Progress is a snail. From 2015 to 2021, the proportion of women on supervisory boards at 263 large companies increased to 36 percent. It took six years for eleven percent more women to be promoted to supervisory boards. Now the federal government has stepped up: the new management positions law came into force this week. It no longer only affects the supervisory board, but the executive board. Listed companies and companies with equal co-determination must appoint at least one woman to their board of directors if the board consists of more than three people.
But what does the board member at the top of Deutsche Bahn or Deutsche Telekom bring to normal women who – like most men too – are not about to head a large corporation? Women outside of these large companies, for which female executives have now become a duty, will only benefit if management is equally effective outside of listed corporations.
Of course: women bosses in multibillion companies can also be role models beyond their own company. And living proof that responsible positions in Germany are not reserved for men. They could show that there are still alternative leadership styles to the leader, through whose hands all decisions go.
But most women don’t know Daniela Gerd tom Markotten personally; she has been a board member at Deutsche Bahn since June. Or Birgit Bohle, board member at Telekom. Much more powerful are role models from your own environment. People you could meet on Sundays when you fetch bread, and those who also have a say in your own career. But where does it go without saying that the head of the medium-sized industrial plant is occupied by a woman? That the local public utilities are run by a woman, that the executive office of the local savings bank shares a Jochen and a Kerstin? Equal opportunities for management positions and sufficient female participation have by no means become widespread.
The savings banks show that. Spread across Germany, the institutes employ 911 board members. If they were to meet for a general assembly, only 53 women would enter the hall. The rest: men in suits and ties, a consulting firm counted. At a meeting like this, more men would show up with “Thomas” on their nameplates than female board members.
It looks only slightly better for German medium-sized companies. The proportion of women in management bodies is there at 13 percent. The companies turn over a lot of money and are responsible for social life. There is potential in important medium-sized companies.
The social debate about the number of women bosses focuses too much on the big corporations. But only when equality is everywhere does it make a difference to the masses. Even on boards of public companies, the proportion of women is currently less than a quarter.
If bosses were to fill their departmental and team leader positions equally in future, equal opportunities could seep into all the lowlands of the world of work. Then career starters are also promoted at the same time. And efforts to abolish unequal pay are becoming realistic, and from your desk, gender equality also radiates to partnerships and families at home. Because it is then completely normal for young men and young women to take parental leave for six months, then maybe two years part-time – and then have the right to a full-time position with the same responsibility.