5.2 Gender Equity in South African Business The Employment Equity (EE) report of 2012 claims that:
Transformation will not advance enough to benefit the majority of the populace adequately, unless individuals from the designated groups are largely employed in positions with authority and with real decision-making powers. Whites and males will continue to dominate in the middle-to-upper levels for the next 127 years as long as employers are caught up with the vicious cycle of continuing to employ people with mainly the same race and gender profile that just exited their organisations” (Nkeli, 2012: iv).
Despite fifteen years of equity legislation aimed at eradicating gender discrimination and advancing women in the workplace, women remain under-represented at leadership levels and the control of business institutions remain predominantly in the hands of white males. The current leadership status of women in business in South Africa is discussed below.
5.2.1 Equity Legislation
Achieving equity in the workplace in a post-apartheid South Africa was intended through the implementation of affirmative action policies and strategies to ensure compliance with the government’s introduction of the Employment Equity Act (EEA) (RSA 1998). This Act aimed at eradicating unfair discrimination in the workplace and creating opportunities for previously disadvantaged groups (Vermeulen & Coetzee 2006). Affirmative action was outlined as a policy which required a proactive set of measures designed to counteract unfair discrimination in the workplace. Implicit in the
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policy are numeric goals which serve to stimulate the inclusion of people from different backgrounds into the workplace to make it representative of the demographics of the qualified workforce (Thomas & Ely 1996). In terms of the EEA legislation the broad category of ‘women’ is recognised as a ‘designated group’, together with categories of
‘blacks’ (including African, Coloured and Indians) and people with disabilities (RSA 1998). These ‘designated groups’ are deemed to have been previously disadvantaged prior to the 1994 democratic elections in South Africa and are therefore targeted as beneficiaries of affirmative action. The EEA sets out the purpose of the Act to achieve equity in the workplace by promoting equal opportunity and fair treatment by
eliminating unfair discrimination. Unfair discrimination is defined by the Labour Relations Act (RSA 1995) as either direct or indirect and pertains to categories of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability, conscience, belief, language and culture. Direct discrimination is defined by the Act as easily identifiable and involves overt differential treatment of employees based on arbitrary grounds. Indirect
discrimination is not as easily recognisable as it is a more subtle form of discrimination and involves the application of policies and practices that appear neutral and do not distinguish between employees, but in reality have a disproportionate negative effect on individuals and groups (RSA 1995). National transformation initiatives have aimed at eradicating both direct and indirect discrimination. The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) was formed by the government in 1996, alongside national legislation to monitor, investigate, research, educate, lobby, advise and report on issues concerning gender equality (Hicks 2012).
To deal with the white monopolisation of the South African economy, direct intervention in the distribution of wealth and opportunities was promoted initially through Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), and then legislated through the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Act (BBBEE) in 2003 (Chiloane-Tsoka 2013;
Horwitz & Jain 2011; RSA 2003). This Act was designed to promote the achievement of the constitutional right to equality; increase broad-based and effective participation of black people in the economy; and provide a holistic approach to equal opportunities.
Employment Equity on its own has a workplace orientation and is considered necessary to promote changes in the social mobility of the workplace, however, it is considered insufficient to address broader social inequality. The BBBEE Act is intended to create a system that will enable growth in black business, and in particular one which brings
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women into the mainstream economy as one of the most significantly disadvantaged groups in South Africa (Chiloane-Tsoka 2013). Black women are commonly regarded as a key measurement of progress in the empowerment of all, as their status in society is an indication of how far the country has moved (Chiloane-Tsoka 2013).
Policy and legislation in South Africa continues to be amended to ensure the eradication of systemic social and economic inequalities brought about by colonialism, apartheid and patriarchy (Jagwanth & Murray 2002). As with any legislation, while the acts have noble intentions, the implementation and monitoring of legislation give rise to a number of discrepancies. Chairwoman of the Commission for Employment Equity, Nkeli (2012) states in the latest EE report (2011-2012) that “despite the general appearance of compliance and a façade of relevant internal policies, programmes, processes and practices to promote gender equity in the workplace, practical outcomes largely reveal a reality of continued neglect of gender equity as a constitutional, policy and legislative obligation” (Nkeli 2012: iv). The statement suggests that issues relating to gender in the workplace are not being dealt with in a meaningful way and that the statistics alone of women’s representation in leadership bears testimony to this.
