Equality Continued » Colgan and Ledwith8 quote an activist
as saying: “the women’s committee sit and look at the position ongoing in the industry and look at things that affect women”. Female role models already active may encourage women to join organisations by mentoring9
. Ehrichı0
synopsises the functions of mentoring to include encouragement, friendship, advice and feedback, as well as helping individuals develop a sense of competence, confidence and effectiveness. Goldingıı examined the gender distribution in Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry committees. She concludes that the college could improve equality in college committees by adopting strategies which may include the formation of women’s committees. As leaders, or opinion formers, in
organisations, there are significant differences between men and women according to Eagly and Carliı2
suggests that women . Research
regarding democratic versus autocratic leadership styles conducted by Van Engen and Willemsenı3
tend to adopt a more democratic or participative style than men. The causes of gender disparity in leadership roles in organisations are well established in the academic literatureı2,ı4,ı5
. There is also literature on the different
“Female role models already active may encourage women to join organisations”
manner in which males and females act on committees. For example, Steinmayr and Spinathı6
found that men are more
likely than women to overestimate their ability to fulfil roles with which they are unfamiliar. In addition, shyness is more socially acceptable for females, at the expense of self-confidence or assertive behaviours according to Coplan, Doey and Kingsburyı7
gender disparity in social structures must go beyond biological reasonsı8,ı9,20
. Explanations of . Theories
of gender difference suggest that women and men are motivated by different concerns when participating in allocative decision-making processes such as those engaged in by committees. Kennedy2ı
suggests that women are
more likely than men to be motivated by altruistic concerns and to have a preference for a universalistic solution.
Men are more likely to be motivated by self-interest and prefer a competitive solution. More recent work has pointed to differences in preferences and psychological attitudes between males and females: less competitive behaviours, greater risk aversion and less bargaining attitudes in females22
. The challenges facing women on entry
into a role in a representative organisation can be summarised under five headings: childcare; cash; confidence; culture; and candidate selection procedures. Each of these challenges needs to be addressed, and it is clear from experience elsewhere that a whole package of reforms is necessary23
. Lovejoy and Stone24 noted, in
a study of professional women, that 86 per cent of respondents cited long and inflexible work hours as significant factors in their decision to quit their organisations. Formerly, the type of committee was
often gender based. Men were preferred for membership of compensation, executive, and finance committees, and women were preferred for membership of public affairs committees25
. Formal gender equality
policies are often utilised to counteract this tendency. However, Mellor found no evidence of their presence in her survey of national dentist representative organisations26
. To summarise this Continued »
Ireland’s Dental magazine 25
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