The MYTH of the glass ceiling: Think women get a raw deal at work? In this ferocious blast, a pioneering woman boss - who eats sexist pigs for breakfast - says it's time we stopped whining

Dame Stephanie Shirely has spent the past 50 years fighting sexist, out-dated attitudes towards women in male-dominated industries



The 80-year-old business leader has broken the glass ceiling many times



But compared to what her generation faced, she says women today have nothing to complain about

Instead of moaning they should focus on the heights within their grasp

The only thing holding many women back is themselves

Early one afternoon on a quiet stretch of road in Oswestry in Shropshire, a 16-year-old schoolgirl walks briskly along, making the journey from a day’s lessons at the local girls’ school to the boys’ grammar a quarter of a mile away.



She’s dreading the moment she’ll take her seat to the jeers and caterwauls of her 30 male classmates.



A great success: Dame Stephanie Shirley

Maths may be her best subject, but her school thinks it unfeminine, so she has won special dispensation to study it at a boys’ school — and will withstand no end of daily abuse for the privilege.



However far removed this scene may seem from the modern world, it is one that happened within living memory — my own.



That determined girl was me, less than 65 years ago. And recalling those uncomplaining first steps on my long slog to the top of the career ladder makes me despair at the grumbles of modern women.



We’ve all heard the bleatings: sexist working environments, long hours and the tough ride to the top they say they have to endure.



The complaints seem to grow louder every year. I read last week about a furious former City personal assistant who has written her memoirs, determined to settle scores with the sexist bosses she claims wronged her — criticising her work and keeping her in the office until 6.45pm, no less.



Quite frankly, these women have nothing to complain about. They really have never had it so easy. If only she and other aggrieved women like her knew what I had to put up with just a generation before, they might moan less and, instead, focus on the giddy heights now firmly within their grasp.



As an 80-year-old business leader, I have spent the past 50 years fighting sexist, out-dated attitudes towards women in male-dominated industries.

Those first maths lessons taught me much more than just arithmetic.



They were an invaluable schooling in the inherent sexism I was to meet head-on throughout my working life — which I refused to be cowed by.



After studying advanced mathematics at London’s Sir John Cass College and computer logic at Birkbeck College, I embarked on a career in computer programming and became inured to working in male-only environments. I’ve hit the glass ceiling so many times that I joke my head is now flat.



But it was the glass ceiling that broke — not me. And, believe me, women today would baulk at some of the blatant, institutionalised sexism that not only existed, but was actively encouraged back then.

Myth of the glass ceiling: Dame Stephanie says women have never had it so easy, and should stop moaning and instead focus on the giddy heights now firmly within their grasp

Rather than allow myself to be patronised or overlooked, in 1962 I launched my own IT services company, Xansa, which, when it peaked in the Eighties, meant I was worth £150 million.



I achieved this with a £6 bank loan and a very thick skin.



My aim was to employ women, letting them work from home and manage their own workloads. To empower them, long before such corporate buzzwords were ever voiced.



This was at a time when fewer than nine million women worked (today that number is well over 13 million), and those who did manage to win themselves a role other than wife, mother or cleaner were paid far less than men, prevented from holding positions of power and even from opening a bank account without their husband’s written permission.



"W omen today would baulk at some of the blatant, institutionalised sexism that not only existed, but was actively encouraged back then"

When I think of what I could have achieved today, it makes me long to be young again, and all the more frustrated at modern women counting their grievances, rather than their blessings.



In 2002 I was listed as the 11th richest women in the country.



What holds back any other woman from trying to emulate — or outdo — me?



The law is clear: The 1970 Equal Pay Act and 2010 Equality Act enshrined our rights to any job we set our minds to — from bus driver to stock broker and now even bishop — safe in the knowledge that maternity leave and childcare benefits will help us along.

High performer: Dame Stephanie being awarded a Master of the IT Livery Company in 1992

Girls are outperforming boys from primary school to medical school, powering into top law positions and FTSE 100 companies.



Even in industries such as IT, where there is some distance to go, we are moving in the right direction. Indeed, we seem to have swung so far the other way that the European Commission is now threatening to force boards and businesses to comply with quotas for female employment or face penalties.



Determined: In 1962 Dame Stephanie launched her own IT services company, Xansa

Quotas have already been imposed in Belgium, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain — and, quite frankly, it’s a tragedy.



There should be no place for such positive discrimination in professional life.



As a firm believer in equality, and no matter how tough the climb, I want to be promoted on my performance — and that alone — and evaluated in the same way as everyone else.



It’s because of all this nonsense that reverse sexism is creeping into certain corners of industry and business where women are being hired simply because they are female.



There’s pressure to get women on the payroll and recruiters want to tick boxes.



Take the recent Cabinet reshuffle, where David Cameron appeared to be going out of his way to push up female numbers.



From three female Cabinet members, we now have six. Fine, so long as it is for the right reasons.



It’s all very well to enjoy chivalry, but if you really want to be accepted as an equal in the workplace, you need to work hard and not expect special treatment. No one became a CEO in my day for working a three-day week and leaving at 5pm.



