“When I was applying to train as a barrister, I knocked on doors of chambers who said ‘we don’t take women’. Then the Sex Discrimination Act was passed, and they said ‘we’ve already got one’” – Baroness Helena Kennedy KC

History was made in July 2024, when Rachel Reeves became the UK’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer; the last senior cabinet position that had never before been held by a woman. It has been slow progress: while Margaret Bondfield was the first female cabinet minister in 1929, it was not until 1997 that a cabinet included more than two women simultaneously.[1]

This is consistent with the slow progress made following ‘first women’ in other areas. It was 1997 when Dame Marjorie Scardino took the helm at Pearson, becoming the first female CEO of a FTSE 100 company. Nearly three decades later, there are still only nine – fewer than there are men named Andrew or Simon.[2]

Yet, while parity may be a long way off, there are signs of progress. Women now hold 35% of senior management positions globally, according to Grant Thornton.[3] In the FTSE 100, women currently account for 42.6% of boardroom positions, 48% of non-executive director positions, and 19.4% of executive director positions.[4] As Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it: “we are at last beginning to relegate to the history books the idea of the token woman.” This is, perhaps, the generation that moves past aspiring to be ‘first,’ and trains its sights solely on being ‘equal’.

While generations of ‘firsts’ were forced to fit into a world designed by and for men, the data now show us the intrinsic value of including women. A critical mass of women on boards leads to improved financial performance, greater managerial accountability, less fraud, fewer financial reporting mistakes, and a reduction in ‘groupthink’ mentality.[5] The case for women to stand out, rather than fit in, has been made on the numbers alone.

Yet if the last decade of global events has shown us anything, it is perhaps that complacency is the enemy of progress. In 2022 researchers from MIT analysed 40 years of data from Fortune 100 companies and concluded:

“the advancement of women has not been anything like a linear process. In fact, General Motors is the only company in that older set where the ranks of women were substantial and increased continually throughout the study. In nearly every other company listed since 1980, there has been a huge uptick followed by backsliding.”[6]

For women as a group, then, it can be dangerous to assume that progress is linear. For those women currently working in senior positions, this is perhaps an appropriate moment to pause and consider: what do you want your legacy to be?

Toni Morrison struck it perfectly, as ever, when she urged, “as you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.” When we do, we may also wish to consider the myriad ways in which our paths might have been altered by those who went before us: the experiences, lessons and people who helped us on our way up; and those that made things harder. How much more difficult might it have been without the help we found? How much more might we have been able to achieve if those obstacles had not arisen? And, perhaps most crucially of all: what can we do to ensure that future generations don’t have to fight the same battles we did?

Some women will have worked so hard to achieve their status that they consider, perfectly fairly, their simple presence to be legacy enough. Others will properly point out that the burden of changing male-centric systems often simply amounts to yet more unpaid labour for women. The question is a complex one, and one that should be engaged with by all in senior positions, regardless of their gender.

There are many ways to ensure a legacy; and the burden of securing the legacy of women should absolutely not fall on the shoulders of women alone. But as we start to move past ‘first’ and set our sights on ‘equal’, women contemplating their legacy may wish to start with one simple question: how can I better be the person I needed when I was starting out?

Author: Harriet Johnson

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[1] Watson C, Uberoi E, Mutebi N, Bolton P, Danechi S, Women in Politics and Public Life, 2 March 2021, commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01250

[2] https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/news/more-ceos-called-simon-or-andrew-than-female-ceos-in-the-uk/#:~:text=There%20are%20only%20nine%20companies,female%20CEOs%2C%E2%80%9D%20said%20Crossley.

[3] https://www.grantthornton.co.uk/insights/women-in-business-2024-pathways-to-parity/#:~:text=34%25%20of%20senior%20management%20positions,this%20point%20is%20not%20lost.

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/685195/share-of-female-ceo-positions-in-ftse-companies-uk/

[5] https://www.ncl.ac.uk/business/news-events/news-items/2022/march/women-boards-improvement/

[6] https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/women-are-stalling-out-on-the-way-to-the-top/