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Sandra Gidley is a pharmacist and Liberal Democrat
member of Parliament for Romsey
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I was surprised by the somewhat sexist headlines in The Pharmaceutical
Journal concerning the results of the latest election to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council. “Woman
candidate tops poll in Council election” (PJ, 13 May, p573) is hardly headline material and the
editorial (ibid, p554) suggesting that somehow the “sisterhood” had
placed a woman at the top of the poll is unworthy of a professional journal.
It would have been much more useful to the profession to have had some
in-depth analysis of the real story, that is, why so few people stand
for election to Council. I cannot be the only person who is concerned
by the fact that only one woman stood for election and not a single candidate
was from the world of hospital pharmacy.
Lack of representation of women is by no means unique to pharmacy. It
is a problem that is experienced in all walks of life. However, at Westminster,
all political parties are trying, in their individual ways, to put their
own houses in order. It is widely acknowledged that the women’s “voice” is
not heard until at least a third of an elected body is female. The counter
cry to this is that we “want the best person for the job” and
that it “does not matter anyway because there are not any gender
differences in issues facing pharmacy”.
Let me deal with these two points, one at a time. With so few people
putting themselves forward for election, we choose whom we hope are the
best from a small pool. No one should pretend that our members of Council,
much as I admire many of them, are all necessarily the best and brightest
in the profession. What they do have is a commitment to the profession
and the willingness to give up a significant chunk of their own time
for the greater good. This goes a long way in my book.
There may not be a whole host of gender issues facing pharmacy but there
are some where a female perspective may be highly relevant, such as in
workforce planning. But that is not really the point. There is now a
whole raft of evidence to show that men and women approach issues in
different ways. The male brain generally works differently to the female
brain. It is not a black and white issue and we can all think of men
who are in touch with their feminine side and women who are “tougher” than
men.
The difficulty is that if women are not coming forward for election then
any representative body is likely to be deprived of
the range of thinking and approaches to problem-solving that a good gender
balance achieves.
So, we all know good women in pharmacy. The $64,000 question is why they
do not put themselves forward. Are they unable or unwilling?
It may be useful to draw some parallels with the world of politics, which
has actively wrestled with this problem for some time. Different political
parties have tried to address the problem in different ways but they
have identified common problems.
The first problem is that women often undersell their skills. Theresa
May is fond of saying that if asked about language skills a female graduate
in French may be reluctant to tick the box because she may not have used
the language for a few years, but a man with rusty “O”-level
French will have no such compunction. So, a lot of work has gone into
confidence building around presentation.
We also have to acknowledge biology and the fact that in most couples
it is the woman who bears the brunt of responsibility for household and
family. So, for some years a woman may feel that she simply does not
have the time or energy to put herself forward. There is then a time
when children and family are less demanding and a woman may be in a position
to broaden her horizons. I have met many women in this position, with
a lot to offer, who are reluctant to put themselves forward for something
unless they think they can really make a difference or have something
they can usefully contribute.
In politics this often manifests itself in women being keen to stand
for election at local government level, but being not so keen on national
politics. It is easier to see that you have really made a difference
at a local level than on a national scale.
And what of pharmacy? Having spoken to a number of highly suitable female
pharmacists I am often told that the Council is a “talking shop” and
whoever is elected it never seems to make any difference.
This is really something that a member of Council should contest but
I have to say that from the outside looking in it can be difficult to
appreciate what individual Council members achieve. A few years ago you
could at least get a flavour, from The Journal, of who was saying or
doing what. Unfortunately, the style of reporting has changed, reports
of Council meetings rarely mention opinions of Council members and only
those motivated individuals who read the transcripts on the Society’s
website have any real clue about what is going on. There are relatively
few branch visits and Lambeth seems remote to the average pharmacist.
This is a shame, because there is a lot of good stuff going on.
Some party research has shown that women are generally less confident
than men when it comes to public speaking or speaking up in public forums.
This problem is being addressed by means of training, encouragement and
mentoring. It is not always easy because many women seem reluctant to
move outside their comfort zones.
In fact, my party doubled its female representation at the last election
purely using this approach. We identified women with potential, persuaded
them to stand and provided a range of support in the form of training
and confidence building.
If the Council wants to increase the number of elected female pharmacists
(lay members are nicely gender balanced) then it should look for equivalent
ways of doing this. However, it is a brave Council that actively encourages
opposition.
What do I know? Well, I was one of those women. I became involved in
local politics and was encouraged to do more. Westminster seemed remote
and was not something I aspired to. What relevance did that male dominated,
public school-type environment have to my life? I eventually realised
that if people like myself did not stand then the place would never change.
It was not enough to stand by and moan so I started taking advantage
of opportunities. I stopped talking myself out of doing things that took
me out of my comfort zone. I was also helped by the encouragement of
a close friend and a male MP who singled me out after he had spoken at
our constituency dinner and encouraged me to stand for Parliament.
So, if you moan about the Council then think about a better way. Think
about becoming involved. If you doubt me, try to attend a Council meeting.
You will probably leave thinking: “I could do that”. Do not
just sit there. Do it, particularly if you are a woman! |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal