I accept that I may be exaggerating but if, like me, you spend large parts of the day with tweetdeck trundling away in the corner of your computer screen you will no doubt agree that any exaggeration is only slight. I can’t speak for the whole of twitter, of course, that would be an exaggeration too far even for me, but my little corner seems to be largely populated by people who post the most vacuous nonsense and, worse still, those that retweet it.

As a child my bedroom walls had posters with sayings like “Love is never having to say your sorry” or “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” printed above pictures of puppies or kittens or deserted beaches or the like. In the ’70′s most girls bedrooms were filled with such nonsense and pictures of David Cassidy, of course. But, on the whole, we all grew out of it. It would seem that some people haven’t and have replaced posters on the bedroom wall with posts on twitter. Am I supposed to impressed by their ability to quote from the Tao Te Ching? Maybe 20 years ago I might have been. Maybe in conversation the ability to drop Shakespearean quotes into the mix might still impress me but on-line I know that theirs isn’t real knowledge, only the ability to use ctrl-c followed by crtl-v.

I heard an interview with Professor Brian Cox on one of the Radio 4 news programmes in which he argued for quantum physics to be taught in primary schools. Initially I thought he was joking but his point was totally valid. The mathematical formulae can be remarkably simple. It is the actual thinking that is hard and it is hard for everyone. For example take E=mc2. It states that one term (E) is equal to a second term (m) multiplied by the square of a third term (c).  Something equals something times something else, just like the times table 10 = 5×2. It isn’t the maths that is hard it is the implications of the theory that require thought.

The fact that a single photon of light can pass through two slits at the same time is counter intuitive. It isn’t a mathematical problem it is a conceptual one. Theorists, thinkers if you will, worked to develop to theories. Predictions were made from these theories, experimenters worked to see whether the predictions were true and mathematics allowed results to be recorded and challenged. But the thinking comes first! This is the point and the reason why Professor Cox wanted it taught in schools. Not to learn the formulae but to learn how to think. And I agree. In the rush to get more and more children to pass more and more examinations at higher and higher grades we are at risk of forgetting to teach them to think.

With soundbite news and celebrity tittle-tattle filling the media the inability to think deeply about issues is further damaged. But the real problem comes when we allow belief to be given the same merit as knowledge. When there are programmes about evolution, for example, they are often framed as a debate. There is no debate. Evolution is a proven, continually provable fact. Being called the Theory of Evolution doesn’t mean that we don’t know. It means that the idea is constantly being challenged for validity, constantly being improved, expanded and built upon. By giving equal space to those who believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old creates the impression that there is room for debate. There is not. Those beliefs are wrong – have been proven to be wrong. Giving those views airtime suggests that there may be room for debate, that there may be an alternative to evolution when there is not.

Let me exaggerate for illustration. We can all agree that 2+2=4. What if someone comes along and says that they believe that 2+2 is actually 79. If we allow that belief to be debated alongside what we know to be true then it creates the idea that there may be some possibility that even if 2+2 isn’t 79 there may be some chance that it isn’t 4. By discussing the possibility of some ludicrous notion based on belief we undermine what we know to be true.

So can we have more thinking and less ctrl-c/ctrl-v please.

So what I was really looking for was someone who inspired me and who everyone else reading this would know. An inspirational celebrity if you will. But there is a problem here too. We don’t really know the celebrities do we? There is a lot of debate at the moment around the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, sparked by the film starring Meryl Streep. Margaret Thatcher was the first woman Prime Minister, a huge achievement in what is still, some 40 years later, a male dominated environment. In this context she is surely an inspiration but when her actions in government are taken into consideration I would imagine that she is an inspiration only to extreme right-wing politicians, and I do not count myself amongst them. She probably inspired her children, after all they would know her best but then again, possibly not. They would know if she cut her toenails in the bath and drink the left over milk from her breakfast cereal straight from the bowl. She probably didn’t but my point is that we don’t know the whole woman and so how can she be an inspiration? It is better to suggest that some of her actions were inspirational. Better still that she had influence.

