What can advisers do to make women feel safe?

The reality is that almost any woman you ask has a story about how they have been abused, followed, or intimidated by a man at some point in their life. A quick search on Twitter reveals some – yet not even the full – extent of the problem.

The outpouring of feeling is a way for women to have their voices heard, to push towards better treatment and be taken seriously when we say that the treatment we get in so many walks of life is woefully short of equality.

Equal pay should have been a feature of our lives since 1975. Yet the gender pay gap is alive and kicking and has got even wider during the pandemic.

This, sadly, has also disproportionately impacted women in a financial sense.

The outpouring of feeling is a way for women to have their voices heard, to push towards better treatment and be taken seriously

To make matters worse, the enforcement action against companies failing to report on their gender pay gap has been delayed again due to the pandemic, and now will not be back in place until October 5 2021.

These are extreme circumstances, granted. But the message this sends to women is that they are not important.

The Women and Equalities Committee published a report into the pandemic and how it has impacted women. Caroline Nokes, the committee chair, said: “The message from our evidence is clear: government policies have repeatedly skewed towards men – and it keeps happening.

"We need to see more than good intentions and hoping for the best. The government must start actively analysing and assessing the equality impact of every policy, or it risks turning the clock back.”

When you consider that we live in such a patriarchal society, it is little wonder that the maltreatment of women spends such a short time in the headlines when we women ‘make a fuss’ about it. 

There are 220 women sitting as MPs in the House of Parliament, 34 per cent of the total number. You may think this is not too bad, that it beats the minimum set as a target for the FTSE 100 boards to reach.

However, it places the UK a woeful 38th in a league table of countries with women in either the lower house or only parliament equivalent, according to research paper "Women in Politics and Public Life".

Rwanda has 61 per cent as of January this year, Cuba has a female majority in its parliament, and 41 per cent of MEPs sitting in the European Parliament are women.

That figure falls to 28 per cent of peers sitting in the House of Lords. This is despite 33.82m of the UK population being women and 32.98m being men, according to official figures. Clearly there is not proportional representation in either house. And that is before we even take into account ethnicity.

The point is that it is almost impossible for a man to understand what women deal with on a daily basis, because by and large they are not exposed to the same treatment.

Does that mean all men are bad, or indifferent? No, of course not. It is a relatively small minority who feel they can treat women in a negative way.

But like any kind of abuse we see – whether it is based on gender, race, religion, sexuality, disability and so on – if we do not challenge it when we see it, how will it ever end?

One adviser went viral this month for his respectful and thoughtful tweet on the subject when he asked what he could do to make women feel safer. The high level of interest was most likely because that is a question we are rarely asked by a man. But it is perhaps one that should be asked more often.

When it comes to the client meetings you have, especially the initial ones with women on their own, do you take any time to ask yourself this question? It may not cross your mind to think this, but I can assure you that whichever woman you are meeting probably has.

We send messages to friends about our plans so if they do not hear from us by a certain time they know to worry. We plan routes home so we do not have to go into dark areas. We specifically park under lights in car parks.

If you have had any kind of self-defence training, you also park your car in a way that means you can just get in and drive off without needing to reverse in case you need to make a quick escape.

To be fair, many men may do the same. But whether they feel a similar fear is something only the individual could answer.

There is no getting away from the fact that the majority of advisers are male. The majority of your clients are probably male too.

But the message here really is to take some time to think about how you deal with female clients. Think about where you would meet, what they might feel and what you can do to allay any fears they may have.

Zoom meetings have made it easy for us to ‘meet’ people in the comfort and safety of our own homes, and for some that may still be a preferred route. But as we emerge from lockdown, now would be a good time to think about how you can help your female clients feel completely at ease.

You may feel you already do that, but giving a few moments’ thought to this might elicit just one more thing you can do to help. If it does, then we are on the way to resolving these issues.

Alison Steed is a freelance journalist