Apple CEO Tim Cook continues to take fire over the company’s lack of diversity, the mostly white, male makeup of management described by one investor last year as a “bit too vanilla.”
Women’s rights activist Cherie Blair chose words Wednesday with a little more bite. The British barrister and wife of the former prime minister Tony Blair called Cook “so shortsighted” in Apple’s seemingly less-than-urgent effort to add more women to leadership.
Blair’s comments came Wednesday during an interview with The Huffington Post’s HuffPost Rise video cast.
Three of the top 18 executives at Apple are women.
“Unless companies understand that it’s in their economic interest to change, then it’s going to be quite difficult to change,” Blair said. “We just saw an example a few days ago with the Apple board apparently deciding it would be too cumbersome or difficult for them to be more gender balanced in their own composition.
“Makes me want to say to (Cook) I can’t believe he is so shortsighted. To ignore (women’s) perspective is a very dangerous thing for any business. A company’s reputation for being trendy and . . . up-to-the-minute is going to take a bit of a dent.”
A recent Federal Employer Information report on Apple revealed slight progress in diversifying its U.S. workforce. About 30 percent of Apple’s U.S. employees are female, 8.6 percent are African-Amercian and 11.7 percent Hispanic or Latino.
An investor last year recommended Apple accelerate its efforts to recruit diverse candidates, however Apple told the Security and Exchange Commission it’s powerless when it comes to whether “recruits will accept offers.”
When Apple hosts its Worldwide Developers Conference or events to roll out new products, the company often makes news for the absence of female presenters. Some on Twitter will post running tallies as they watch live streams of Apple events.
During Apple’s fall event for new products, Apple senior design producer Jen Folse talked about changes to Apple TV. She was the only female staffer to present.
David Pierini is a former newspaper writer and long-time photographer. Considered a luddite by most of his friends, they did not believe him when he broke the news that he would be writing for a technology website. He is fascinated by human nature and would love to cultivate stories about the people driving the tech bus. Reach out to him at [email protected].
19 responses to “Cherie Blair thinks Apple needs to hire more women”
Next thing you know, in order to get a job, you can’t be a white male. I can see it now, pretty soon white men will be able to sue for discrimination. You can’t tell people that they can’t hire a certain person based on gender, race, skin color, etc. etc. To force them to hire someone based on these attributes is discrimination. Freaking stupid people.
Fox said the next Jack Bauer of “24” won’t be a white male – before they even started auditions. So there’s that.
Mad old cow whose law firm defends the ‘right’ of terrorists not to be deported from the UK, and whose husband should be tried as a war criminal for the illegal wars that he took the UK into; take no notice of her…
Just hire the best person for the job. What their gender or skin color is, is not at all relevant.
It’s a nice ideal but instead of a world where people’s character and ability speak for themselves we’re currently in a world where what/who you do and what you look like are far more important than character or ability. It’s the unfortunate consequence of post modernism which really is riddled with contradictions.
Same old words we hear over and over. No matter who is best let me hire so and so. Oh maybe the white males have been with the company for 20- to 30 years and now we need to move them out of the way. Diversity will happen over natural course of time and must not me mandated!
They want Apple to hire women who are not good in tech so that Apple will fail.
Apple is a tech company. An area where men are good at. Just like in the police or armed forces. A straight woman will have little interest in applying for a position at Apple, just like a straight male would have little interest in applying for a job at a beauty salon.
So multinational Apple only has technical or engineering positions within their organization??? How daft! Apple has a variety of departments that offer opportunities for those not disciplined in engineering to excel in those other fields. So I highly suggest a rethink of your original statement, as it couldn’t be any more ignorant! THINK DIFFERENT!
Do you even know how many percent of all applicants at Apple are women?
I do have female friends. And between working at an Apple retail store and Victoria Secret or Macy’s. Guess which store they would rather work for among those 3?
I can tell you that most applicants at Apple are men, not women. Not a lot of women would want to wear a blue or red shirt with barely or no make up on. And yes, I do see some females working at the Apple retail store. And they are lesbians.
You seem to be caught up in the stereotype. Yes, there are straight men in the hair salon industry, in fact, many of them own salons and make a decent amount of money, and are straight.
But in the tech industry, Apple is more consumer tech based and not as technical as a Cisco or a semiconductor company, etc. I’ve known a lot of people that have worked at Apple and many other tech companies and Apple actually has a lot more women, typically speaking than other tech companies. At least from my perspective. Many of them were managers and there are plenty of women at Apple Stores. They TYPICALLY more interested in people-person type jobs, (sales, marketing, managers), than technical based jobs, even though more women are becoming software programmers, etc.
I never said that there will be no straight men who would want to work for a salon. I am talking about the majority, not the special ones. Unless you are telling me that salons are now the number one workplace that men are looking into, is it?
It does not matter whether you work as a programmer or technician for Apple. As a tech company, you need to be knowledgeable in that field to be a very good employee. It is not easy to get hired at Apple, be it male or female. You really have to be in your A game.
Just look at these tech sites. How many women do see actively posting comments? NONE. That said, women are not into tech stuff as much as men are. That also translates to the field of work that men and women are interested in. You mentioned sales, marketing and managers. To be in those positions, you still need to know tech stuff, especially in marketing and management. AGAIN, there will be a FEW women who are techies, and those women will likely apply and get hired. But most applicants will likely be men who are techies, and women who appliy for a job just to get a job just won’t cut it at Apple.
One day people might understand that you can’t have a meritocracy and every kind of group represented. Perhaps the same people should be championing professional sports worldwide to be inclusive of gender, infirmity, age (including the elderly), and ability. Same argument, really.
Intellectual and Physical strengths are not the same argument. How can you truly compare those two???
It’s not hard to comprehend, it’s a reductio ad absurdum.
Meritocracy? That day has come and gone. It was called the 1980s.
Why doesn’t she start her *own* company instead of telling other people how to run theirs?
Then she can hire whomever she wants.
fat old women just upset she aint a man
So the world’s most valuable company needs Cherie’s advice, because it isn’t doing what is in its best ‘economic interest’? Uh huh.