Women in Scotland 'missing' from key positions of power

Engender, a feminist advocacy organisation, analysed the number of women in key decision-making positions of power in Scotland this year.

In the report, Sex and Power in Scotland 2023, published on Tuesday, Engender highlighted the “significant void” in women’s representation and the distribution of power.

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Examining a range of areas across public life, including politics, health, sports, and media, the organisation identified 3381 positions of power in Scotland.

Only 1219, just over a third, of these positions were held by women, while men held two-thirds of the roles analysed.

Men, the report said, are “significantly” over-represented in 33 out of 38 areas of public life.

The analysis found only five areas of public life where women made up at least 50% of women in leadership positions, despite women accounting for 51% of Scotland’s population and 49% of its labour market.

Lorna Slater is now the only female political party leader in Scotland

In politics, women account for 45.7% of MSPs and 34.7% of local councillors. Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater is the only woman in a party leadership role, compared to in 2017, when four of the five political parties represented in the Scottish Parliament were led or co-led by women.

“This unacceptable imbalance embeds inequality into the core of our society’s structure,” the report reads.

“It demonstrates men’s sustained dominance across all of these domains; controlling the decisions that are made, the culture we consume, the criminal convictions we see and the services we rely on.”

Girls in Scotland, Engender added, also routinely leave school with higher levels of educational attainment on average, but are being blocked from positions of power.

Catherine Murphy, executive director of Engender, said that the positions of power analysed “hold huge sway in determining what our society and culture look like”.

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“They dictate who gets heard and who has a seat at the table when key decisions are made.

“These figures clearly show that how the world is shaped around us in Scotland – how resources are distributed, services designed and priorities identified – is still disproportionately decided upon by men.”

Engender’s previous Sex and Power reports in 2017 and 2020 looked to track progress towards achieving gender equality over time, with the 2023 research discovering some areas of improvement in political institution’s health and in limited circumstances across media and culture.

However Engender added that the rate of change remains “disappointingly slow” and “simply not fast enough”.

Women in Scotland account for only 27% of council leaders, 26% of university principals, 22% of sheriffs, 18% of major newspaper editors, and just 7% of CEOs of Scotland’s top businesses.

Girls in Scotland outinely leave school with higher levels of educational attainment on average

“The fact that so many women are ‘missing’ from these positions of power means that major decision-making is taking place without women’s leadership and high-level input,” Murphy said.

“The exclusion is even more pronounced for women from minority groups including women of colour and disabled women.

“Tracking who sits in positions of power is vital to shine a light on the extent of these inequalities and helps us better understand where priority action is needed.”

“We urgently need a major increase in diverse women leading our institutions in Scotland.

“Government, public sector, business and our media and culture sectors need to step up their efforts if we are to make meaningful progress, or we risk failing another generation of women.”

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The report pointed out that while First Minister Humza Yousaf appointed the first Scottish Cabinet with over 50% women, this did not extend to special advisers, with two-thirds of the positions analysed held by men.

The report argued that often change is down to “progress of individual trailblazers or success stories within a particular field”.

“Tackling women’s under-representation in positions of power, especially for minoritised groups, fundamentally means tackling the barriers that exclude women from participation in all levels of politics and public life,” the report added.

“Targeted resources, strategic action and systems change are needed across all sectors to achieve the intersectional gender parity that we need to see.”

Engender also set out that there were limitations in the data available in order to further break down the numbers in regards to ethnic minority groups, LGBT women, age, disability or other groups.

However, the report stated that as women from minority groups are less likely to be promoted and more likely to face discrimination and harassment in the workplace, it is “highly likely” that these women are “even more severely under-represented” in positions of power than identified in the findings.