in News Ltd papers. It was all but ignored in the ABC, Fairfax (well, aside from the SMH’s balance columnist),New Matilda etc. Some good responses were written that I could find in more minor leftist publications, however it was generally her political allies that were jumping to her defence. More anecdotally, the people on my social networks who would normally be concerned about this kind of thing have been completely silent.

Why is this such a problem? Because it shows that this kind of abuse is acceptable for women that the left don’t like. It sends the message that the only reason anyone complains about comments aimed at Julia Gillard or Christine Milne is that they are on the left and not because this kind of discourse should be unacceptable. It reaffirms the idea that women shouldn’t act like CEOs, which discourages women from acting like CEOs, which in turn means women won’t become CEOs.

To some degree I think that it may be that people who hold corporate leaders in contempt yet think they want to see more women being corporate leaders were somehow expecting female corporate leaders to be more like “women” and less like “businessmen”. The issues inherent in that assumption should speak for themselves.

It’s all well and good to conduct research and then complain about the lack of women at the top, but unless there are a lot of ambitious and competitive young women willing to fight to get there, nothing will ever change.

Major Karnage is a Sydney-based blogger and can be followed on Twitter or Facebook. This article was originally posted on majorkarnage.net

Comments

[Trillian]

1.

Have you seen psychopathy in the boardroom MK ?

[ben]

2.

I admire Gina as a female as much as the IMF Christine Le Garne

I dont admire abusive dickheads and wankers

Sadly Australians are known for this nasty trait

The dumb boys club is dead!

Or not?

[jan]

3.

http://mobile.news.com.au/money/banking/name-and-shame-instead-of-quotas-gail-kelly/story-e6frfmcr-1226135102578

Gail Kelly on quotas on boards

Grant Hackets supporters in the corporate world are criminals who support abusive jerk behaviour

Its sick

[Major Karnage]

4.

Uh, no. Should I?

[Trillian]

5.

There is the line that some psychopaths make good CEOs.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/

[bluebell]

6.

Gina will shut the lot of them up after she accrues 51% of Fairfax...:-) Her first point of call should be to sack that puffed up, opinionated pompous ass-hole David Marr, who has an ego the size of the Hindenburg!

[pk]

7.

Gina will shut the lot of them up after she accrues 51% of Fairfax...:-)

She sure will, and then readership will drop even lower, she won't be able to compete with Murdoch and it will fold. She'll then have to put all her energies into starting a mining gazette on her own instead of taking over an ailing one, if she still thinks people will pay for her narrow opinions.

[Anton]

8.

Not sure she would follow your advice, as you are, at best, the second wealthiest woman in the world.

[Anton]

9.

If Gina took over Fairfax, do you think stories like this would strat being published:

Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time - and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/antarctic_ice_not_melting/

According to a statement from the American Geophysical Union, announcing the new research

[kraka]

10.

here is an exchange on radio between Greg Hywood and Neil Mitchell that perfectly illustrates why Gina should get more than 3 seats on the board and why she should sack the entire editorial staff of this leftwing toilet paper

Neil Mitchell: The circulation of your papers has dropped dramatically. How much does the content of your papers have to do with that drop?

Greg Hywood, Fairfax CEO: Absolutely nothing!

you cannot cure stupid-none are as blind as those who cannot see-pick your cliche.

[Anton]

11.

Unbelievable isn't it.

I wonder if he knows that directors have a moral, and even legal responsibility to maximise shareholder wealth (risk adjusted).

AbbottAbbottAbbott's fault

[kraka]

12.

wanna bet PK-once gina forces the fairfax stalinists to cover both sides of the story the readership will double. your narrow opinion is what is wrong with fairfax, not gina's wealth and business acumen.

[budgie smuggler]

13.

Hey kraka, what do you think about Gina taking a newspaper to court to get a reporter to reveal his sources ?
If the reporter was Bolt, there'd be outrage on this site. Consistency ?

[kraka]

14.

wrong again budgie (as usual). I think all journalists who base a story on unnamed sources that carry anything outside the truth should be made to name their source. Whats more if it turns out to be a straight out knowing lie they should be charged with perjury where that story has caused harm or damage to someone. Now I am sure-as our resident fact scarce troll-you will try and dig up some conservative case to see if i agree or not however before doing so i will not get into a tit for tat case by case scenario-you would lose. Its like complaining about conservative journalists when they are outnumbered 100 to 1 by left wing idiots such as laura Tingle and Peter van Oscillator. You want to play that game you name a conservative journallist,Ill name a left wing nut job and we will see who runs out of names 1st. Its the same offer ive made to all you trolls and you refuse to play because no-one likes playing a game they know they cant win.

[Graham]

15.

"becoming a CEO or company chair is about nothing except ability, attitude and work ethic"

hahaha what??! what a silly thing to say.

there are all sorts of ways that luck factors into everything. the most basic is the way a great many of the capacities and traits a 'skilled' individual is born with, and the environment they're born into, are completely beyond the control and 'choices' of the individual. they're due to chance.

that's pretty much the definition of luck!

[John Mc]

16.

That's a load of crap. You can have all the luck in the world but if you don't have good values, or don't back them up with hard work and persistence, you'll still fail in life. There's plenty of people born into privileged lives who go on to be failures.

[kraka]

17.

We work for an international company owned by one man. His success story is the same as many success stories made possible by capitalism. Borrows his dads truck with $100 to his name, builds, scrapes and works and is now worth $200M dollars. He has a favourite saying that obviously Graham ouldn't know anything about. "there is no subtistute for hard work". Luck is something that is only any good if taken advntge of by hard work and is something that is usully generated by hard work.

[kraka]

18.

We work for an international company owned by one man. His success story is the same as many success stories made possible by capitalism. Borrows his dads truck with $100 to his name, builds, scrapes and works and is now worth $200M dollars. He has a favourite saying that obviously Graham ouldn't know anything about. "there is no subtistute for hard work". Luck is something that is only any good if taken advntge of by hard work and is something that is usully generated by hard work.

[bluebell]

19.

Fairfax and the ABC are socialist infested propaganda domains. I can't wait when Gina inches forward to 51% and flings open those oak lined doors and thumps the $60,000 boardroom table with her chubby little fists. Oh the humanity of it all, poor little David Marr (pompous little arsehole that he is) will shake with indignant rage, hyperventilating til he pops. Run David Run.....Gina is a comin`!!