There has been a great deal said recently about discrimination against women particularly when it comes to women occupying senior positions within organisations. The European Commission is in fact now considering introducing compulsory female quotas in the composition of company boards.

Ann Fenech, managing partner of Fenech and Fenech Advocates, believes there is no discrimination against women and the introduction of female quotas is certainly not the way forward.

“I was appointed managing partner of Fenech and Fenech Advocates over two years ago and therefore from a personal perspective and from the perspective of my organisation which is one of the largest law firms on the island I can confirm that there is no and has never been any form of discrimination against women whatsoever.

“If we go further back, I started my career in 1986 and spent the first six years working in London and the United States with two shipping law firms where over 80 per cent of the lawyers in both organisations were male. Shipping in itself and worldwide is male dominated, however saying that the majority of the lawyers are male and that shipping itself is male dominated is one thing and saying that there is discrimination against women are two totally different things. I myself never came across any form of discrimination whatsoever whether abroad or in Malta and I would go so far as to say that being a female was a distinct advantage,” she says.

Dr Fenech points out that she has rarely if ever come across a situation where a promotion was given to substandard male instead of a deserving and capable female.

“The private sector normally recognises that it is better off with a deserving and capable female than a substandard male. It would be absolute madness to do otherwise!”

She says that discrimination, “if one can call it that”, may come into the equation when a promotion is between a capable and deserving female and an equally capable and deserving male or between an incompetent male and an incompetent female.

“In these extreme cases capable males may be preferred to capable females and incompetent males may be preferred to incompetent females. However is this discrimination or is it the exercise of a preference? If statistics show this to be correct then women should be working on why this is and rectifying the situation.”

Dr Fenech says the situation today is very different to what it was 25 years ago with many females going to university.

“Academically I have no doubt that females are more than making the grade. However it takes more than an excellent academic record to be entrusted with senior management roles or on boards of directors. This is where the capable male versus the capable female comes into the equation,” she says.

Dr Fenech points out that what is equally important to academic performance is perseverance, determination, the will to succeed and the will to excel.

“The latter three qualities are very often associated with males. Women who wish to make it to senior management and who wish to be chosen over their equally capable male colleagues must recognise that these qualities are essential in today’s competitive markets. In fact it is extremely evident that the younger generation have recognised this which, of course, augurs well for women in senior management roles.”

Fenech and Fenech Advocates, she says, employs 86 persons of whom 57 are female. We have 25 senior positions within the organisation and 13 of those senior positions are occupied by ladies.

“When you have a female compliment of 57 out of a total of 86 the vast majority of who are of a child bearing age and quite excellent at what they do, you need to address the situation head on. We therefore took the bold step of announcing that as from January of this year our ladies can bring their babies into work with them.

“Of course this was very well received indeed – a number of our ladies are expecting babies and I don’t believe there is anything more reassuring for a mother who wishes to pursue her career than knowing that there are no child care issues because she can take her baby to work with her.”

Dr Fenech is a working mother and has been married for 25 years. She has worked for the whole of these 25 years and in the meantime had two boys aged 20 and 16.

“Being a mother is a huge privilege and the family for me as it should be for everyone else – male or female – is my number one priority and I have never and will never jeopardise the wellbeing of my family for anything. Ladies should not therefore have to choose between one or the other if they want to do both.

“A dilemma does however present itself to high flying ladies when they are well on the professional ladder, when they are doing well at their place of work and at the same time want to start a family. At that point they would typically be faced with the following questions. ‘Do I really want to continue working?’ And the answer here is – ‘It’s OK if you do not want to continue working and it’s OK if you want to stay with your child.’

“I feel that professional women are being pressurised into feeling it is expected of them that they should want to continue working. That is completely wrong and a woman should take stock of her own situation and decide on what is best for her.

“Others who do want to continue working, however are faced with the real dilemma of ‘What happens to the baby while I am at work? Do I take my baby aged two months to a day care centre? Do I ask the grandmother to become its mother? Do I employ someone to take care of my child at home?’ A solution of course would be if you can take your baby to work with you. And that is what we have done at Fenech and Fenech.”

Dr Fenech says she finds the idea of women quotas insulting and is totally against them.

“I find them insulting because I firmly believe in appointing an individual who makes the grade irrespective of their sex. What we should be aiming for is ensuring that all the persons who are appointed to various boards are competent people who are assessed objectively according to their level of competence and ability to handle the situations which are likely to be faced by the respective boards.”

She says she is concerned that if the government is obliged to appoint women purely because of an obligatory quota “we run the risk of having mediocre women being appointed and I despise mediocrity at all levels. Another argument is that if this quota system is indeed introduced and a woman is appointed, then Joe Public will assume she was appointed because she was a woman and not because she was capable.”

“I can understand how women quotas may work in third world countries where there is a fundamental mental block against women and it is the only way of getting womanhood out of the rut it is in. I do not believe it is the way forward for us,” she says.