Cherie Blair blasts executives over ‘token women’ in senior management-level jobs
By ANIThursday, September 23, 2010
NEW YORK - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie has attacked executives from some of the world’s biggest companies for putting “token women” in senior management-level jobs.
Speaking at a lunch at the UN summit in New York, Cherie turned a talk on women in poor countries into a critique of the corporate world.
She told executives from Coca-Cola, GlaxSmithKline, Sony and other companies that “it is not just about the private sector helping the developing world” to empower women.
“Because the women who work in your organisations would give a hollow laugh if you go back and say ‘Oh, we believe in empowering women in the developing world and helping women’,” The Telegraph quoted Cherie, as saying.
“In fact, on your boards you have no women, or you just have token women, and in your senior management and in your middle management, women are not given the access to equal pay, equal opportunity and are not truly valued.”
“So the private sector, if they’re concerned about this, they have to begin in their own backyard,” she added.
Among the other 83 guests at the lunch were British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof.
While Clegg’s table discussed education, Geldof’s spoke about combating “poverty and hunger”. (ANI)