I was pondering these thoughts in a cafe with a friend on Saturday morning when her phone buzzed as a text came through. She read it and looked confused and more than a little embarrassed. The text was from a close friend of hers who only a week ago had split up from his long-term partner. He wanted to thank my friend as it was her approach to grasping life and embracing change that had been the catalyst for him to leave a situation in which he felt increasingly trapped. He said that she had inspired him to feel that there was more to life than his current situation. What can you say? My friend had been an inspiration. Not in a way that she had planned or would have wanted but the way she lived her life inspired someone close to her to act. She had, albeit unconsciously, influenced his decision-making.

Which made me think that we can all be inspirational. I may be doing it right now. A couple of months ago I was on an expert panel with three women who I admire greatly. I found myself wondering why I was there. How could what I have to say on any topic be anywhere near as interesting or insightful as what they would say. I didn’t really feel that I deserved to be on the same platform as these exceptional women. Imagine my surprise when, in answer to a question from the floor on the nature of success, one of these women expressed the view that she felt somewhat in awe of her fellow panelists too! We all inspire each other at different times and when we use our influence we have the opportunity to affect change.

The Herald newspaper has a womans pullout section each Thursday. It is a prime example of media tokenism and confirms to the view “women are only interested in botox and handbags.” The sections are listed in order of importance as they see it and read; health, fashion, family,  relationships, work. leisure, opinion – enough said. This week they had “Scotland’s Top 50 Women of Influence”. Setting aside what influence the leader of the Scottish Tory Party might actually have the point is that we should focus on influence. Not inspiration, influence.

So don’t look around for inspiration; for someone to follow. Concentrate on yourself and consider what you can do to inspire others and, more importantly, how to best use your influence.

Each morning I walk my dog through the golf course and past the sign that reads, “Please keep dogs on the path and on the lead at all times.” Each morning I encounter all types of dogs running freely across the fairways and greens with their owners trailing far behind. I have my dog on the lead, as requested. She is a bit skittish and other dogs bounding up, uncontrolled make her worse. The stray dog owners eventually round up their disobedient pets and utter phrases like, “he just wants to play,” “he wullnae bite” and the like. My point is that no matter how well behaved you think your dog is the sign is there for everyone.  The most well-behaved dog I know is a cross sheepdog called Mitch. His perfect behaviour didn’t stop him diving into a bush and eating a couplke of peacocjk chicks when he was off his lead up at the big hoose. He’s a dog!  So yes. Keep dogs on the path and on the lead means you.

Later in the day I park my car in Crieff and pull up alongside the ticket meter which has a sign above saying, “Please park within the marked bays”. Despite this notice prominently displayed, I have to inch my car between a monster 4×4 with blacked out windows and a Jaguar, both of which have been parked at an angle across their own bays, with their wheels about a foot into the space I am trying to enter. I manage this, just, and have to use all of my yoga skills to snake out of the drivers seat. Had I been carrying a passenger they would have had to exit through the skylight! This is all well and good and the image of me slithering out of the car is probably mildly amusing to some but the old gentleman who had parked his car to the other side of the Jaguar wasn’t so flexible. In fact he had an artificial leg and there was no way he could squeeze into his car and was forced to wait until the driver of the Jaguar returned and moved his vehicle before he could drive his own car away. So if the sign says to park within the marked bays it means you. You might be a yogini and be able to manoeuvre through the smallest gap in the drivers side door but others may not be so lucky. The sign is there for everyone. It is there for you.

Every day I meet women who without exception tell me how wonderful the3rdimagazine is and what a fabulous job I’m doing. This is all very pleasant and I’m flattered. I explain that the magazine is a co-operative, that everyone can join, that everyone can get involved and that everyone will share the profits. Once more, praise from the audience follows. I explain that independence is important; that I don’t want the magazine to me sponsored and controlled by a big corporate and that I don’t want to be in that endless loop of looking for grant funding. I suggest that if women really want an independent voice then if we all contribute a small amount, just £50, then the venture will continue to grow. Without exception the business model is applauded, hailed as a fantastic way of approaching business and the perfect way for all women to collaborate in creating a business of real value. Yet fewer than 20% of the women I meet actually pay their £50 to be part of the venture. Now I appreciate that some may have been being nice to my face while really thinking that I was talking nonsense, but I think that this is a very small number as all of the women I speak to remain in contact. They post great comments on the published articles, circulate them through their own networks and connect with us on LinkedIn etc. My feeling is that most of the women I meet are happy leave it to someone else to make things happen. So, if it is you I am meeting and I say, “If all women join we will continue to be a powerful voice speaking on behalf of women in business”, I mean you. Don’t leave it to others. I am talking to you.