5.2.2 Women’s Representation at Leadership Levels in SA Business Organisations
According to the 2012 BWA Annual Census Report, women represent 52.0% of the South African population, yet only 43.9% of working South Africans are women. The 2011-2012 EE Report (Nkeli 2012) claims that the representation of women still lags behind most levels when measured against their economically active population. The report does indicate that South African organisations have made progress at the professionally qualified and skilled levels for both black people and women. However, women remain grossly underrepresented at top management and senior management level. Research from Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) (Nkeli 2012) shows that more than 90% of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) positions at Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed companies are still dominated by white males, with a number of these leaders nearing retirement. The EE report (2011-2012) (Nkeli 2012) which includes unlisted companies reveals a similar trend, with white males still dominating the senior and executive management level at 73.1%.
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The BWA was formed in 2000 as a non-governmental organisation to focus specifically on professional women’s mobility in the workplace. They conduct a yearly census, sponsored by South African banking institute, Nedbank, to track women’s mobility in leadership positions in the workplace (Dormehl 2012). As the largest and most prominent association of women professionals in the country, the BWA’s findings are possibly the most reliable in relation to the representation of women in leadership in South Africa today (Dormehl 2012). The most recent findings from the Business Women’s Association Census of 2012, record the following percentages of women contributing to the total population of various levels of executive and senior management in South African companies they surveyed:
Female Executive Managers - 21.4%
Female Directors - 17.1%
Female CEOs - 3.6%
Female Chairpersons - 5.5%
Despite women being a significant minority in senior and executive management positions, the report does record a growing trend in the number of women directors from previous years across the majority of organisations they surveyed. Furthermore, the decrease in companies with zero women directors reflects the strides South African companies are making to ensure the inclusion of women on boards. They therefore conclude that the numbers of women in leadership positions appear to be on the increase, albeit it slowly and marginally (Dormehl 2012).
However, the BWA report also reveals that South Africa is making positive progress in relation to gender equity globally. According to their statistics, South Africa is ahead of Australia and Canada in terms of women directorships and is at comparable levels with Israel and the United States. In a McKinsey Quarterly article on gender representation, Barsh et al. (2012) report that Europe appears to be increasing its number of women in leadership positions, but remains in a similar position to South Africa; whereas Asian countries like India, China and Japan have significantly lower numbers of women in leadership than in South Africa; while Scandinavian countries have significantly higher numbers. Despite South Africa’s relative progress, the BWA report (Dormehl 2012) claims that there is increasing recognition that a dramatic mind-set change is needed if
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women’s representation is to increase to the required levels. As a body which aims to track progress and lobby for the advancement of women, organisations like the BWA provide a vital role in focussing on equity statistics. However, they fail to explore some of the deeper debates which influence the complex discourse around equity and ultimately impact on transformation efforts in organisations. One of these debates centres on the relationship between race and gender equity.
5.2.3 Race and Gender Equity
Within the South African context, white women, while being included in the category of designated groups, remain relatively privileged in relation to black women, leading to the questioning of whether they should remain beneficiaries of policies such as affirmative action (Horwitz & Jain 2011; Mushariwa 2012). This is a contentious issue since despite their privilege white women do still suffer from gender discrimination in the workplace (Burger & Jafta 2010; Horwitz & Jain 2011). However, the reports also show that white women are more likely to be employed at senior levels than any other designated group (Grant 2007), supporting the commonly held perception, both in South Africa and in the United States, that white women reap more rewards from affirmative action than other targeted groups, given their historic privilege due to their race and class (Mangum 2008). In the latest Employment Equity Report, Nkeli (2012) highlights the progress made by white women and Indians in the South African workplace and emphasises the need to apply the same vigour and commitment to other designated groups.
The gate keeping role of the white minority and the lack of substantive transformation efforts in favour of reaching quotas have contributed to the allegations of tokenism and
‘window dressing’ levelled at affirmative action initiatives (Grant 2007; Pickworth 2013). The fact that black women are more significantly represented in the public sector than the private sector is evidence of the white monopoly in business, despite legislation like BBBEE (Horwitz & Jain 2011). The contradictions and divisions that exist amongst women due to their relative privilege is one of the key reasons why qualitative studies need to be conducted into women’s discourse at a leadership level to understand what is both different and common in the way in which they construct their experience, so as to revisit transformation efforts aimed at empowering women in organisations. As
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discussed in the chapter 3 on the feminist discourse on power, these divisions exist globally amongst both activists and academics. The South African women’s movement has also grappled with these issues in the process of dismantling systems of oppression, such as apartheid.
