euronews right on – Breaking the glass ceiling

www.euronews.com Only 3% of chief executives in big European companies are women, 14% sit as company board members. The situation is slowly changing, however the European Union believes at this current rate, it will take 50 years to achieve gender balanced boardrooms. The “glass ceiling”, which symbolises the barrier preventing women reaching top positions still exists all over Europe. Anne Marie Dominguez experienced this first hand and after winning an appeal for unfair dismissal, she set up her own business in Lyon. She spoke to euronews about her experiences in a gender unbalanced workplace. “They told me OK, you have skills we want to work with you at the same time they told me, as soon as you move a finger we need to know it and to sign it. It was really annoying, and I really had the impression that it was related to being a woman. “They were restricting what I could and couldn’t do. That is to say that I always had to make justifications and ask before I did anything. Everything regarding the budgets and procedures had to be signed and validated beforehand, so I had very little freedom. I was not given the enough power to perform my mission or my job.” More countries are pushing for change whether it is encouraging businesses with self-regulating initiatives or adopting legislative solutions. The European Commission is preparing a draft legislation stating that at least 40 percent of boardrooms should be made up of women by 2020. Avivah Wittenberg Cox is a CEO who …