IN BRITAIN, FEW WOMEN ACHIEVE LEADERSHIP POSTS

Anyone can update to 2006?

The New York Times
May 6, 1987, Wednesday, Section C; Page 1, Column 1; Living Desk
HEADLINE: IN BRITAIN, FEW WOMEN ACHIEVE LEADERSHIP POSTS
BYLINE: By TERRY TRUCCO

Ever since she was 3 years old, Emma Nicholson has wanted to be a
Member of Parliament. But though her mother's family has had M.P.'s
from the 17th century onward, her quest has not been easy. In 1979,
Miss Nicholson, a computer systems designer and longtime Conservative,
was chosen by a local party committee to run for a seat in a Labor
bastion. As might be expected, she lost.

In the following election, she wasn't even selected as a
candidate, although she applied for 15 seats. In Britain, candidates do
not have to live in the areas they seek to represent.

When Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher calls Britain's next
general election, probably next month, Miss Nicholson, a Conservative
Party vice chairman, should finally get her wish. At 44, she is the
Conservative candidate for Devon West and Torridge, a seat the party is
almost certain to win.

If elected, Miss Nicholson will join an elite group. Twenty-seven
women make up just under 4 percent of Britain's 650-member House of
Commons, less than in most other Western European parliaments. In the
United States, of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, 23,
or 5 percent, are women; of the 100 Senators, 2 are women. Despite
efforts by Britain's three major parties to draft more women as
candidates, only 28 are expected to be Members of Parliament after the
next election.

The situation is not much better for women in other areas of
British public service. Among the nation's 832 judges, only 31 are
women. The top 208 senior officers in the armed forces are all men. And
though women constitute nearly 50 percent of Britain's Civil Service,
of the 658 officers in the three top grades, only 25 are women.

Women have fared better in the private sector, notably in banks
and brokerage firms affected by the recent deregulation and resulting
expansion. Yet the upper echelon of British business and industry
remains a man's world. According to the Institute of Directors, a
business organization representing company directors, just nine women
sit on the boards of Britain's top 100 companies.

In many ways, the statistics are surprising. The roots of women's
rights and suffrage in Britain extend deep into the 19th century. John
Stuart Mill's monograph ''The Subjection of Women,'' for example, was
published in 1869.
British women have had the vote for nearly 70 years, longer than women
in France and Belgium. For the last eight years, Mrs. Thatcher has held
the country's top political post, and Elizabeth II has been Queen since
1952.

Stories and surveys on the paucity of women in public service
appear regularly in the British press, and public awareness seems to
have risen notably. But change is slow, partly because of the
conservative nature of many British institutions, partly because of a
class system that still hinders social and economic mobility.

Both men and women have supported the status quo. British women
often undervalue their abilities, according to experts in government
and in the private sector.

''Women often believe they are second-rate,'' said a spokeswoman
for the Equal Opportunities Commission, a Government agency. ''If, for
example, an advertisement is for a job that pays £20,000, the
commission has found that no women will apply. But if the job is for
£10,000 or £15,000, women will apply.''
At current rates, the pound is worth about $1.68.

The sharp rise in unemployment has further impeded change. ''More
people chasing fewer jobs means fewer opportunities and less openness
to change,'' said Sue Corby, assistant general secretary of the First
Division Association, the leading union for civil servants.

At the same time, many people see a sharp disparity between jobs
appropriate for men and those appropriate for women. ''The Promotion of
Women in the Civil Service,'' a 1985 study by Richard S. Williams, a
psychologist at Thames Polytechnic in London, confirmed this division
within the Civil Service.

The study, commissioned by the

Civil Service, found that while men and women scored equally well
in job performance, men were rated much higher on what researchers call
'
'promotability.''

According to the union, a woman's chances of promotion within the
Civil Service are 65 percent of a man's.

Even in the service's ''fast stream,'' women advance more slowly
than men, the First Division found.

''There are no formal barriers for women, but prevailing
attitudes and certain practical problems have contributed to the
difficulty,'' said Anne Mueller, 56, head of management and personnel
for the Civil Service and only the third woman to reach the service's
top grade.

A key problem has been family commitments. ''The three women who
have risen to this grade have not had children,'' Miss Mueller said,
''though I'm reasonably confident that there will be ones in the future
who will.''

Though the Civil Service did not hire married women until after
World War II, it now allows women with children to work part-time while
the children are growing up. In December, Gillian Banks, 53, a mother
of three who was one of the first to take advantage of the policy,
became Registrar General for England and Wales, a promotion to the
service's second-highest grade.

Most people agree that the greatest inequities exist in political
life. More women, for example, applied to become candidates in the
coming election than in the past, in part because of intensive
recruitment by the national parties. Yet because local committees
control the selection process, fewer women were chosen as candidates,
compared with the last election in 1983.

''Selection committees have always thought that choosing a woman
is risky, so they tend to take a chance on women for the unwinnable
seats,'' said Doreen Miller, chairwoman of the 300 Group, a nonpartisan
organization formed in 1980 to get more women elected to Parliament.
(The name is taken from the group's
goal: 300 women serving as M.P.'s.) Discrimination against women can be
startlingly overt at the committee level. During the selection process
for the previous election, Miss Nicholson, for example, was told
repeatedly that because she was a woman, she was an unacceptable
candidate. Questions put to women by local committees are often
insensitive. Married women are routinely asked if their husbands
approve of their political aspirations, while single women are
pointedly asked why they are not married. The unspoken question seems
to be
this:

Are you a lesbian?

The committees choosing candidates for safe seats also tend to be
conservative and seek candidates similar to the previous winner. That
usually means a married man in his mid-30's.

But hasn't Margaret Thatcher, as

Prime Minister and as a role model, helped change attitudes
toward women in public life?

''No one can ever again say that a woman cannot do the job,''
said Elizabeth Vallance, a political studies professor at Queen Mary
College, part of the University of London. ''But I'm sorry she hasn't
promoted more women or appointed a woman to her Cabinet. We need models
who are far more diffuse and varied, not just a megastar.''

One hope is that recent party efforts to recruit more women will
pay off later. ''When the club doesn't want you, it is very difficult
to break in,''
said Miss Nicholson, who headed the Conservative Party's attempts to
draft women. ''But women need to learn to bounce back.''

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