Women are getting stuck in middle management because of a culture that expects people to work 50 to 60 hours a week to succeed, said Marisa Xuereb president at The Malta Chamber.

“We talk a lot about the glass ceiling, but it’s a matter of a frozen middle – women progress well and get stuck there in the middle – in middle management. Why? There is the culture of organisations but also the mentality of women who want to save some time for their family and other responsibilities. What has to change is our culture: you don’t have to work 50 to 60 hours a week to make it to the next level. We have to move away from the culture that, do to something of substance, you need to sleep at the office,” she said.

The FIDEM Foundation Women's Day Conference tackled several women-related issues. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Xuereb was speaking during a Women’s Day Conference organised by FIDEM Foundation which provides support and empowerment to women and girls. During the morning conference, held at Corinthia San Gorg, discussions touched upon various women-related issues that included sexual harassment, domestic violence and the role of education in achieving gender equality.

Joe Gauci, college director at Sacred Heart, a girls-only Church school, spoke about the importance of addressing the mindset of school children to nurture equality.“

We have to educate our children that the load-bearing lies with both parents: the girls too can be the main breadwinner… We need to form them to understand that everyone is valuable in who they are,” he said.

Panellists spoke about the reality where more women were graduating from the University of Malta, yet they were not represented in management boards and higher-ranking and paying jobs as many stopped to focus on their families.  Rachel Attard, head of media and communication strategist at The Malta Chamber, noted that over 80 per cent of women over the age of 45, with a primary and secondary level of education, were inactive at work. 

Domestic violence

Another topic tackled during the conference was domestic violence. FIDEM founder Sabine Cabourdin stressed that financial dependence often made it harder for women to leave abusive relationships. Referring to the recent findings of the government-appointed independent inquiry into the femicide of Bernice Cassar, who was shot dead on her way to work in November 2022, she stressed that the system was failing domestic violence victims due to the lack of resources and workload on the police and the law courts. 

During the conference domestic violence survivor Redianne Cassar shared her experience. Cassar said that at the age of 14, her parents wanted her to stop studying and start working. She married young and got pregnant with the first of her two sons one year into her marriage.

Domestic violence survivor Redianne Cassar.

Domestic abuse came in subtly, starting from verbal and psychological abuse then moving to physical. For a long time, she thought it was normal, until a friend spelt out that this was domestic violence. Cassar spoke up and filed several police reports over the years, some of which she dropped since the court case took too long and she was living with her abuser.

You don’t stay for the children. You leave for the children.

Cassar eventually left her relationship but only after she got support from FIDEM  Foundation to continue her education and study management. “You don’t stay for the children. You leave for the children,” she said to roaring applause from the packed hall.

She added that she tried to manage her fear of her sons becoming like their father – by normalising what they saw at home -  by speaking to them and telling them to copy the good and not the bad. 

Early intervention for children

Andrew Azzopardi, social worker and former head of Safeguarding at the Curia, spoke about the importance of early intervention when dealing with children who witnessed abuse.

“The effects on children who witness domestic violence are known. When a boy witnesses his father abuse his mother, he is 10 times more likely to be a perpetrator. When a girl sees her mother being abused, she is six times more likely to be sexually abused…. Early intervention works and this is proven.”

Women came together during the FIDEM Foundation's conference. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Building on the subject, Yvonne Mallia, director at Fondazzjoni Sebh which offers support to domestic violence survivors and their children, said that women who left their homes and abusive relationships needed support and resources to seek help. They often did not have the money to pay for the therapy they and their children needed so urgently at that point in their life.

Elaine Compagno, from the Women for Women Foundation, called on the public and the authorities to believe women who spoke up and offer them protection and empowerment. She called on the public to recognise signs of domestic violence in their friends or colleagues.

“It can boil down to questioning why a colleague never makes it to the Christmas meal or why she is constantly on the phone with her partner during break at work – because he does not want her mingling with colleagues,” she said.

Speaking about sexual harassment, Anna Borg, senior lecturer at the Centre of Labour Studies, said that the most recent local statistics dated 2018 showed that three in four women in Malta were sexually harassed. She stressed that this was a crime and should not be brushed off as a joke as often happened.

Julianne Grima, psychotherapist and chairperson of Victim Support Malta, said sexual harassment at work was a reality but many found it difficult to report. Colleagues defended the person who passed sexual comments as “only joking” and speaking up labelled victims as “a trouble maker”, leading to them being isolated at work.

Grima said that the NGO had received reports of foreign women claiming rape by their employers and, before they could do anything “that woman was deported”.  

Skill Up

FIDEM foundation, in collaboration with Atlas Insurance, launched a new education programme that will offer courses in English literacy, computer literacy and home economics leading to an O Level certification in each. Classes will be held on Saturday mornings and transport as well as child minding will be offered during the classes.

Atlas Insurance also supported The Malta Chamber in setting up a webpage filled with resources for businesses related to gender quality. These include: codes of practice, checklists, key legislation, relevant caselaw, glossaries and terms, information on free childcare and schemes, awareness videos, toolkits on gender-sensitive communication, inappropriate behaviour, information about the gender pay gap and more.