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Equality and the sexes: How do women fare today?

Finally, Britain can celebrate a Wimbledon victor. Yes, Andy Murray has at long last been crowned Wimbledon champion, and we at The Practice couldn’t be more proud, or quite frankly, more relieved!

This aside, we couldn’t help but notice after perusing through the many articles on his win, that something had been overlooked. With our national newspapers proudly declaring headlines such as, “Murray ends 77 year wait for British win”, it seems we’d forgotten that another Brit did in fact take the title long after tennis legend, Fred Perry. This was of course, Ladies Singles’ Champion, Virginia Wade, who won the prestigious accolade in 1977.

Perhaps we’re nitpicking; after all, we can understand this oversight given the fact that comparisons are being made within the same gender category. However, this slip does succeed a number of other sexist slurs to arise from this year’s tournament. Firstly, John Inverdale’s catty remark about champion Marion Bartoli proved that we can’t escape the tirade of sexism in sport. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: “Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little, ‘you’re never going to be a looker, you’ll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight?” If this wasn’t enough, Twitter feeds were punctuated with a few unnecessary comments attacking Bartoli’s appearance. “For the first time ever, a man wins the women’s Wimbledon final,” one user cruelly tweeted. A talented sportswoman wins a life-changing competition, and all Twitter trolls can do is comment on her looks? Unbelievable…

The tournament itself though has taken measures to put an end to sexism in this notoriously patriarchal sport; since 2007, male and female competitors have been awarded equal prize money at every stage of the competition. Where sexism aimed towards high-achieving women still exists, today’s society in general is of course a much better place for females looking to excel in all areas of the working world. Aside from sport, the number of women in business has been steadily growing, with more and more spearheading their own companies. This year alone, we’ve also seen an encouraging 2.3 per cent increase in the number of women on Britain’s biggest 100 boards, although it would be welcome news to see an increase on the mere three females running FTSE 100 companies.

Where female entrepreneurs are concerned, Dell’s recent Gender-GEDI female entrepreneurship index showed that the UK ranks sixth in terms of opportunity, with the US topping the list. And the key to success? Karen Quintos, senior vice-president at Dell, states that “[i]ncreased access to knowledge, networks, capital and technology” are the “critical” factors “if countries are to empower female entrepreneurship and create cultural success.” And the UK can be proud of the number of self-starters who also happen to be women: Lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone, Logistics manager Hilary Devey, and lastminute.com founder, Martha Lane Fox, are three who immediately spring to mind. And of course, our CEO, Kirsty McAllister, exemplifies the growing number of women running their own companies and agencies. Kirsty is also amongst a number of female entrepreneurs diversifying outreach- on a daily basis she heads both our New York and London teams, as well as liaising with our international client base. Needless to say, The Practice team is proud to have a female CEO at the helm of our agency, and all the better- research has shown that female bosses are fairer!

What are your views on gender equality in the workplace? And do you think that today’s environment is ripe for empowering females to succeed? We’d love to hear your thoughts and personal experiences on this, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and leave your comments on our Facebook page.