When Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci announced his resignation this week, it surprised no-one. His exit follows a catastrophic walk-out during an interview with ABC’s Four Corners, credible accusations of price gouging by the supermarket giant, and the public and political responses to the retailer’s decision to stop stocking “Australia Day” merchandise this year.
But while Banducci gets to leave with $24 million in Woolworths shares and an estimated $6.5 million in pay for the past nine months of employment alone, the incoming chief executive of the supermarket giant now has a lot more on her plate. With a gendered side dish to accompany her transition into the top job.
Banducci’s successor is Amanda Bardwell, the current managing director of Woolworths’ e-commerce branch, WooliesX. She will be the first woman to lead the company. While Bardwell has more than 23 years of experience at the retailer and is undoubtedly qualified to take on the top job, her shattering of the glass ceiling may also see her fall head-first over the glass cliff.
The glass ceiling is a metaphor referring to the invisible barriers that prevent people of oppressed groups — race, gender, class, etc — from rising into leadership positions and the upper echelons of a power structure.
The glass cliff is an extension of this metaphor. It proposes that if women or people of minority groups are elevated to positions of seniority, it is more likely to occur in circumstances associated with an increased risk of criticism and failure. Women’s leadership positions are then perceived as more insecure than those of men. In these conditions, fault is more likely to be associated broadly with their gender, race or other minority status, in turn re-strengthening the glass ceiling that locked oppressed groups out in the first instance.
Think Vanessa Hudson replacing Alan Joyce after Qantas’ reputational fallout, or Marissa Mayer being elevated to CEO of Yahoo after it lost significant market share to Google. Think Theresa May becoming prime minister after the pound dropped to unseen levels following Brexit, or Linda Yaccarino taking the helm of X (formerly Twitter) after the turbulent acquisition by Elon Musk. Think share market falls, reputational damage, or in this case, an ABC Four Corners humiliation showing a severe lack of media training after a period of price gouging that has thrust the Australian public further into a cost of living crisis.
Consistently, women are elevated to the highest ranks when no men want to stand at the bow of a sinking ship. But for women and other oppressed groups, especially those who face exacerbated and interlocking forms of discrimination and marginalisation, this may be their only opportunity at the top spot.
It is crucial to note that these precarious positions of power are not a gift bestowed on underqualified women; quite the opposite. The glass cliff is not pointing to a lack of knowledge or experience; it is amplifiying the significance of how people of minority status are appointed to power: when there is nowhere left to turn, when there is an opportunity to lay blame elsewhere, or when simply no man wants the job.
These stories don’t exist in a vacuum, however, and this isn’t to say that women won’t recover from these corporate catastrophes and find success. Bardwell, with more than two decades at the upper end of this overpriced food chain, has been an active and powerful contributor to the position in which Woolworths finds itself. Her privilege and senior role during this period of downturn is an important fact that should not be overlooked. However, it remains noteworthy that corporations are more likely to place people from oppressed groups in positions of power as businesses crumble, making them more likely to fall, and from a greater height.
It is vital that we identify and critique the glass cliff in action because, if left unchecked, it wrongly imposes a social and cultural bias towards the status quo. It associates stability with white men, the same men who drove the businesses and groups they represent into a state of disrepair in the first instance. Drawing attention to these falsehoods is at the crux of the fight for equality.
As Bardwell attempts to transform the narrative of a corporation far departed from the communities it claims to service, the structural challenge remains: when and how will leaders representing minority groups be afforded equal opportunity to lead?
Dear effing god. Is this really where 100 years of feminism has beached the next generation of grrrr-grrrls?
There is no planet in the galaxy upon which Amanda Bardwell is an ‘oppressed’ human being, in any way shape or form. And there is no alternative reality in even an infinite multi-verse in which a promotion to CEO of Australia’s largest supermarket chain is anything but a great and welcome (and desired, by her) achievement, both for an individual woman and for women in general.
Get a bloody grip, Gen LUG. Your go at it – fourth wave feminism – seems intent on making weak, passive, agency-bereft idiot-victims of all women, all over again.
I didn’t see any suggestion in the article that Bardwell was an oppressed, weak, passive, agency-bereft idiot-victim, so where does your comment come from? Your wild imagination?
You’re not serious?!?! Surely we’re reading same article?!
The entire thing is premised on the notion that Bardwell is part of an oppressed victim-cohort, ffs.
