Gina Rinehart is Australia’s richest person and the 27th most powerful woman in the world, according to today’s annual power women list from Forbes.
One other Australian, Westpac CEO Gail Kelly, makes the list, coming in at 56 – a few spots up from her position of 62 last year.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is number one. US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen number two, and Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, number three.
So how do these women influence your life?
Personally, we all define the most powerful women in our lives — those who have the greatest influence on our overall wellbeing — differently. Take a collective, global view, and we need to rely on those whose decisions and actions can shape economies, move borders, determine purchasing decisions, feed populations, eradicate disease, and ignite new forms of popular culture, among other things.
Often the men and women deemed “most powerful” come down to those who have the job titles that, from the outset, give them scope to exert the most influence: those overseeing the biggest budgets, managing the largest number of staff, and carrying the most significant decision-making capabilities. If it’s not a title, it usually comes down to money or celebrity status.
And, sadly, there are still too few women with such titles or wealth — although we seem to be able to manage the celebrity status required to make the gender-neutral lists. When it comes to business and politics in Australia, a quick look at the numbers – less than a handful of CEOs on the ASX 200, just one in Tony Abbott’s Cabinet, less than 10% of senior management and board positions at our largest listed organisations – shows women are still well behind when it comes to holding ‘titles’ of power.
Such titles are great measures of progress, but they can’t be the only measure used to determine how we’re fairing when it comes to exerting influence and power over the state of the world.
Women exert power everywhere. Just not necessarily in the traditional roles we’ve come to believe are the marker points of influence. Women exert significant power over their families, communities, local schools, charities and in supporting others in doing the work they do. Meanwhile, high profile women elicit a different kind of power altogether – as visible role models, trailblazers, and challengers of the status quo. They’re women we can look up to in order to believe the positions of influence of tomorrow don’t have to be a majority occupied by men.
If you’ve read or taken on board some of the advice in Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, you may believe she’s personally had more influence over your life than Rinehart, Kelly, or Merkel. Sandberg comes in at number nine on the list.
Or perhaps Vogue editor, Anna Wintour, may have indirectly contributed to the clothes you’re currently wearing, even if they didn’t come directly from the catwalks of Milan. Wintour is number 39 on the list.
Meanwhile, you may not be one of the 177 million people whom Ertharin Cousin has helped feed since taking the helm of the UN’s World Food Programme, but you can no doubt see the benefit such leadership has brought to the organisation and the world, bringing in $4.3 billion in donations last year alone, up from 17% the year before.
Last year’s No 28 on the Forbes most powerful women list, Julia Gillard, has disappeared from the list. The explanation is simple: she lost her title. And yet the mark Gillard left on many women continues. Indeed she was this week ranked as one of the country’s most admired individuals. The power and influence of women lingers long after they’ve left their official positions.
There’s a meme that’s been doing the rounds of Facebook about the time President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama stopped at a simple restaurant for a low key meal one night. When the restaurant owner approached Michelle and said he was in love with her while they were at college, the president responded that under different circumstances, Michelle could have been the joint owner of the lovely restaurant they were in.
Michelle disagreed. Under different circumstances, that male restaurant owner could have been president.