Equal but Different

By Dr Judy Dlamini

“My interest in this area of study is based on my strong belief that people are born equal but different. It is a belief that equity across gender, race, social class and sexual orientation will be attained in my lifetime”.

Equal but different is based on my doctoral thesis which investigated the intersection of race, gender and social class in women leaders’ career progression. The women leaders came up with strategies for gender transformation at leadership level. The book presents life stories of women leaders in South Africa and abroad and men who believe in gender equality and contributed towards this goal. The common thread across the life stories of women who contributed to the book are:

• A message from family that said ‘’you can be anything that you set your mind to be’’
• Supportive men who sponsored and mentored them.
• Pursuit of education
• Determination to succeed
• Your initial social class should not determine the person you become. Though the lower your initial social class is, the harder you have to work to achieve your ambitious dreams.

This book is relevant for people across gender, race and social class who want advice on personal strategies and tactics to succeed; leaders who want to be inclusive with an empowerment agenda for minorities; mentors across gender, corporate and government leaders who are committed to transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr Judy Dlamini
• Release date: Apr 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9780620725873

Book preview

title page

‘Family is everything’

My husband Sizwe Nxasana, our daughter Nkanyezi Makhari,

our son-in-law Lufuno Makhari and I.

My late parents

My mother Rita Dlamini (née Ngwane) and me as a toddler.

My father Thomas Charles Dumezweni Dlamini.

My late son

My son Sifiso Nxasana and I.

I dedicate this book to

My late parents, Rita Dlamini (née Ngwane) and Thomas Charles Dumezweni Dlamini, for their unconditional love and believing in me more than I believed in myself.

My late son, Sifiso Nxasana, for his love, support and for always seeing the good in me.

Smashwords Edition

Published by Dr Judy Dlamini at Smashwords

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission from the publisher or copyright holder.

© Text, Dr Judy Dlamini, 2016

Published in South Africa in 2016 by

Sifiso Publishers

Sifiso Nxasana House,

269 Oxford Rd,

Illovo, Sandton,

Johannesburg

ISBN 978-0-620-72586

ebook ISBN 978-0-620-72587-3

Edited by Colleen Naudé

Cover and author photography by Nick Boulton

Additional photography by Andre from Andre M Photography

Ebook by Orchard Publishing

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| Acknowledgements |

Many people have helped me to reach this stage.

Firstly, thank you to my family for their unwavering support. My husband, best friend and mentor, Sizwe Errol Nxasana; my late son, Sifiso Nxasana, for loving me unconditionally and for always encouraging me during his short life; my beautiful daughter, Nkanyezi Makhari, for supporting me even though she wasn’t quite sure why I needed another qualification, but more importantly, for her work ethic, which is exemplary.

My sincere gratitude to my promoter, Prof Peliwe Mnguni, for supporting me and never giving up on me. When Prof Stella Nkomo, my initial supervisor, left the SBL (Unisa’s Graduate School of Business Leadership) it took me two years to find a promoter who was prepared to work with me without changing my area of study.

I thank Prof Nkomo for the role she played in the initial stages of my research journey, and for her input in the grounded theory methodology, and the thesis in general at a later stage, when I needed help.

To my family who had to sacrifice quality time with me: Thank you for supporting my childhood dream.

To the SBL Library staff members who were always there for me, thank you.

| Foreword |

Equal but different: Women leaders’ life stories; overcoming race, gender and social class arrives at a very critical juncture in the continuing conversation about the status of women in leadership. The last South African Business Women’s Association Census Report indicated that the representation of women in senior positions in JSE-listed companies stood at 29.3% of executive managers, 21.8% of directors and 2.4% of CEOs. The report also shows African, Coloured and Indian women are more likely to hold leadership positions as non-executive directors, while white women are more represented in executive positions.