‘While Bardwell has more than 23 years of experience at the retailer and is undoubtedly qualified to take on the top job, her shattering of the glass ceiling may also see her fall head-first over the glass cliff. The glass ceiling is a metaphor referring to the invisible barriers that prevent people of oppressed groups — race, gender, class, etc — from rising into leadership positions and the l upper echelons of a power structure. The glass cliff is an extension of this metaphor. ‘
How is Bardwell supposed to ‘fall off the glass cliff’ if she’s NOT one of those ‘people of oppressed groups’ who rose into a ‘leadership positions’ standing upon its hellish, precarious, Patriarchy-booby-trapped edge, etc etc etc,
*laments wailingly, rends (Armani) blouse, howls a tsunami of bitter tears for millennia of Teh Poor Wimminfolk of Teh Elite Leadership Positions, Their Dreams of Ruling Class Wealth and Privilege Dashed So Cruelly By The Cruel Bonds Of Million Dollar Salaries, Multiple CSR Board Sinecures, Accelerated APS promotion, Parliamentary Quotas, etc etc etc O Woe Woe Woe Cry For All The Poor Oppressed Corporate Swifties…*
How that’s laid on thick enough to clarify, psycho 🙂
Ah, Fourth wave feminism: private school, tertiary-educated upper middle class social climbers taking the p*ss out of the rest of us – and especially the vast majority of (other) women…
Bored with you now, rich chicks.
What crap. They have just put a male in to run a disastrous QPS in QLD after a woman. Arre you saying this lady had no choice in the matter. I bet she is quite keen to lead and show she can right the ship. Have some respect for her and stop portraying all women as victims incapable of running their lives
Justin, I’ve witnessed women being set up to fail by insecure, sexist bullies. Insert my anti conservative dogma here.
Thanks fellow human
How many women on BRW rich list ? Why are womens rights being eroded now ? Its not hard maaate do the math
Got nothing to do with my post.
Joan Kirner? Carmel Lawrence?
Hey?
Isn’t it more like businesses promoting women CEO’s because it’s a ‘good look’ these days?
CEO’s will generally step down because things aren’t working for whatever reason and right now appointing female CEO’s is like the coolest thing a company can do.
The bigger question is what do CEO’s actually do???
I’ve worked with a few and can’t quite work it out.
Well if it was to ruin the “world’s no 1 airline” – Alan Joyce the man who won that prize ! Now its a bird doin the same ol profiteering ; its a crooked system and its victims are the majority of the population – the vulnerable are the fodder and womens’ voices and work is coopted and unvalued by guess what men mostly because thats the social contract often never fair and established by the data industrial estate – its Ticket multinational and the distribution network corporation who make the most moula out of Ms Swifte’s output
“Consistently, women are elevated to the highest ranks when no men want to stand at the bow of a sinking ship. But for women and other oppressed groups, especially those who face exacerbated and interlocking forms of discrimination and marginalisation, this may be their only opportunity at the top spot.”
Women and other oppressed groups? You think some high-level execs who happen to be women can be classed as oppressed because they are women?! Extraordinary but typical of the upper-middle class, “I know better than you”, elitist, tertiary educated, North Shore/Eastern Suburbs feminist clap-trap you are pedalling that is long discredited. Michele Bullock as RBA Governor is great because she is a woman. Still making factually wrong decisions based on factually wrong reasoning and analysis. Margaret Thatcher is also great because she is also a woman. Her “reforms” set women’s rights back decades there. Amy Barrett is also great as a US Supreme Court Justice because she is a woman, A Catholic too whose vote was instrumental in overturning Roe v Wade meaning abortion is now a States rights issue not a US nationwide right to chose and a woman’s right to chose abortion has been overturned in 20+ States. Great too. A women. You said it. Don’t deny it. Even when your sisters let you down or turn their ack on women’s rights once they achieve power. Vanessa Hudson for QANTAS who is proving every bit as bad as Alan Joyce when the latter was its CEO.
Your privileged feminist theorising is outdated and shocking as it is disgusting and disgraceful. No wonder Julia Gillard had trouble cutting through. The smart ones keep their traps shut.