For the past 5 years I have walked most days through a small piece of woodland that edges the golf course. At the start of the year there was a narrow path that wove between bushes, patches of woodland flowers and mature trees. Whatever the weather the path was always dry, due to the tree canopy, fallen leaves and vegetation absorbing the rainwater. At the start of the year someone started to ride their horse through the woodland. To begin with I was surprised that a horse and rider could fit along the path but very, very quickly it became broader as vegetation became trampled and flattened to both sides of the path and overhanging branches were broken down. Parts of the path became rutted and held the water when it rained. Now the what was a narrow woodland path is now a wide, muddy scar. Tree roots are exposed and the ground in the waterlogged. In the recent high winds several trees were damaged as the wet ground provides less purchase for the roots that firm, dry ground. Now I’m not suggesting that the rider deliberately set out to ruin the path but that is the outcome. My assertion is that they just didn’t think. When you are happily perched 4 foot up on a horse, clad in Lycra, leather and the latest Barbour jacket I suspect mud doesn’t affect you. And since the mud didn’t affect them personally, in their mind, nothing has happened. By the way, there was no need to use the woodland path as there is a wide gravel path that follows a parallel track at the edge of the woods, so use of the woodland path isn’t even a short cut. The damage hasn’t affected them personally but damage has been caused that has lessened the value of the woodland for the whole community. So if you are sitting there on your horse, or driving your 4×4, you might be OK but how do your actions affect others?

And in case you think I am being more than usually grumpy or even frivolous let me finish with the story of my nephew. He was born a perfectly strong, healthy boy and welcomed into a large and adoring family. He died at just 6 weeks old. He died from whooping cough. Now whooping cough had been virtually eradicated as everyone had their child vaccinated. By creating a protected population there was no hosts in which the bacteria could grow and the illness it caused ceased to be a problem. However in the mid 1990′s lots of parents decided that they wouldn’t get their children vaccinated. They thought, erroneously, that there might be a slight risk from the combined MRS vaccine and took against vaccination in general. After all these illnesses didn’t really exist in the population any more so why bother? There is a very good reason why. It is only because we all agreed to have our children vaccinated that the whole population was protected. As soon as there were unprotected people the bacteria was able to thrive and once there were enough unprotected hosts the illness could spread. The outbreak of whooping cough that resulted from this behaviour killed my nephew.

So I’m talking to you. All of you. Don’t leave it to someone else to do the right thing. Behave well. You. Yes. YOU!

In the 1970′s the world was racked by the fear of nuclear war. It was the time of the cold war and the arms race had escalated to a point of mutually assured destruction. Despite the impossibility of survival, public information films showed us all how to make a nuclear shelter in the living room, by removing all the doors and hiding beneath them. Really. Read When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs if you are too young to remember the films and the fear.

Anyway, a popular pastime in those strange days was to muse over what you would do in the four minutes you would have between receiving the warning that Russia had launched the bomb and being blown to bits by it’s arrival. Mostly the choices were predictable and frivolous, having sex and/or getting drunk on vintage champagne being the most obvious. In fairness, though, what can you actually do in 4 minutes?

What about if you had a day?
We are all familiar, I’m sure, with the saying “live every day as if it’s your last”, but how practical is that? You’d have never have any clean clothes or food in the fridge! In real life we have to plan ahead, to work on the assumption that we will wake up next morning. But how would you choose to fill 24hours if you truly knew that they would be your last? With loved-ones? Skydiving? Bungee jumping?

What about a 7 days?
What if you were given a week to live?A trip to a part of the world that you haven’t visited but have always wanted to see? A whistle-stop tour to say goodbye to friends and relatives? Or a week spent putting your affairs in order so that your kids don’t have to fork out for funeral costs?

