Women's Conference

The SHA Women's Conference in January brought together four speakers renown in different spheres of work - politics, medicine, business and higher education - to discuss bringing women into leadership and the barriers that prevent it.

Ann Widdecombe was, as ever, provocative. Carol Black gave stark results of deep and consistent research into this topic. Julia Cleverdon neatly balanced humour with the profound truth that little real progress had been made in the business world.

Alma Harris, the first female professor and director of education at a university, showed compelling evidence of the strength of women through distributive leadership.

The speakers did not always agree with each other and were very different in style but they all presented a challenging picture.

Participants' contributions kept speakers on their toes and the overriding question at the end of the day was "When can we do this again?"