Employment Equity Commission figures provide more detail with respect to the effects of race and gender on the status of women in leadership in South Africa. The reports issued do not always provide detailed data by race and gender. However, a comparison of changes in the status of different race and gender groups over the period from 2007 to 2012 shows representation of African women in top management positions in South Africa moved from 5.5% to 7.3%. The representation of white women remained at 15.2%, Coloured women’s presence grew from 1.8% to 2.4% and for Indian women the change was from 2.4% to 2.8%. As this book concludes, the intersection between race and gender makes a difference in the status of women in leadership in South Africa.

The slow progress of women in leadership roles is not just a national issue, but also a global one. A recent report issued by Grant Thornton found women hold 24% of senior management positions globally. This figure has remained relatively stable over the past five years. These figures suggest two things. First, women can and do make it into senior leadership positions. Second, the progress has slowed down in the last few years.

This raises two important questions: what are the obstacles to women’s advancement and what needs to be done about it? The latter question is extremely important for the government and organisations in South Africa. Since 1994, gender equality has been a priority goal for the government and one that is reflected in the Constitution. Like many other African countries, South Africa has performed well in women’s representation in parliament and government but this has not necessarily translated to other sectors (other than public enterprises).

This book offers excellent empirically based answers to these two questions for South Africa. Some readers may see the title and assume it may be a dry academic treatise. While the book is based on rigorous research that earned the author a PhD, the narrative approach allows us to learn from the women’s own voices with just the right amount of authoritative interpretation from the author. The book is based on life story interviews with fourteen women from diverse backgrounds, all of whom have risen to top leadership positions in different sectors or who head their own companies. These women are leaders in fields ranging from financial services, NGOs to multinationals. What distinguishes them is their stature in South Africa and globally. Despite being some of the most prominent women leaders today, readers will be struck by the honest, wise and compassionate way they share their life journeys. Yet, as their stories demonstrate, the climb to the top was not on neatly paved steps.

As a scholar who has devoted the last thirty years studying gender and diversity in leadership, reading the book was unsettling. The challenges the twelve women describe echo what my colleague Prof Ella L J Edmondson Bell wrote about in our book, Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity , published by Harvard Business School Press fifteen years ago, in 2001. Our research was based on interviews with 120 black and white women holding positions in corporate America. Our goal was to challenge the invisibility of African-American women in research about women in leadership. We wanted to understand how race, not just gender, influenced the women’s life and career journeys into domains dominated by men. As Dr Dlamini notes in the opening chapter of this book, no one has a gender identity without other dimensions of identity. Who we are as individuals is an amalgamation of several intersecting identities.

What we set out to do in our book expanded because in chronicling the women’s life and career journeys. We realised that the glass ceiling metaphor so prominent at the time did not capture what we were learning from the African-American women interviewed. A more apt metaphor was concrete wall. The barriers they encountered were based on both race and gender. Another important realisation was the reality that the African-American and white women we interviewed had experienced similar, but very separate, journeys. That is, despite these women being in corporate America, they knew little about each other and the relationships one might have expected because of the common bond of gender did not exist.

What was common across all of the narratives was the struggle to get to the top. It was a climb fraught with obstacles. We tried to represent the sameness in the women’s struggles, as well as the racial differences in the first part of the book’s title, Our separate ways.

Equal but different: Women leaders’ life stories; overcoming race, gender and social class does an excellent job in illuminating the similarities as well as the differences in the women’s experiences despite all of them having attained success as leaders. By beginning with the women’s early lives, Dr Dlamini provides insight into the major influences on gender identity development, particularly the formation of aspirations for their lives. One of the prominent themes in the women’s early lives, and also in our research fifteen years ago, is that the women received a message from parents or other significant people in their lives that they could aspire to be anything they wished. The message encouraged the women to be willing to hold steadfast to pursuing an education and striving for excellence.

For all of them, the sheer determination fostered in their early lives remained an important characteristic for success in their careers. Clearly African, Coloured and Indian South Africans, not only had to counter stereotypical societal (and sometimes family) expectations for girls but also the racial strictures imposed by a ruthless apartheid system. Their stories contain vivid descriptions of the effects of apartheid on their families and the quest for education. Steadfast pursuit of an education was important for all of the women. While some of the women had challenges in obtaining an education, they all excelled and valued the difference education made in their lives.

