High-flying women: did they jump or were they pushed?

Eerily Mowlam’s case reflects some of the primary barriers to women’s career progression expressed in Opportunity Now’s report:

• Women’s exclusion from informal networks of communication
• Personal style differences
• Lack of awareness of organisational politics

When the whispering campaign against Mowlam was at its height, the allegations coming from Westminster were that she was incompetent, reckless, financially irresponsible and had dangerous ideas about drugs and sexual leniency. The message was that, psychologically at least, Mowlam was just not up to it. It’s hard to imagine that, despite her attempts to put a brave face on it, Mowlam wasn’t deeply disillusioned by the experience.

Down but not out
Isabelle Terrillon and Julie Bower are two other women who have said they started their careers full of ambition and gusto, only to fall victim to disillusionment. The two women recently made headlines after they sued their former City employers for discrimination. Both claimed that they were paid less than equally qualified male colleagues and, among the other instances of overt discrimination, Terrillon claimed that colleagues consistently made comments about her legs and shag-ability. When asked why she had stayed so long, Terrillon answered: ‘You think: is it me? Am I good enough? Then you tough it out. You want to show them you’re good, so you hang in there to try to impress them and change their attitude. And then you don’t know if it will be any better elsewhere. It may be awful where you are, but you think: better the devil I know.’

But women leaving the corporate world don’t seem to be doing too badly. Penny Hughes has now emerged at the helm of a fledgling e-enterprise, Web-angel. It’s a job that she claims has allowed her to establish a work-home balance that makes other men and women ‘green with envy’.

Next page: pastures new