Gender equality, equal pay and equal representation needs to be more than just a women’s issue.

Gender equality, equal pay, equal representation and equal power is not a women’s issue — it is a major economic and financial issue.

CALLING all women, ladies, femmes, girls — and their brothers, fathers, partners and sons.

Gender equality, equal pay, equal representation and equal power is not a women’s issue. It is a population’s issue. It is a major economic and financial issue.

I would even go so far as to say that it is the biggest financial issue facing most Australian households, working and retired.

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Getting the “best” from a workforce makes our economy stronger. Setting the “best” minds to a problem brings the best and fastest solution. Respecting our differences — gender, race, age and culture — should be normal, not the exception.

And dare I say, inequality can only be understood by someone who has experienced it. So that cuts out most stale, male, pale corporate and political leaders.

Unfortunately, Australia still has too many male gate keepers keeping their minds closed, their criteria narrow and their workplaces male dominated.

Gender equality is a major financial issue

Men only have half the sensibilities, the viewpoints, the aspirations and the skills of this world. The other half are held by women.

Despite some progress in the gender equality stakes, a recent meeting with an interstate chief executive left me agog at his narrow, simple measure of the world.

He was at pains to explain why women didn’t earn as much as men and why they weren’t promoted as often.

The reason, according to him, was women undersell themselves. He had lost count of the times that he had seen a female staff member undersell herself.

She wasn’t pushy enough, she wasn’t competitive enough. She didn’t say she “wanted it” enough. She wasn’t, um, like a man.

So here we have this corporate gate keeper knowing, according to his own investigations and experience, that women undersell themselves but he still didn’t hire them.

They didn’t get hired, not because they couldn’t do the job or because they didn’t have the qualifications. No, they didn’t get hired because they undersold themselves.

We need more female corporate leaders. Coke Amatil CEO, Alison Watkins (Photographer: Adam Yip).

Please tell me this point is not lost on everyone as it was on this corporate bozo.

Women should not have to argue their worth against a male benchmark. Men should recognise it. Women are different. That is why they are valuable.

Women may not be as competitive or aggressive as men and that makes their negotiating skills smarter and keener. Women undersell themselves. Men oversell themselves. These traits are known.

The men making these judgments should look beyond their masculine benchmarks and see women as the individuals they are.

Women don’t brag and bluster and chest bump. And to judge them against these criteria is stupid — and it’s deliberate.

Men dominate most management and workplaces, most sporting clubs, most think tanks, most academic institutions and most politics.

Their narrow, male judgment stops women achieving.

It stops women earning more, it stops women being self-reliant, it stops women being powerful, it stops women from being financially equal and it stops greater economic growth.

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