Despite all of the women being part of the upper class in their current lives, their early lives also show women leaders can emerge from different class backgrounds. Not all of the white women had middle-class origins and not all the African, Indian and Coloured women came from impoverished origins. This was also true for the non-South African women interviewed.

When the book moves into the women’s career journeys, it reveals the sexism and racism many of them encountered. The organisations they entered were both gendered and racialised. The South African women particularly entered organisations where leadership roles were reserved for white males. Most of these women were trailblazers in the organisations they entered. Their experiences included tokenism, being labelled as incompetent despite qualifications, and stereotyping. They had to devise strategies for navigating the barriers and manage the stress and negativity surrounding them.

These chapters in the book offer excellent advice about personal strategies and tactics for responding to what scholars refer to as micro-aggressions of sexism and racism. In our book, we referred to these as daily doses of sexism and racism. A single dose may not be debilitating but the cumulative effect can be toxic. What is clear from the women’s narratives is that theses micro-aggressions can take a toll on women’s self-esteem and confidence. Yet, the advice from the women in Equal but different is that it is important to know how to challenge these aggressions while championing the cause for gender equity.

At the same time, the women have a lot to say about what leaders and organisations must do to achieve gender transformation and build inclusive organisations. The suggestions they make are reinforced by the inclusion of interviews about the roles of men as important allies. In Chapter 4 men talk about their role in achieving gender equity. The chapter includes interviews with prominent male leaders, including Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy President of South Africa. All of the women had stories about men who had been allies in supporting their careers. Some men did this as family members, spouses and partners, while others were mentors and sponsors from other spheres of society.

I do hope this book will be widely read, not only by women, but by men as well. I expect the women’s stories will resonate loudly with other women in leadership positions. But I also believe the book will be aspirational for younger women who will be inspired by the powerful stories and advice shared. An entire chapter is devoted to advice for aspiring women leaders.

I also believe young people, who are sometimes reluctant to read a purely historical text, can benefit from the rich historical data in the women’s narratives. Their lives transverse the apartheid era and the current transformation towards a new nation. In telling their stories, we gain insight into what it was like to grow up under apartheid, glimpses into the lives and roles of prominent anti-apartheid activists, life as an exile, and the roles the women are playing to contribute to nation building and enabling a better world.

I hope corporate and government leaders will read the book with a goal of understanding the part they must play to increase not only the number of women in leadership but also to ensure women are able to bring all of their power, talent, knowledge and commitment to building strong institutions and the South Africa envisioned in 1994.

If we are to achieve gender equity in the 21st century in South Africa, it must become a national and organisational strategic imperative. We have made great strides since 1994 in addressing significant socio-economic problems, but we still have much to do to make sure every South African attains all of the liberties and quality of life envisioned in the Constitution. I do not believe this can be attained unless we fully harness the energy of women in this quest.

Lastly, Equal but different: Women leaders’ life stories; overcoming race, gender and social class is also an important book for academics. The book does an excellent job of demystifying the rather abstract concept of ‘intersectionality’ of race, gender and class in South African society.

I have argued in other spaces that the research we do as a developmental state must not only be theoretically sound but also practical. The knowledge we generate must improve practice. One of the on-going debates among academics is how to illustrate practically the idea that we occupy multiple social identities at the same time and the effects of this.

I believe Equal but different: Women leaders; life stories; overcoming race, gender and social class does an excellent job of unpacking the lived experience of the intersection of race, gender and social class for women leaders in South Africa. It also helps us to understand the need to embrace the complexity of identities in trying to build a non-racial, non-sexist egalitarian nation that builds on all its differences (including religion, language, physical ability, and ethnicity) without resorting to a single narrative of inequality.

