The number of women in the top FTSE 100 companies grew 3 percent last year. (Picture: Metro Centric)
In the lead up to International Women’s Day on Wednesday of next week, the proportion of women in board roles at leading companies has risen above 40 percent. The number of women in the top FTSE 100 companies and the mid-sized FTSE 250 companies rose by 3 percent in 2022.
Now only ten of the largest 350 companies have an all-male executive team, according to the FTSE women leaders review.
The myth of “smashing the glass ceiling” proclaims that a win for one woman at the very top is a win for all women. All discrimination has to be opposed, but women in high places isn’t the road to liberation.
More women in the boardroom doesn’t wipe out inequality and oppression. It means a few are welcomed into the class that exploits working class people.
A few women on stratospheric salaries doesn’t help the cleaner, usually a woman, who scrubs her office. The gender pay gap is still rising. Women executives can escape the cost of rising childcare. The majority of women can’t.
Three-quarters of the teachers on strike this week across Britain are women. Their struggles, and more like them, are the way to advance women’s interests and smash oppression.
The goal isn’t to profit off the backs of working class women and men. It’s to fight for a world free from bosses that benefit from our exploitation and oppression in the first place.
There are more union banners on protests
