Man made recession

At risk of sounding like a man-hating, bra burning activist I was struck by a comment I read online recently: This recession is man made. Despite the best efforts of the equal opportunities policy-makers, its fair to say that men still hold a strong majority of the positions in senior management. Likewise in politics women are still under-represented, a point noted by David Cameron recently as he drives to recruit more female candidates for his party.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that it would have been a completely different story if women ruled the world, but simply that its worth considering the difference that a few more women in the banking boardrooms for example could have made. Stereotypically women are more cautious and risk-averse, characteristics that might have reduced the widely publicised problems of reckless lending. We all know that women like to talk things through (often at great length while long-suffering men politely pretend to listen), but maybe these soft skills could have been put to good use in discussing small issues before we reached such a global crisis.

The truth is that men and women are different, with stereotypical skill sets that make each of us well-suited to certain tasks and roles. I hope that we will continue to see the development of diversity in the workplace and that this balance in business will help to reduce the impact of the next recession.