Women to Watch

The Cultural Leadership Programme has launched a search for the cultural and creative sector’s top 50 future female leaders - Women to Watch. The judging panel will be led by Jenni Murray OBE, Radio 4 presenter, who says, 'There are nowhere near enough women in positions of power and influence, whether it be in the cultural and creative industries or other sectors. We need to do everything we can to enable and encourage the next generation.'

The list will be announced on 10 March 2010 to mark International Women's Day and it will celebrate the achievements of some of the most ambitious and talented women in the cultural and creative industries. It follows a report on Women in Leadership in the sector which collected hard data on exactly how many women were working and in what roles. The report found that:

• male leaders outnumbers female leaders by 2.5 to 1
• 39% of the workforce in the creative and cultural sector is female, compared with 46% of the total UK workforce, so there are fewer women to consider for leadership roles
• women and men tend not to work together to lead creative and cultural industries - the pattern is for women to work with women and men to work with men

You can download the report at the bottom of this page, and find an interesting provocation piece that was used to initiate the research here.

I'd love to see both within the Christian sector - some research that collects hard data about where women are working in churches and Christian organisations and explores some different perspectives on the issues. And then a naming and celebration of women in positions of leadership and with potential, not to put them on a pedestal but, to borrow and adapt the words of David Kershaw who heads up the Cultural Leadership Programme, to 'give a new generation of women the confidence to aim higher and to serve as a challenge to Christian organisations and churches that need to improve in this area.' What do you think?

Comments

[Karen]

you know, what I found exciting was reading the list of people who are going to be the women to watch judges. It was so exciting to read about what these (mostly) women do. I think a great place to start for us would be to have some profiles of women leaders working in christian organisations and churches... it would be such a boost.

And couldn't a piece of research be undertaken? would it be possible to write some sort of questionnaire that could be sent out to diocese and the equivalent?

I understand the C of E is having some kind of pilot scheme to help more women priests in to leader roles, so there hope out there :)