The ‘glass cliff’ and why the McKinsey saga shows it still exists

now?Yeah.

I mean, I think we can even extrapolate from the phenomenon of the glass cliff to just gender discrimination more generally, and I think we do see very mixed responses to that from both men and women.

But, you know, if we're talking about men's responses to it, you know, you have some men that are really strong allies that see the problem and wanna do something about it.

You have others that might say, "Oh, well, you know, it might be out there, but I don't really care about it.

It's not something that, that, that I'm worried about." And you do have a, a group, if you survey men, there's definitely a significant portion of men who don't think gender equality exists, who, who would question phenomenons like the glass cliff or the gender pay gap or, you know, any other, uh, gender discrimination that we can see.

And we can see this in individuals, but we can also see it, say, in the US, for example, where you look at the current government and, and their responses to, say, uh, diversity, equality, and inclusion, DEI, um, initiatives, and, and really the idea that it's not needed, that it's unfair, that we shouldn't be there.

So this is definitely not something that happened 20 years ago and we're-

Yeah

... sort of well past it.

It's an ongoing phenomenon.

But do you think that Trumpian narrative, which is very much, of course, anti-DEI and, you know, we don't need to address gender inequality in the workplace, that's not really a thing, uh, do you think that's impacting men's views here in Australia? And if so, by how much, you know? Like, is this sort of comment that we're seeing from Chris Bradley, I realize you don't wanna comment on him personally, but, you know, is there any connection, I guess, between this really widespread narrative, uh, and even pushback against women's rights in America to what we're seeing here in terms of men's, uh, perspective on women and particularly in the workplace?

Yeah, we definitely know that American politics and American rhetoric plays itself out worldwide, you know, that, that these things gain momentum and, and they appear elsewhere.

I mean, I, I don't think that we're in the same, exact same position here in Australia.

I think we do have, say, for example, a lot of government support for gender equality.

We've got the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

We've got clear legislation in this space.

But I do think seeing this sort of stuff come from Trump or seeing this sort of stuff replicated on social media does, I guess, promote that sort of idea, and it does also give license for people to express these ideas.

So we never know what's, what people are thinking versus what they're saying.

You know, it could be that a lot of people are thinking some things, but until you get the permission to say it, and if you've got an American president saying these sorts of things, then maybe it feels like you've got permission to say those things out loud or on the internet.

Okay, so what's the real-world harm, though, for women in particular on the ground in Australia? You know, this, uh, is it just that they're being scapegoated? They're being blamed for poor performances at companies that were faltering before they even got there? Because I, I noted that back in the 2007 paper you wrote on this, you noted that there were media accusations at the time that women board members were wreaking havoc on the share prices at the top 100 companies in Britain, right? So they were being blamed for poor performance when actually what you had found is they'd been parachuted in once these companies were struggling.

So i- is that the problem, they're being scapegoated? Or i- is it, is it, is there more damage that happens when women encounter this glass cliff? And then beyond that, when men such as Chris Bradley or whoever deny that it even exists.