How about a month?
An extended holiday? Spending all the money you’d put aside for a rainy day? Writing that novel?

And what if you had 6 months? A year? 5 years?

Let me phrase the question slightly differently. How long would it be for the time you knew you had left to you to mean that you would make no changes to your daily routine, that you would just carry on as normal. Say you knew you were going to live for 50 years would you change anything now? After all, you’d have plenty of time to do the things you “really” want to do tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or when the kids leave home, or when you retire….. you get the message.

We do have to PLAN as if we are going to live for the full 3 score years and 10 but we should LIVE in the moment. An ex-partner used to drive me crazy by asking what I really wanted to do. I’d invariably say “travel around Europe in my campervan” to which he would reply, “no you don’t. If you really wanted to do it you would be doing it.” It used to drive me into a rage as I always had a reason, a very good reason naturally, why I couldn’t do it right away. But, and I hope he never reads this blog, I fear he might be right. We all put things off – do things that aren’t important to us at the expense of those things that are.

So, what’s stopping you doing the things that you really want to do?

The scarcity of women in government is a scandal that needs to be addressed.

Currently at Westminster only one in five members of parliament are women. When it comes to the centre of government, only one in six members of the Cabinet are women. To state the obvious, one in two of the population are women and this lack of women’s representation at the heart of our political system needs to be addresses in order to ensure that women have equal influence in decisions that affect our everyday lives and the society in which we live.
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It is almost a hundred years since women won the right to vote but at the current rate of change; the number of women MPs increased by just 2.5% at the 2010 general election and has increased by only 4% since 1997. it will be almost as long again before there is equal representation in parliament, this is despite the fact that our political system is founded on the core principles of liberty, equality and democracy. To set this in a global context, over 50 countries around the world have parliaments that are now more representative than the Westminster Parliament.

So what? Why does it matter that there are so few women in Government?

In my opinion it is fundamentally a matter of fairness. As women we pay the same taxes as men but do not have an equal voice in determining how those taxes are spent on the public services that we all use. And as with boards of corporate bodies where evidence emerges daily that greater diversity improves performance, a more diverse Parliament will lead to better governance as women bring different experiences and different approaches to decision-making than men.

The Davies Report makes a number of recommendations to improve diversity in the boardroom, all based on the improved performance and profitability that will accrue from having more women in senior, decision-making roles yet FTSE 100 companies are reluctant to take up these recommendations. The government should take the leade. Parliament has huge symbolic power: where they lead, others will follow.

So, why aren’t there more women in politics?
In order to illustrate the problems that face women in politics I will use the experience of one woman who has made it into the centre of government, Roseanna Cunningham MSP. Roseanna is my local MSP and has spoke about her career in earlier editions of the3rdimagazine.

Firstly, some of the practical barriers that continue to perpetuate women’s exclusion from political life need to be broken down. The most persistant of these pertain to childcare. In talking to Roseanna earlier this year she mentioned that the parliament at Holyrood was coming under pressure from taxpayers to close the creche. Pressure was being brought to bear as it was considered inappropraite that taxpayers money should fund a “perk” for MSP’s that many working women do not have access to in their own workplaces. This pressure should be resisted. Roseanna doesn’t have children and expressed the opinion that the job, as currently constituted, would be impossible to do if she did have a family. Closing services that help women with children to take a role in parliament cannot be right. On the contrary, we should be doing all we can to support working mothers in parliament and across the board. The antisocial hours and bizzarely structured parliamentary day needs to be changed to work for women, rather than women working to fit into outdated working practices. These changes would benefit all MP’s, surely?

Media portrayals of female politicians need to be changed. Again with reference to Roseanna’s experience, what she is wearing is often commented upon in press reports before what she has to say. Not withstanding David Cameron’s cuddlefest with Mumsnet, in the 2010 general election little coverage was given to women’s presence in British politics and how issues will affect women. We can already see how the austerity measures introduced by the coalition government is disproportionately affecting women in the workforce.