5.3 The Women’s Movement in South Africa
In South Africa women were essential to every facet of the anti-apartheid movement and have long been recognised as the “backbone of the struggle” (Britton 2002: 44).
Throughout the transition to democracy and into the new dispensation, women have had to continually reassert the connections between racial, class and gender oppression.
However, according to Haysom, (in Jones 2000: 106), “when we speak about the women’s movement (in South Africa) people are very cautious, because there’s a very strong history of organising around political parties or around the liberation struggle.”
Historically in South Africa, women’s organisation has been around bread and butter issues and feminism has been perceived as a ‘western’ concept with a strong Anglo- American bias. Masenya (cited in Jones 2000: 107) reframes feminism within an African context and calls it ‘womanism’ as a conscious move to prevent the focus on women’s rights being viewed as a sell-out or adopting something that is not appropriate to the African struggle.
Many South African feminists question the notion of a shared ‘sisterhood’ amongst women (Hassim 2005; Jones 2000; Mtintso 2003) and argue that there are no universal women’s interests. They differentiate between practical and strategic gender interests and draw a distinction between the popular women’s movement and the feminist women’s movement in South Africa. Because of the existence of gender within other constructs, women, depending on their social context, women experience gender in different ways. Their multiplicity of identities determines their differing relationship to patriarchy and the forms of struggle with which they engage. Their unique upbringing and life experience also elicits distinct styles of leadership, behavioural patterns and approaches to problems (Mtintso 2003). In researching women’s experience and their use of power in their leadership roles in South Africa, the diverse backgrounds and experience of oppression of individual leaders is a critical consideration. For this
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reason, a narrative research method will be adopted to understand women’s past histories and how it impacts on their experiences today.
Because patriarchy intersects with other forms of oppression and discrimination based on, for instance, race and class, it is too simplistic to equate women with gender and women’s interests with gender interests (Hassim 2005;; Mtintso 2003). According to Mtintso (2003) the presence and representation of the category ‘women’ does not necessarily suppose a gender transformation agenda, as women do not necessarily represent or even have a common understanding of patriarchy and gender relations.
Recognising the diverse views amongst women and participating in the debate, is critical to fostering any gender related studies. The hostility towards western feminists and the accusation of white women academics undermining and patronising ‘grassroots’
women organisations (Erlank 2005; Mtintso 2003) is an issue of sensitivity which needs to be considered in research with women. In South Africa, the experiences of oppression amongst white and black women have, and to a great extent remain, extremely different. In this study, the fact that all the women interviewed will reflect a similar class status in terms of their position as business’ leaders creates the common experience. However, the history of how they have reached this status and the hurdles they have had to overcome to do so may differ significantly.
It is ironical that the manner in which women have been included in formal political institutions in South Africa has tended to displace the transformation goals of structural and social change (Hassim 2005; Jagwanth & Murray 2002). Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s these goals were held to be mutually dependent. However, due to the divisions within the women’s movement and the inability to mobilise around a clear agenda, Hassim (2005) believes that women’s increased representation has not facilitated the redistribution of resources and power in ways that change the basis for women’s oppression. She argues that:
the reduction of the women’s movement to a ‘development partner’ and feminist activity to demands for quotas, has long term costs for the women’s movement as well as for democracy as a whole, as it reduces the ability of the movement to debate the underpinning norms and values of policy direction as well as within other social movements and in civil society more generally (Hassim 2005: 192).
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These observations relating to the women’s movement in the political arena can be directly related to the business context, where affirmative action programmes may have increased the number of women at senior levels, but not necessarily succeeded in transforming the organisations’ ability to accommodate women’s needs and agendas.
This study aims at understanding whether transformation is taking place around the issue of power through the individual experiences and actions of women leaders, who may or may not necessarily identify with a broader women’s movement. Gaining insight into the incremental and subtle shifts in organisations is important since, according to Britton (2002: 57), “the eradication of gender inequality is going to be neither swift nor even, because the reformers are trying to change the very institutions within which they are working.” To change these institutions, it is incumbent on women leaders to bring about an environment that both promotes and values diversity of perspectives if traditional white male cultures are to become more transformed.
Organisational approaches to managing diversity are dealt with in the following section of this chapter.
