In the lead-up to International Women's Day, the drums were again beating on the issue of women in company boardrooms.
Governor-General Quentin Bryce called for quotas by government to ensure more women are appointed to the boards of Australian companies.
Pointing to the persistence of the ''old boys' network'', Bryce said that ''the progress of women in business at the very highest decision-making levels is too slow''.
The call for more women on private company boards can also be heard on both sides of politics.
The Minister for the Status of Women, Kate Ellis, has stated that nothing less than Australia's economic competitiveness rests on having more women in senior positions. Speaking on the ABC TV Q&A program, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey called for a 30 per cent quota for women on boards if companies don't toe the line on the issue soon.
One of the key catalysts for this current debate has been research recently published by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, a taxpayer-funded body charged with improving and monitoring progress on affirmative action.
The research, based on surveys of the top 200 ASX-listed companies, shows only about 8.4 per cent of board members and 3 per cent of chief executives are women. By comparison, 30 per cent of federal parliamentarians and 45 per cent of Australia's employees are women.
In one respect, the discussion about mandatory quotas risks degenerating the debate into a statistical argument.
Some feminists might suggest that Hockey's 30 per cent quota proposal is too low, and Australia should seek a number such as Norway's 40 per cent or even higher.
More deeply, the arguments supporting mandatory quotas reflect a curious impatience with the very economic and social changes and reforms that feminists of previous generations would have applauded.
Unquestionably, one of the major contributions to Australian economic growth over the past 50 years, if not longer, has been the mass entry of women into the labour market. The removal of discriminatory policy edicts like the public service marriage bar, and changes such as greater female access to tertiary education, have made the world of work a real possibility for women.
The national participation rate of women in the labour market has jumped from 44 per cent in 1979 to 58 per cent today, while rates for men declined. Clearly, many women have firmly grasped the economic opportunities.
The Australian labour market has arguably never been more open for women, making discrimination much harder to flourish. This suggests that the gender discrepancy in senior corporate positions is mainly driven by career choices and life aspirations, including time out to raise a family.
Those who criticise the relatively low representation of senior women in large companies also tend to overlook the 700,000 women in Australia actively running their own small business or, to put it simply, being their own bosses.
More companies are hiring more women in senior positions, but this is a gradual process reflecting in part the availability of skilled women for hire.
Top-down government regulations to install women at the corporate table would discount individual skills or aspirations and risks letting down the very people that a freer market is already helping.
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