In order to change the numbers in government then more women need to be chosen by the political parties to stand for election. Put simply, if the political parties are serious about increasing women’s representation, they can do this just by standing more women candidates in winnable seats.

We all have a responsibilty here. If we want more women in positions of power in government then we all need to take action. Counting Women in have a campaign to increase representation and I recommend that you take a look and sign the petition.

But is that enough? I think not.
I am a member of a political party, the co-operative party which, a fact I wasn’t aware of when I joined, is affiliated in government to the Labour Party. The meetings are dire, turgid affairs. The local branch is exclusively male. I am 50 and it is the only group I attend where I am the youngest person there – probably by a good 15 years! The processes are archane. I am old enough to remember a TV show called “the Wheeltapper’s and Shunter’s Social Club”. If you are too then you have a good feel for the co-op party meetings. The language of composites and motions is straight out of the 1970′s. In addition I am consistently excluded from communications. I hand over my e-mail address at every meeting as it has mysteriously dissappeared from the database. This usually means that I get notice of the next meeting but then my contact details disappear again. After a few months I contact the local organiser, find out what is happening, what I have missed and arrange to attend the next meeting, where I hand over my e-mail address and the whole cycle starts over again. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that my exclusion is deliberate, though some incompetence is also at work within the organisation.

I ask difficult questions, I challenge the status quo and raise concerns about the composition of the party at local, Scottish and National level. I might never make a difference locally but I know that there is more chance of influencing decisions if I am there than if I’m not.

So this is the challenge – to join together and campaign through petition and protest but also to take personal responsibility and take individual action.

I thought not.

For the record, I hate shopping. I buy handbags in order to carry more easily the stuff I need to carry and buy shoes to save walking barefoot through the Edinburgh grime. If I want red wine and gossip and canapes I will go to Gleneagles with my pals.

But my objection to these type of networking events is more fundamental. They perpetuate the idea that women love spending more than they enjoy earning – that men earn the money and the women spend it.

The facts are somewhat different. A recent study (by pollsters TNS-BMRB) showed that men are more likely to spend a windfall on something nice and unnecessary than are women; and that women are more likely to save, add to a pension or reduce household debt. But the media never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. The Herald, for example, recently launched a women’s supplement that is packed full of shopping pages and which recently had a front page showing a woman carrying arms full of shopping bags to illustrate the story of how this reckless spending has plummeted families into debt. The fact that women’s debt may actually be the result of low income or being single mothers doesn’t get a look in.

Even while this image of conspicuous persists women are also facing the blame for the retail downturn – apparently we aren’t shopping enough! Janet Daley argued in her column in The Daily Telegraph that that the economy won’t grow unless women go shopping asserting that, “the
most significant form of female political power is deciding when it’s safe to spend.”

I am probably guilty as charged. I don’t like shopping and only shop when I have to. But that’s not the point. This constant obsession with women’s spending habits obscures our role in wealth creation. In fact the move of women into work over the past 40 years has fuelled economic growth. Women have both started their own businesses and helped the organisations that they work for to grow.

And it is women’s enterprise not women’s spending that will help us to move out of the current recession.

So please, all of the business networking events for women, do us all a favour and concentrate on the business and not the handbags and gladrags.

Am I pleased?
Surely this is a triumph for women?

Well, no. I am not pleased. This is another piece of tokenism that doesn’t address the underlying problem, which is with the system and not with the appointment of the figurehead. We have a female head of state now, the queen. True, the next queen might be there as the first born of the reigning monarch rather than because there were no men available but what will really have changed. Nothing.

This is not just a matter of a quaint, dysfunctional and largely marginalised family whose role is purely ceremonial. Prince Charles, for example, routinely interferes with due process in matters that affect the Duchy of Cornwall in order to ensure that decisions are always made in his favour.

And privilege still ‘rules’ in Britain. On of the stories uncovered by the current storm surrounding the relaxation of border controls is that UK Customs and Revenue have agreed to let off Goldman Sachs and Vodafone with millions in unpaid taxes – leading one insider to observe that ,for the very rich, taxation is discretionary’. Essentially, if you are a wealthy individual or large corporation and can afford to employ expensive lawyers to evade taxes and to dispute any attempts to reclaim tax owed then HMRC will cut you a deal in order to avoid lengthy court cases.

