Baroness Helena Morrissey should need no introduction here. She’s the passive-aggressive businesswoman who launched the 30% Club in 2010, which was so instrumental in driving up the proportion of women on corporate boards. She has always claimed a business case exists for more women on boards, but has never responded to our challenges (through Campaign for Merit in Business) to refute the substantial evidence of a causal link between increasing gender diversity on boards and corporate financial decline.
What, exactly, drives Ms Morrissey? Could it be simply misandry? Ironically, the 30% Club cynically used (and continues to use) the gynocentrism of senior businessmen to drive the ‘women on boards’ agenda. The questions came to mind after reading a new article in the Mail online, It is curtains for CBI: If lobbying group were to shut up shop, there are far better alternatives for businesses to join, says MAGGIE PAGANO.
The CBI has recently been the subject of unsubstantiated allegations of sexism, misogyny and sexual abuse (the usual). No charges have yet been brought, to the best of my knowledge, and an investigation is being undertaken by a law firm, Fox Williams. Extracts from the Mail article:
The law firm hopes to report to the board soon after Easter. But should they wait or listen to one of the City’s most influential women, Baroness Morrissey, who says ‘enough is enough’. She urges members to quit now. Imagine if high-profile members like Alison Rose, chief executive of NatWest, or Amanda Blanc, boss of Aviva, were to share her view and tear up their membership. The dam would break and others would follow quickly enough. They would be right to argue that – whatever the outcome of the report – the damage to the CBI’s reputation is already so great that it can’t survive.
This is simply appalling. Not only is Ms Morrissey calling for the abandonment of due process – the men at the CBI are deemed guilty, and have to prove their innocence – but calling for members to quit. The journalist (surely not unprompted) is calling for female bosses of major companies to join in the anti-male crusade. Both Morrissey and the journalist, Maggie Pagano, should be ashamed of themselves. Instead, of course, they’ll be proud of themselves.
One irony is, of course, that it was the men at the CBI who so steadfastly supported the drive for more women on boards – for at least the past 15 years, to my certain knowledge, and probably long before that. It would be only fitting if the CBI were to expose the ‘women on boards’ initiative as a long-running scam and attack on shareholders’ interests, but of course that will never happen.
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Justice for Men & Boys 