With most of our nation focused on increasing the number of women on their boards, leadership teams and in the workforce, it is helpful to consider effective ways of hiring women and importantly, retaining them.

I am an absolute advocate for the 'right person for the role' in all cases and I am not such a fan of the term often used being a 'women in...' percentage target, as it can create tensions among a workforce if a woman is not given a role for the right reasons. Not only is this method of placement unfair, it will do her more harm than good if she does not have the backing of colleagues because she was perhaps seen as 'favoured' in obtaining the role to fulfil a target, even if that was only partially the reason.

However, there are reasons why a 'Gender Diversity Measure' is absolutely appropriate and in order to ensure we are capitalising on contributions that women can make, we need to ensure that our recruitment and retention strategies are embracing the different needs women have in the workplace.

I am in favour of calling it a 'Gender Diversity Target'. Why? Because during the majority of the 20th Century our cultural structure was very different. Women were predominantly the homemakers and, not they they weren't intelligent enough but due to social structure, they often didn't complete high school, let alone attend TAFE or University. Juxtapose that with our position today where women are scholars, leaders, executives and are contributing some ground-breaking research and knowledge to our societal landscape. I think you get my point.

So the question I have to ask is, "Why is it such a struggle to obtain more equality?". There shouldn't be this overt pressure to reach it and there is also no need to make men feel they are, potentially, not 'in favour' or perhaps don't have equal standing for positions. It should be a pure reflection of our modern culture for every person and therefore, I would have thought, quite simple to achieve! Why not so?

One reason is perhaps that due to this cultural shift, there is a lot of pressure on women to be 'super-heroes'. By that I mean, manage a challenging role or full-time position, maintain the groceries in the cupboard, keep the clothes clean, the house tidy and be a social host on the weekend! This is changing and men are contributing more to household duties, though research still says that women contribute the majority of effort towards 'home life'. Juggling work-life and family-life or personal lives is often too hard to manage and perhaps women can't take on more challenging or full-time roles that will tip the fine balance too far.

The flip side of this is that the 'social norms' of acceptance around women working and having children minded or put in daycare facilities are also laggard in adopting the cultural changes. In today's economic environment, particularly in capital cities and certainly in Sydney, it is often necessary for both partners in a household to work in order to achieve the traditional family goals of owning a home and supporting further education for their children.