Compare and contrast with the instant issuing of threatening letters and fines should a standard rate taxpayer miss the submission deadline for tax returns.

The rich are better equipped, better advised and more prepared to avoid taxes than at any time in the past. The principle of a fair days work for a fair days pay has completely broken down, most clearly evidenced by the huge bonuses and massive pay rises that the elite continue to award themselves despite record falls in the stock market and continued corporate losses.

I am not anti-capitalism. I have run a succession of entrepreneurial businesses for profit over the past 20 years. What I am is anti insider capitalism, the type that allows the very rich and powerful to exploit and manipulate the system in a way that ordinary people and businesses simply can’t.

So how about this. If government departments are unwilling or unable to gather the taxes that are due from the income of rich, lets shift the tax burden to what is owned rather than what is earned. After all, cash can be moved round the world at the click of a mouse – it is much more difficult to move a flat in Kensington or Knightsbridge to an offshore tax haven.

If we really want to make a difference we need to find a way to redistribute wealth and relying on the rich paying income tax and corporates paying corporation tax clearly isn’t working. We should transfer taxation to property tax, land duty, inheritance tax and the like.

We should focus on dismantling privilege and not just change the way that the head of the whole outdated system is created.

This is all well and good and Suzanne gave a number of tips and tactics that women can use to navigate the current structures but actually I think we are missing the point in trying to work our way to the top of a system designed and built by men for men. We need to work to change the system. Of course we do, and I will, but I do not believe that things will change anytime soon.

Why? Because we need a change in the culture and because I know my teenaged son and I see and hear his pals, I am pessimistic. They are what is coming next and they are just the same as what went before. They shout and swear and value women for the way they look. They think women should do most of the cleaning, most of the shopping and all of the child-rearing. Oh, and women should go out to work, because why should women just stay at home with the kids when they have to earn a living. These are good boys, well educated boys. My own son has seen me work, start, build and grow businesses as a single Mum yet my personal example hasn’t been enough to significantly challenge his expectations of women in general.

This is what we are up against – the unseen cultural barriers. Sexism in the workplace exists and while it might not be as obvious as in past decades it is still there, hovering just out of reach of tribunals and disciplinary procedures.

It used to be acceptable to make sexist comments to female members of staff, often disguised as “banter” but betraying deeper prejudices. While this is less common, men will comment on how women look, only now they do it when they’ve left the room.

What I see with the next generation of men moving into the workplace is that they still find toilet humour funny, they find farting hilarious, they nod and wink and jostle each other if an attractive girl goes past. They may refrain from wolf-whistling, which is something I suppose, but their behaviour isn’t that different to the last generation of boys; the one’s I was at school with; the ones that are now running most of our big businesses.

This acceptance of juvenile stupidity in boys leads to a greater tolerance of inappropriate behaviour in men. They can pass on risqué texts and youtube videos where women indulging in the same practices are shunned. I can’t see these dual-standards changing anytime soon.

And whatever legislation is put in place to encourage shared parental care of children the change needed is cultural. If a child is taken ill at school who will the teacher call? Mum or Dad? Further than that, do you give your own mobile or that of your partner as first point of contact anyway? If the kids wake up in the night who gets up to see to them?

It is often said that women can’t or wont put in the hours needed to get to the very top; that leaving before their male companions shows lack of commitment. In my experience when men stay in the office after hours it is not to complete an urgent project, it is not to work on behalf of their employers at all. It is to avoid going home. Men stay late in the office so that their kids will be bathed and in bed by the time they get home. This is a great opportunity for those men to build relationships, to network with peers, to make connections that will be of benefit when they look for promotion. It is an opportunity that is not open to most women. We are the ones at home feeding and bathing the kids! I do know women who have reached the top of their careers and had a family. Most have delegated childcare and most of those have delegated to another women, nanny or au pair, not the father of the children.

What happens if we keep the status quo and teach women the tips and tricks to succeed in a mans world? Well, as far as I can tell will still have a man’s world with a few women with very thick skins who can thrive in that arena and who do make it to the top.

