Equal opportunities: 'What we need now is deeper cultural change'

Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty

When I moved on from one employment, a colleague was reported to have said of my time there: "Shami gave us a great statistical advantage." He thought I was only of statistical benefit to my work in terms of my ethnicity and gender. I don't see myself as a token but as a beacon and I don't worry about any advantage that I might get by ticking more than one box. The last 30 years have brought a transformation of women in the workplace. But there is still a pay gap. Discrimination still exists. Ultimately we have seen the limits of what can be achieved by legislation. What we now need is deeper cultural change.

Marcelle D'Argy Smith, Writer and former editor of 'Cosmopolitan'

I knew I didn't want children and there was a man who I worked with who treated me differently as a result and thought I was "on his side". He thought all pregnant women were bad for business and I would hear the ghastly things men said about pregnant women, like "she only just had a baby 18 months ago". I felt like a Jewish spy in a Nazi HQ. I actually spoke to him and said he's not supposed to be thinking like that. His side of the debate was "you can't stop me thinking like the way I think", which sums up a huge part of our struggle as women.

That was 12 years ago, when pregnant women were given a really hard time.

Reflecting on the changes over the past 30 years, I would say, "We have come a long way from St Louis, but we have got a long way to go', as the song says. What the women's movement and the EOC has always wanted can be summed up in one word - respect. Have we got it? Britain has got a peculiarly bizarre attitude towards women but there is also a generational difference - by men under 40, women are generally regarded as equals, unless they are male chauvinist pigmies. But what I've noticed is that women in other countries seem to set the pace. Look at Condoleezza Rice - she is black, single and female, and she is hugely respected in America. But if you have anything that looks like a strong, interesting woman in power, she lasts about five minutes, apart from Margaret Thatcher who was an aberration.

Every time I search for a strong female role model in this country, I groan. Women with big tits such as Jordan come to mind, or Camilla Parker Bowles, or Liz Hurley. I'm not sure we admire or like strong women in this country.

Theresa May, Conservative MP and shadow Commons leader

The thing I experienced in banking was that men were much more likely to push to have a pay rise than women. Having been involved in banking and politics I would say I was not personally conscious of discrimination in both areas, although others I know have experienced it, particularly in politics. There is still a great deal for the Conservative Party to do in terms of a fairer balance of men and women in Parliament, and David Cameron has grasped this. In Parliament, we have both transparency in pay and equal pay. In banking, it was very different, although I think things have improved.

Claire Rayner, Agony aunt

In the 1950s, I decided that after I'd done nurse training, I would do medicine. I went to evening classes to gain my first qualification. I planned to go to the Royal Free Hospital in London but then I met this fella. A woman could not be accepted for a course if she had a boyfriend. I had to choose and I chose the fella, who turned out to be my husband of 48 years. This struggle has meant many women have delayed parenthood and then found out it's too late. We have to come to terms with our own biology. Something I've been arguing for since the 1960s is paternity pay, which Cherie Blair finally helped us to get.

Shyama Perera, Cultural commentator

I first noticed how different male culture was to female culture while I was a reporter on local newspapers in the East End. In industries where men still dominate, women have a harder time getting on, even though there is no active discrimination. But if women don't drink or talk about sport, or if they haven't been to the same public schools, then these become institutional differences. I noticed that if you didn't go down the pub and go carousing until 10pm, you didn't get the better stories, not through any direct discrimination, but because the men who did got on better with the news desk and got better jobs. It is where I became aware that it was not enough just to get the job but that a woman was still at a disadvantage. There were so many unspoken barriers in industries dominated by male management. I'm sure that still relates to industries such as banking and IT. It's very difficult sometimes to take that on. We still hear extraordinary stories of discrimination in the City and it's astonishing that sexist remarks are still being made in public spaces. I also remember as an 18-year-old in the 1970s you couldn't just go into a pub and buy yourself a drink as a woman or you'd be considered a prostitute.

The change in culture today isn't directly attributed to the Sex Discrimination Act but I think equal opportunities empowered women to fight for equal treatment in other areas where we felt disadvantaged.

An awful lot has changed, just visibly in the last 30 years. When you went into a public building, where once we were a handful now we make up half of the workforce in many offices.

Susie Orbach, Feminist writer

The expectations girls grow up with are different now. They see women working in a variety of things, and that goes across classes. But they don't have support for the struggles they will encounterrelating to gender. When they have babies and come across a glass ceiling, they assume it's their fault. While young women have the most liberation, apparently, of their own body, they have to look very sexual. My generation experienced a false conscientiousness by identifying with the wrong gender. This generationhas a false conscientiousness by thinking it's personal.