With women still scrambling to get a sizeable representation in the leadership space of the hugely male-dominated oil and gas industry, Aisha S. Michika examines the challenges faced by women in the industry and points out why they should be given more opportunities to realize their full potentials.
Records show that women in the oil and gas industry are not as privileged as their male counterparts, as they are constantly competing and battling to showcase their full potentials. This is seemingly because the industry is yet to open up and give women more opportunities to excel, especially in difficult fields in the industry, such as engineering and technology.
The challenges faced by women are not only in the oil and gas industry. In the fields of architecture, building, civil engineering, banking, finance, and medicine, women have to prove that they are exceptionally good before they can be given the chance to make impact. Sometimes, their male counterparts – who may not be as good as they are – get more and faster recognition when it comes to career placement and advancement to the detriment of women. Although most of these fields of human endeavour are no doubt male-dominated, women have been able to hold their own and, in many instances, proven that “what a man can do, a woman can do better.”
The oil and gas sector is already dominated by men, with only few women showcasing their capabilities in the industry. That’s why the industry remains one of the least gender sensitive sectors in the country, despite recent efforts to promote and encourage women’s participation in the scheme of things.
According to a 2019 report on African women working class, women in Africa and the Middle East make up just 9% of senior management positions in the industry, with gender diversity decreasing with seniority. Women make up less than 8% of technical jobs in the oil and gas sector, and just 9% of management positions in the utility sector. This shows that our culture still gives male gender an edge over their opposite gender and this is a huge problem for women in the industry. The perception of females playing bigger roles is not fully acceptable yet, because most climes believe that women are home makers, a perception which, in today’s world, is being jettisoned by progressive societies.
Surprisingly enough, the industry is facing an ageing workforce which demands new skills where women should be considered. But that does not imply that women would take positions meant for the men. Yet, some companies prefer not to employ women or allow a single woman in the top management positions.
Unfortunately, due to traditions and beliefs that still exist in many societies, some women have the same mindset as men, seeing it that it is the men’s right being in-charge even if the same women can do better than the men. And that could be one of the reasons why the industry has low women participation because most women look at it that way. Even though this perception is gradually taking a different turn, it is still much alive and trying not only to survive, but also to thrive.
We have more women now rubbing shoulders with men in different sectors, including this sophisticated energy industry. This is considered by gender parity advocates as a good development because it inspires the younger ones among ladies, giving them confidence to follow the foot-steps of their senior counterparts in closing the gender equality gap that exists today.
Valuechain findings show that companies that have women in-charge are 15% more likely to have average financial returns than the ones headed by men. Unfortunately, it has also been reported that women account for only a small share of workforce who graduated from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related courses that are more relevant to the oil and gas field. It is even more unfortunate that the oil and gas industry hasn’t done much to encourage women to grow through the ranks as the case may be, therefore, the low percentage of women employees in the industry should be looked into, and conscious measures should be put in place to make sure it does not decline further.
In most cases, getting promotion is a major challenge for women in any industry, and worse of all is that the oil and gas sector made it clear that female participation is mostly low, even from entry-level roles to managerial positions, and this is affecting women negatively by forcing them to accept what is being presented to them.
GED, Corporate Services NNPC
But with the way things are going, the thinking of women in this generation has now changed, taking a different direction to challenge the lack of women in technical and field roles. They don’t want to only hold positions in support functions such as human resources, information technology and legal, but they also want to be in technical fields and hold top positions of decision making so as to contribute towards the success of the industry.
Therefore, the issue of women going through needless challenges in the sector before taken seriously and the comparison of women with men’s work status should be stopped or discouraged. Instead, gender diversity should be encouraged within the oil and gas industry so that women in the industry will play greater roles as well.
This, they can do by getting opportunities to engage in frontline operations, certification courses, and other field assignments so that the number of women in the industry will not only increase but their positive contributions to the success of the industry will make them to become role models to the younger generation of women, both on the African continent and beyond.