We will all be able to find a woman who has done it all, who has had it all, and who has retained feminine qualities, but they are the exception not the rule. I am confident that change can happen but we have to make change happen. Things will not just change of their own account. So if we are going to make a difference we need to change the rules not just create a few more exceptions.

From Women’s Enterprise :
“As long as women remain under-represented in enterprise through lack of practical support, the government is wasting a multi-billion pound opportunity to grow the economy.”

From the Davies Report
“This is not about aiming for a specific figure and is not just about promoting equal opportunities but it is about improving business performance. There is growing evidence to show that diverse boards are better boards, delivering financial out-performance and stock market growth.”

Stephen Alambritis, Commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said:
“At the current rate of change it will take 73 years for women to achieve equal representation on the boards of FTSE 100 companies. We need to speed up progress. This is not just a moral issue. Our businesses are paying a penalty; there is evidence that more diverse boards take better and more responsible decisions.

Yet, for example, of 180 HR directors surveyed by recruitment firm Robert Half, only 41 per cent said they were running or planning initiatives to help women achieve professional parity with men and according to figures released by CMI, the gap between how much male and female managers are paid has widened by £500 to £10,546 in the past year.

So while, young women achieve better educationally than boys at the age of 16 and a higher proportion of girls than boys continue in education to degree level, their early success does not translate into similar advantages in terms of careers and pay in later life.

We are all influenced by what is expected of us as a man or a woman. These expectations are subtle and pervasive and lead to the feeling ‘that this is the way that it has always been and will always be’. The challenge is to change those expectations.

Which leads me to the November Issue of the3rdimagazine.
It is up to us all, women and men working together, to take up the challenge of changing these expectations and help work towards increased diversity in the boardroom, the workplace, in public office and in our wider communities.

So for November, (deadline 2nd November for publication 7th) you have the chance to challenge the current expectations and share your views on issues around this theme, which will be expanded over the coming months to form a permanent “Diversity and Equality” section in the3rdimagazine.

I’m delighted to be supported in this venture by Jane Kenyon, co-founder at Girls Out Loud, serial entrepreneur, well respected coach, inspirational speaker and passionate advocate for equality and the need for change. Jane will act as editor for this new section from December onwards.

So please have your say and help us to challenge and to change.
Contact anne@the3rdi.co.uk for details

It is true that most Americans know little of the world beyond their shores and that their politicians practice casual xenophobia by routinely mispronouncing the names of the countries with whom they have differences, like I- rak and I-ran.

But are they alone in their ignorance? Are we much better?

Pretty much everything that I know about the world is viewed through a BBC lens which, while not as obviously biased as CNN and Fox, certainly has it’s own editorial style. For example, frequent reference to rogue states, failed states, the axis of evil will, over time, mould our judgement of these countries.

But it is the promotion of one particular world view that concerns me.

Africa is a huge continent made up of many countries large and small and richer and poorer yet what is our over-arching view? That most people are starving. This is because the images that fill our screens are of starving children. So where does the BBC get these images and the stories that underlie them?

The BBC doesn’t have many reporters in Africa. They rely largely on local sources to bring stories to their attention and to grant access to the images that later fill our screens. Typically these stories are provided by the NGOs who, being largely staffed by English speaking workers, provide an easy route to stories.

But are the NGOs the best people to provide a balanced picture? I think not.

Put simply, NGOs rely on donations from the developed world to support their work in Africa and beyond. It is easy to see why they might feed particular stories to news corporations, including the BBC. Images of starving children beamed into the living rooms of middle-England ensures that the stream of donations flows freely. From the point of view of the NGO industry this is perfectly reasonable. They are commercial businesses which rely on donations to survive. It is in their interest to proffer stories that will result in increased donations. In purely commercial terms there is nothing wrong with this. And I am not suggesting that the work that they do isn’t valuable and worth supporting.

My concern is that the stories they tell and the images that accompany them are only part of the story but this singular narrative is the one that fills our screens, newspapers and radio broadcasts.

If we are to avoid having a simplistic world view we need more balanced reporting, or at least stories trawled from a wider sea.