LONDON — Melissa Leach, head of one of the United Kingdom’s leading development research institutes, has worked hard to create a workplace that is supportive of women.
But, a social anthropologist and mother of four, she stresses that a supportive environment should work for all employees, and that women’s empowerment initiatives must be “part of a broader movement to out discrimination of all kinds,” avoiding a narrow focus on women alone.
“I would absolutely encourage women to be ambitious and go for it, but it’s not possible unless we as a society … argue for the policies and the practices and the cultures within workplaces that enable and appreciate flexibility, encourage equal sharing, and that recognize that these are issues that are really important for men as well as women,” she said.