The stories of struggle, resilience and triumph shared by the women in this book reinforce my hope that South Africa will be the nation that offers the world a lesson on how to create a truly equal society. But, as all the women in the book state, it will take structural interventions from all sectors of society as well as leadership from all members of society.

Prof Stella M Nkomo

University of Pretoria

October 2016

| 1 |

Ruled by Race, Gender and Class

My interest in this area of study is based on my strong belief that people are born equal but different. It is a belief that equity across gender, race, social class and sexual orientation will be attained in my lifetime.

The key for the future of any country and any institution is the capability to attract, develop and retain the best talent. Women make up one half of the world’s human capital. Empowering and educating girls and women, and leveraging talent and leadership fully in the global economy, politics and society are thus fundamental elements of succeeding and prospering in an ever more competitive world. In particular, with talent shortages projected to become more severe in much of the developed and developing world, maximising access to female talent is a strategic imperative for business. - Schwab (2012)

The aim of this book is to share the wisdom I have gained in the field while investigating the impact of the intersection of race, gender and social class on women leaders’ work experience and career progression in order to come up with strategies for gender transformation at leadership level in corporate South Africa, as the subject of the thesis for my Doctorate in Business Leadership, awarded to me by Unisa in 2014.

My interest in this area of study is based on my strong belief that people are born equal but different. It is a belief that our differences are our strength as a people and should be celebrated. It is a belief that equity across gender, race, social class and sexual orientation will be attained in my lifetime.

Considering where we stand in terms of gender representation in South Africa, and globally, my belief is quite ambitious. This is confirmed by several statistics globally. The world’s first female Prime Minister who was not a relative of a male leader, Margaret Thatcher of the UK, was only elected in 1979. In close to four decades the number of female political leaders is still just slightly over 10% in the world. Women CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies only account for 4.4% (2015); the JSE is no different at less than 3% (2015).

Getting the perspective of woman CEOs across race and class on how to transform gender at leadership level could add an important voice to transformation and could benefit decision-makers in business and in government. The objective of gaining a better understanding of women’s lived experiences in leadership using a more holistic approach, and understanding their success strategies, was to formulate strategies for a racially equitable gender transformation at leadership level.

The under-representation of women at leadership level is a universal challenge that has been investigated by many scholars. However, the inequity persists globally. BWASA 2012; Gastelaars 2002; ILO in Calas & Smircich 2006; Pesonen, Tienari & Vanhala 2009; Van de Vliert & Van der Vegt 2004). Bell and Nkomo (2001), Haslam and Ryan (2008), Hoyt & Blascovich (2007) and Sanchez-Hucles and Davis (2010) are some of the scholars who have investigated the intersection of different social identities among women in their corporate experience in the USA.

Nkomo and Ngambi (2009, p. 52) did a comprehensive search to identify published research on African women leaders and managers during the period between 1990 and 2008. Out of 43 publications, 18 focused on women in South Africa. The topic most commonly investigated was barriers to the advancement of women. Only a few studies investigated race and gender simultaneously (Littrel & Nkomo 2005). One surprising finding was the gross under-representation of research focused on identifying empowerment strategies and policies to effect change in the status of women leaders and managers on the continent (Nkomo & Ngambi 2009, p. 59). Nkomo & Ngambi (2009, p. 52) conclude:

The relatively small number of studies focusing on leadership suggests we have yet to fully explore the meaning and practice of leadership among African women leaders and managers. This is clearly a fertile area for future research studies.

The above statement is supported by Williams (cited in Nkomo 2011, p. 367) who contends that there is a complete lack of authentic, well-sustained African input on post-colonialism.

The target population for my study ( The impact of the intersection of race, gender and class on women CEOs’ lived experience and career progression: strategies for gender transformation at leadership level in corporate South Africa ) was women leaders across race and class who held leadership positions as CEOs or chairmen. The chosen participants provided diversity in race, class, professional qualification, sector of work and background (e.g. rural and urban). There have been concerns in gender studies about lack of research in developing economies and by women from those economies, especially Africa (Nkomo & Ngambi 2009). Most of the studies in this field