I confess I employed reverse sexism myself when I set up Xansa. I hired only women for 13 years. It was a decision borne of desperation and frustration — it was the only way to show what working women could achieve in a culture when they were viewed as plankton.



Now the world recognises both our right and our ability to succeed, women should never be there to just make up the numbers — whether that’s in the recently reshuffled Tory Cabinet or any other corner of industry.

Strong women: Dame Stephanie Shirley meeting the Queen at the University of Buckingham in 1990's

There’s no doubt the only thing holding many women back is themselves. I remember interviewing a shortlist of candidates for a new finance director position at Xansa on a hot summer’s day, years ago.

Several women were in the running, and as each of them arrived, one after another, I almost choked: each was in a little dress revealing their legs or décolletage.



How could I have them representing me looking like that?



The office is no place for trivialising your talents by playing on your sexuality. When I saw Esther McVey turn up for her first day as the new Employment Minister wearing a grey suit displaying acres of thigh, I just thought: ‘You silly woman.’



"The office is no place for trivialising your talents by playing on your sexuality. When I saw Esther McVey turn up for her first day as the new Employment Minister wearing a grey suit displaying acres of thigh, I just thought: ‘You silly woman.’ "

How you dress sends out a strong message. People judge on appearance and dressing seriously means being taken seriously. Thigh flashing is an obvious no-no.



Nor, now maternity leave and the right to ask for flexible working hours are a given, should work be a place to bring family problems (rather than being unheard of, as they were when I gave birth to my only son, Giles, in 1963).



My upbringing undoubtedly played an enormous part in shaping my beliefs. I arrived in Britain as a five-year-old Jewish refugee on one of the last Kindertransport trains from Germany at the start of World War II, after waving goodbye to my parents.



Placed with foster parents in the West Midlands who answered a local newspaper advert asking if anyone would put up ‘two sisters, brought up in a nice family’, I quickly learned that to survive I had to deal with change.



Picked up from one family and one language and parachuted into another, there was little choice. I was determined to make mine a life worth saving, which gave me all the drive I needed to fight my way to the top.

Fighting to the top: Dame Stephanie Shirley pictured here with the Freedom of the City of London in 1987

I learned right from my first job to adapt to one rule for men and another for women.



In 1951, I started working for the scientific civil service, where we were paid by age and gender. I got £4 a week, while a man of the same age doing the same job would get £5 — 25 per cent more.



Of course, I was livid. Often I had to carry heavy computer equipment along a corridor and men would offer to help. I would bat tetchily back, ‘I believe in equal pay and I will carry my own equipment,’ before struggling off.

Sharp tongue and thick skin: 'Women are more than capable of speaking up for ourselves - I've spent a lifetime doing it'

Throughout my 20s I got used to the idea that the more I became recognised as a serious young woman who was aiming high, the more violently I was resented and more implacably I was kept in my place by men in senior positions.



Probably the sagest advice from one colleague early on was ‘never forget you are an honorary male’ — by which he meant don’t rest on your laurels because you’ll never truly be ‘one of us’.



That never rang truer than in 1963, the year after I started up Xansa. I was sending out business development letters but getting no response. It was demoralising and I knew they were just being thrown into the wastepaper bin.



DID YOU KNOW?

Women in full-time employment work on average 40 hours a week, while men work 44, according to official figures for 2014

My husband, Derek suggested it might be because of my very feminine name: Stephanie Shirley. On his suggestion I began signing my name Steve, a family nickname, to see what happened. It worked.



The replies and invitations to meet began to arrive. There was always the frisson of excitement when I arrived into a crowded meeting room full of suits and the men realised I was not one of them. But by then, I was through the door.



Considering myself one of the boys didn’t stop men in senior positions putting their arms around me and pinching my bottom. But I developed a thick skin and sharp tongue and learned to deal with it. I certainly didn’t run crying to the loos or the nearest solicitor, threatening to sue.

Getting on with it: Dame Stephanie (middle) taking part in a training exercise with employers

Young women now in the City complain they find some male environments oppressive and difficult. They are quick to fight loudly against it or throw in the towel. Sometimes, all that’s required is the backbone to cut men down to size. We are more than capable of speaking up for ourselves — I’ve spent a lifetime doing it.



"Working women today seem unwilling to pay the price of success. They don’t take work as seriously and aren’t prepared to work as hard. They are less inclined to put in the hours or push themselves forward"

Yet working women today seem unwilling to pay the price of success. Just as able as men, often more so, they don’t take work as seriously and aren’t prepared to work as hard. They are less inclined to put in the hours or push themselves forward. Conditions have never been more in our favour, yet where men dive in head first, women are hesitant.



Official data shows female membership of FTSE 100 boards is on course to hit the Government target of 25 per cent by next year.



Frankly, with the education and employment prospects of today, it’s a disgrace that women don’t achieve 51 per cent — our share of the population.



We’ve never had it so good. It’s time we stopped whinging and got on with it.



Let IT Go, The Memoirs of Dame Stephanie Shirley, is available via amazon.co.uk for £8.99. There is also a Kindle edition and an audio download, recorded by her.