5.4 Approaches to Managing Diversity
Loden and Rosener (1991) define diversity as that which differentiates one group of people from another along primary and secondary dimensions, with primary dimensions exerting the primary influences on our identity, such as gender, ethnicity and race; and secondary dimensions being the less visible, more variable influences on our identity, such as language, educational background, religion, work style and communication style. Rijamampianina and Carmichael (2005) highlight the trend towards definitions of a multiplicity of diversity dimensions. Feldner-Busztin (in Meyer et al. 2004) believes that the interrelationship between all of these are complex and individual, be they visible or not, and affect attitudes, perspectives and behaviours in the workplace. They also influence the assumptions people make about those around them and the extent to which they are prepared to trust and work with others. She therefore believes that diversity cannot be left to develop spontaneously, but needs to be valued and managed to offer benefits to an organisation. In the current study, the ability for individual women leaders to influence the culture of their organisation, not only depends on the
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individual woman’s perspective and practice in relation to power, but also depends upon the organisations’ ability to integrate difference into their organisational norms.
There has been much written about the approach to managing diversity in organisations over the past twenty years (Allen & Montgomery 2001; Horwitz & Jain 2011; Human 2005; Rijamampianina & Carmichael 2005; Thomas & Ely 1996). In South Africa, diversity management became a significant organisational strategy linked to the Employment Equity Act legislation of 1998 and the implementation of affirmative action policies to achieve post-apartheid transformation. Drawing from the experience of affirmative action policies and diversity programmes globally, and in the United States in particular, South African management academics attempted to define a process appropriate for rectifying the inequities of the past under apartheid and integrating polarised cultures in the workplace. However, it was argued by these academics that, based on the lessons from the global arena, affirmative action and the appreciation of diversity not only had a moral imperative, but also a sound business rationale (Cox &
Beale 1997; Thomas 2002).
Thomas and Ely (1996) have provided the most commonly referenced frameworks regarding diversity initiatives and analysis on where these efforts have not fulfilled their promises (Horwitz & Jain 2011). They recognise three distinct paradigms with which organisations approach diversity:
The discrimination and fairness paradigm The legitimacy and access paradigm The learning and assimilation paradigm
These paradigms are useful in understanding approaches to diversity both globally and in South Africa and how they might have impacted, and still influence, the emerging models of power amongst women leaders in South Africa.
5.4.1 The Discrimination and Fairness Approach
Based on the preceding discussion on gender equity, the discrimination and fairness paradigm arguably remains the dominant discourse on diversity in South Africa
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(Horwitz & Jain 2011). It has been a number of years since the implementation of the Employment Equity Act of 1998 in South Africa and organisations came under pressure to implement affirmative action. It cannot be denied that progress has been made to create opportunities for previously disadvantaged groups but resistance to the implementation of affirmative action still exists which can be attributed to persistent racism, sexism and an overriding belief that one group’s gain seems to be translated into another groups loss (Feldner-Buszin in Meyer et al. 2004; Human 2005).
While it can be argued that affirmative action is the first practical and necessary step towards appreciating diversity, it is recognised that affirmative action alone cannot counter deeply ingrained prejudices and patterns of behaviour (Feldner-Buszin in Meyer et al. 2004; Thomas & Ely 1996). The relationship between diversity management, employment equity and affirmative action is viewed in various ways in the literature (Rijamampianina & Carmichael 2005). They are sometimes viewed as interchangeable practices, other times as complementary approaches and some view diversity as a less controversial alternative to employment equity and affirmative action.
Rijamampianina & Carmichael (2005) argue that even though diversity management is different from employment equity and affirmative action, their success is interdependent. To be given a chance to succeed, affirmative action needs an inclusive and supportive environment where diversity is valued and managed.
Thomas and Ely (1996: 81) describe the discrimination and fairness paradigm of diversity in organisations as focussing on equal opportunities and fair treatment. In South African organisations this has translated into applying the moral imperative for affirmative action, as well as compliance with employment equity legislation, without necessarily creating the climate in which the potential for diversity is realised (Thomas 1996). This approach to diversity puts pressure on organisations and employees to ensure that everyone is regarded the same and difference does not count. Ironically, the affirmative action programmes implemented to ensure justice between groups, has given rise to resistance because of concerns about justice for individuals (Vermeulen &
Coetzee 2006). Horwitz and Jain (2011) argue that South African organisations seem stuck at the level of compliance, rather than organisational culture transformation. In their opinion, the regulatory requirements in South Africa have led to a mentality that focusses on ticking the boxes which has limited significant engagement with