The key ways of getting women involved were identified as:

* Having role models who others can relate to, i.e. women with young children who live similar lives or come from similar backgrounds;

* Specific measures by organisations which target and encourage Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women to step forward (being asked to participate is a big factor);

* More flexible arrangements to enable women to juggle caring responsibilities and participating in the wider community, such as when meetings are held, where and childcare arrangements;

* Building community level networks of support for specific groups such as BAME women; and

* Having ongoing support to maintain and progress their participation and gain confidence to take the next steps.

Sounds like common sense to me. Perhaps I shouldn't blame Thatcher for everything but the shift to 'me' and the individual taking care of their own needs, and increasingly fractured communities means that social and support networks that may have existed for women in the past is less present today. Informal shared childcare arrangements between neighbours and families is far less likely, meaning either no childcare or expensive childcare that prevents women from getting involved with public life. It also reduces the existence of networks and access to role models through which women (and others) can share their experiences.

Aspirations and expectations of how well women can perform in a 'man's world' also prevent women from considering public appointments and politics as an option for them.

TBG pointed out in Thursday's diary on the Concrete ceiling for women? that most men also don't reach these positions or take up public appointments even though they are capable of doing so. It's slightly inaccurate perhaps to use the narrative that has developed around 'majority of CEO, MP, Senior management positions are taken by men' because it gives the false impression that most men are in these roles. Actually, they are largely taken up by a certain type of man and it is this group that get to dictate the way society around them runs. And society runs to the benefit of that type of man over everybody else. So this doesn't just disadvantage women, disabled people, BME people but it also excludes men who don't fit into that prescribed norm of the dominant group, but could still have a great deal to offer.

Perhaps that is too ambiguous a concept to make it's way into policy development though. It is far easier to identify that we don't have enough women, BME and disabled people in these visible and powerful positions and thus we must target them and attract them in. But is it really solving anything?