TODAY’S woman can have it all and still afford to give back. The women of the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) know how its done.

The charitable organisation is comprised of some of the most influential and accomplished women across all spheres of Jamaican life including politics, banking, media and philantrophy. The women, through the organisation, are committed to developing the lives of Jamaicans, which of course include children, the disadvantaged and other women.

” All the women in WLI excel in their area of expertise and have confidence in who they are and have made a commitment to help other persons,” declared Marcia Erskine, chairperson of WLI.

Erskine, who is also a communications consultant, spoke to Caribbean Business Report (CBR) on Wednesday following the organisation’s ‘Celebrating Philantrophy’ luncheon at which three outstanding women were awarded for their volunteerism and philantrophic endeavours.

Michelle Rollins was awarded for her work with the SOS Children’s Village, Valerie Facey for her contribution to the Jamaica Association for the Deaf and Ruby Martin for her work with the Maxfield Park Children’s Home and the Ward Theatre Foundation.

The WLI represents a critical mass of powerful women who support positive causes and each other.

“The critical mass is important because traditionally we have not been the head of anything, but some of us are getting there now so we have to help others up the ladder,” Erskine said. This has been translated into a mentorship programme for young women which recently provided scholarships for three mentees throughout university.

“Our perspective is that there are persons who have the potential to do very well,” Erskine said of the young women. However, she hastened to add that the WLI is not a feminist organisation. “The WLI is an all-woman organisation. There are no male members although I will say that we receive invaluable contributions from our male colleagues. There is no gender bias there.”

Founded by Sue Cobb

The WLI was founded in 2003 by then US Ambassador to Jamaica Sue Cobb, with the aim of leading the way in developing, implementing and sustaining projects in health, education and philantrophy with the goal of improving the lives of Jamaicans. To date, the WLI has made significant contributions to charities that include the Voluntary Organisation for the Upliftment of Children (VOUCH), the Mary Issa Clinic and the Darkness to Light programme, which has given 30 employees of children’s homes and places of safety the skills to detect child abuse.

Erskine said the critical mass is also necessary because of the amount of planning, organisation and execution involved in philantrophy. “Most, if not all, of us have full-time jobs so it means that you are volunteering your time and effort and so to the extent that you have additional support you can do so much more,” she pointed out.

The women achieve a work-life balance for which they should be given greater credit. They visit children’s homes weekly to interact with, read for and mentor children. According to Erskine, the women also give their time and assistance to students in academics, to teaching them the ‘soft skills’ critical to surviving in the world and often employ people, knowing that they have limitations, but are nonetheless willing to invest the time and effort to bring them up to the standard where they can contribute fully to the organisation.

“They are women who literally adopt children and invest time and resources in the betterment of their well-being. A lot of energy goes into imparting the same values and attitudes that they teach their own children. The children are brought into their homes, they play with their children, and experience life in a home as most of us know it,” Erskine explained.

Looking across the corporate landscape

Once a journalist, the chairperson of WLI note that when one looked across the corporate landscape there are many women in very senior positions but very few heads of board were CEOs of major corporations. “You hear this thing about the glass ceiling. Jamaican women have found a way to either go over it, around it or through it,” she said.

However, Erskine acknowledges that even though the women have distinguished themselves, paving the way for other women, there is still a lot left to be accomplished. While approximately 70 per cent of persons graduating from university with a degree in Jamaica are women, the ratio is still higher when one considers those graduating with master’s degrees. There is a noticeable paucity of women sitting on corporate boards and even fewer who are CEOs in companies that they do not own.

“The ratios are still a little out of whack, but we have come a long way. And I believe it’s changing. I look around and I do see female CEOs where there weren’t a decade ago. The situation was far more bleak two decades ago so some progress is being made.

“So it’s creep and crawl but what is interesting is that the women who accede to these male-dominated positions are doing very well and so people are sitting up and taking notice. These are women in banking, in government, in academia. These women have exhibited that they are skilled and have the required education, experience and aptitude for the job and they won these positions on merit and not on gender. Nobody came and gave us anything,” declared Erskine.

Fighting the good fight

She pointed to the work of the Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre (WROC), a ‘sister’ organisation which has an advocacy and training programme to increase women’s participation in leadership and governance called the WROC/UNDEF Strengthening Women’s Leadership in Jamaica Training Programme Series.

“It’s really sad that in 2010-2011 we have to fight for it. But clearly it’s not going to come to us. And if it is that people have to be reminded of the value that we bring, the strength that we bring and how well we can execute, then so be it,” she said.

The way Erskine sees it, things will change even more with the younger generation of women who have displayed a more forthright attitude towards leadership. She is of the view that such is their impatience that they are not prepared to wait another 10 years to see discernable change and are setting about redefining norms and traditions right now.

“Generation X and Y are ready for this thing and they are not going to wait.They are tooling themselves, and they don’t have any hang-ups about men being superior; they don’t see that. And that’s a good thing because they don’t have that albatross around their necks and that allows them to have a wider world view and a greater acceptance of how they want things to be as opposed to how things are. They don’t have the patience and tolerance of their forebears. They are not waiting around.”

Erskine also challenged the notion that women do not make good bosses, especially when it comes to managing other women. She ascribes this thinking to gender bias that is part of socialisation in Jamaica. The way she sees it, women can no longer play the gender card and declare that they are being held back.

“You see it so often, women in organisations where the man is the boss and they never see themselves as acceding to that position because of how they are treated, you know the ‘nice lady’ thing. But nobody ever looks at them in succession planning. However, if the boss is a female they immediately talk about being held back. So my whole thinking on the matter is that whether male or female, it matters not. Get your self tooled, learn the job, make a commitment to it and always prepare yourself. Think about what you want to do with your career. Figure out what it is you need to get you there. Nobody can hold you back.”