I really think it is about time some of you sisters out there took these privileged upper class, over educated time wasters to task for the rubbish they talk and for keeping women back by focusing on the very few who are in powerful positions in government and business. I have never met a woman in a position of power who is better than a man. I saw it in Home Affairs in microcosm and at a lower and a higher level. You think if Pezzullo is gone and a woman is appointed to Home Affairs that things will magically improve??!! Most of the changes in industrial relations affect women wore and more as it is they who occupy positions of less power and less salary. More women need to fight more women who are CEOs and pretend to be standing up for women when they are doing the exact opposite.
“..wore and more”. Should be worse and more. Sorry.
That’s an impressive and long overdue critique.
Women who exist, and matter, to contemporary feminists – by that of course I mean politically-progressive, upper middle class, tertiary educated professional women – are one of the most privileged, policy-featherbedded cohorts Australia has ever produced. The relentless narcissism of this cohort is matched only by their ruthless self-interest. And the cohort they most exploit – wield as a policy weapon, in the name of Teh Sisterhood, naturally – is the tax-paying gig economy underclass, which has been gender neutral for decades now.
The way it works is this: a professional feminist (on a couple of hundred grand a year, usually btw accessing multiple tax breaks and middle class welfare transfers) will bleat about how ‘women’ who do society’s ‘menial’ work – cleaning, caring, retail, piecework, homemaking, etc – are oppressed by Teh Patriarchy because they don’t get X, or Y, or Z, or whatever piece of de-contextualised, disingenuous ‘data’ they can grift on. (The ‘pay gap’, which doesn’t exist, is the perennial fave.) So they hustle some new ‘economy wide’ women-friendly policy through. But the fruits of that policy only ever seem to go to that same tiny rarified cohort at the top of the woman tree. Almost invariably this is because the brutal realities of neoliberal economics make said contrived (good ‘in theory’) policy logistically nonsensical and fiscally unworkable for much/all of the underclass workforce (male and female). Increasing chunks of the lower/middle class too, frankly.
Childcare is an excellent example. Notions like ‘universal free childcare’ and ‘child-friendly workplaces’ – essentially paid for by the taxpayer – are absurdly offensive for gig economy women (and men). Offensive…because they are a mirage. It’s a ridiculous category error to think that you can make life ‘easier’ and ‘more equal’ for mothers (or fathers) whose job is manning fast food outlets, cleaning hotel rooms, working split care shifts etc…by implementing ‘child friendly’ policies that – goodness, surprise surprise! – just happen to make life as a mother MP, senior executive, ABC journalist or academic even sweeter than it already is. It’s a joke, a hollow con. All very well to get the taxpayer to cough up for crèches in parly house or Aunty HQ…but how many KFC outlets and Crown hotels are there, again?
What feminism has become in reality is an updated iteration of the same old beady-eyed, covetous little social-climbing game a certain feminine mindset has always played. In past times it wore different masquerade costumery to disguise its naked self-interest – Victorian moral improvement, Enlightenment civic revival, in the sixties it was all about ‘cultural revolution’…but the grift is always the same: advancing self-interest. Germaine Greer didn’t write Female Eunuch to make life better for working class women. She wrote it to become a famous and successful writer. Read the byline of the author of this article. She, like pretty much all fourth wave feminists, is just on the make.
I’m sick of it. For nearly 20 years now I’ve watched – lived and worked alongside – life getting harder and nastier for women (and men) in the menial underclasses, as life for the likes of the Julia Gillards, Laura Tingles, Kate Jenkins and..yep, Amand Brdwells, just keeps getting better. While their ‘feminist’ bleating gets louder, anyway.
This isn’t a feminism for all womenkind. It’s the greedy self-interest of a tiny few women.
“the tax-paying gig economy underclass, which has been gender neutral for decades now..”
No its biological women who are not paid or allowed to charge society for our wombs or our free childcare ; Childcare providers / often developers and business men / accountants get tax payer credits and exempted cheaper loans for establishing developments which contain childcare centres maaate – billions to be made by using women as fodder for the profiteering ; women do the bulk of unpaid “work” – But thats being a good little woman ; a rich couple who want kids state in a reality tv show that a woman is ( I quote) ” Our oven” -Boy your malice is Freudian
” The smart ones keep their traps shut.” Maaaate you said it ; herein is the oerfect example of blaming women for the system set up ; the women who try to beat em at their own game and the good men for that matter ; nuh its the crook system and the fact and the absurd standards ; virgin Mother or old witch or rich bitch it does not matter the gang will win