Co-ops pioneered gender equality within business, but it took 143 years of male leadership before a woman got the top job
The election of Chris Herries as Co-operatives UK's new chair this summer marks an historic first. Chris, a teacher by background, is the first female chair, following a long line of male chairmen stretching back to the founding of predecessor the Co-operative Union in Victorian times. "Yes, there have been no women chairs for the whole 143 years of the Co-operative Union and Co-ops UK," says Chris.
The co-operative movement is alone in having remained stubbornly male dominated into the 21st century, but there is something particularly inappropriate about it given it was women who enabled the co-operative idea to grow in Britain. As co-operative historian Rachael Vorberg-Rugh points out, the independent local co-operative stores that sprang up following the success of the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844 were dependent on their shoppers, and those shoppers were predominantly women. "Co-ops would not have succeeded if women hadn't chosen to make their purchasing decisions in co-op shops," she says.
To be fair, the principle of gender equality was established, at least on paper, right from the start. The Rochdale Pioneers' rules gave full membership rights to men and women alike, a radical stance at the time. Vorberg-Rugh points to the entry in the original minute book (now saved in the National Co-operative Archive in Manchester) when the first woman was admitted in 1846: the name of this first female pioneer was Eliza Brierley.
For several generations, co-operative society boards were entirely male, although because dividends were generally paid to women (even when her husband was technically the co-op member) co-ops directly helped working-class women manage the household budgets. "It was a means of saving a nest-egg without taking an immediate bite out of often very limited weekly income," Vorberg-Rugh explains. She mentions that the early Fabian Beatrice Potter (Beatrice Webb) was one of the first to stress the importance of women in the co-operative movement. "There is a hugely interesting class and gender history in the movement which is slowly being explored," she adds.
Women slowly began to take up elected positions on co-op boards following the establishment – by women – of the Co-operative Women's Guild in 1883. However, it took until 1922 for the first woman, Mary Cottrell, to appear on the board of the Co-operative Wholesale Society (now merged into the Co-operative Group) and another 37 years for a second woman to follow her.
Today the Co-operative Group's 20-strong board of directors comprises 16 men and four women, an underwhelming division given that 70% of the group's members are women. Herries (herself a former Co-operative Group Board member) accepts that there is a long way to go, but says that the consumer co-operative movement is now addressing gender equality issues much more seriously. The Co-operative Group's board recently resolved to reach 40% women directors by 2018, and set similar targets for its lower tiers of democracy, the Area Committees (parity by 2016) and the Regional Boards (2017). At the same time, moves are being taken to improve the number of women in senior management. "Women are encouraged to work with other women and to use mentoring to help know how they can best find their way through the structures," Chris Herries says.
Other consumer co-operative societies, most notably Lincolnshire (which has, in Ursula Lidbetter, a female chief executive), Midcounties and Channel Islands already have much stronger gender balance on their boards. Herries also points to other parts of the co-operative movement, especially workers' co-ops, housing co-ops and credit unions, where women tend to be much more active and occupying positions of responsibility and power. Co-ops UK is looking to see if there are lessons here that consumer co-ops can learn, she says. One current initiative towards this is the Co-operative Women's Challenge, jointly set up by Co-ops UK and the Co-operative Group.
Internationally, the co-operative movement now has a strong female presence at the top with Dame Pauline Green as the elected chair of the International Co-operative Alliance. Pauline Green, formerly an English MEP before becoming the first chief executive of Co-ops UK, used last year's UN International Year of Co-operatives particularly adroitly to raise the visibility of the co-op movement globally. There is also a strong cohort of female chief executives in the co-operative insurance world, including two prominent Canadians, Kathy Bardswick (The Co-operators) and Monique Leroux (Desjardins). A survey of women CEOs and their approach to management is forthcoming from the International Co-operative and Mutual Insurance Federation.
For Herries, better gender balance both in co-operative governance and management is not only more equitable, it also directly benefits co-operatives themselves by enabling them to tap a wider group of skills and talents. The question, perhaps, is whether a more gender-balanced Co-operative Group board might have reined in the recently retired chief executive Peter Marks and prevented the Co-operative Bank debacle. Herries does not answer directly, but she does stress that co-operatives need to refocus on their core purpose of serving their members' needs – and not just going out for unnecessary growth.
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