It is no surprise, at least not to me, that Europe’s new executive commission is mostly made up of men from right-wing parties.

In what was possibly a panicked attempt to readdress this situation, last week the new President of Europe and former president of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker, asked Malta and other member states to reconsider their nominations for commissioner and nominate a woman.

On the other hand, earlier this year, in yet another moment of political panic, Joseph Muscat nominated ex-Tourism Minister Karmenu Vella as Malta’s commissioner to Europe.

And unless Karmenu Vella performs a quick sex change, Malta is about to lose out because Juncker is threatening – not so vaguely – that if he doesn’t get at least as many female commissioners as Barosso, which amounted to nine, then he will give the existing female commissioners, which currently amount to six, top priority posts. He said that he will allocate them the more prestigious jobs such as vice presidencies and foreign secretary.

Whether I agree with this bullish strategy or not is material for another column, but why is it that no matter how much time passes and no matter how many gender policies are issued, women still lag behind in the workplace? Whether it is in academia, manufacturing, law, medicine or politics, women at the top level are still very hard to come by.

Whilst girls tend to be more successful at school and more women enter tertiary education than men, and whilst we enter the workforce at rates equal to men, we then get to the top at a much slower rate, if at all.

Are we really that different to men? Don’t we have what it takes? Is this a result of personal choices? Are we innately different or are we socialised to be so?

Or could it be perhaps that, despite all our talk about equality and the need for women to join the workforce, we still face barriers that are unique to our gender?

Many argue that the feminist war is over; that women have achieved equality and that we should just shut up, work hard, and make our own success happen.

In fact, lots of women, especially successful ones, are convinced that women don’t make it to the top for other reasons and not specifically because of gender bias.

But is this really the case?

Since it is practically impossible to isolate gender from other variables (such as attitude, environment, age, health, talent and personality) it is very difficult to research the issue and conclude once and for all whether it is gender bias that keeps women back.

A fairly recent study, which unfortunately has gone largely unnoticed, has thrown a new light on the matter. Groups of transgendered people, who have stayed in the same workplace even after they changed their gender, have given their own account of how they’ve experienced the workplace; first as men and then as women, or vice versa.

Of course the sample is small, but this is probably the closest we’ll ever get to isolating gender from other variables.

Ben Barres is a biologist at Stanford. Up until his late forties he was Barbara. As a woman he had faced lots of bias and discrimination but, as most women do, Barbara didn’t give it too much importance.

But now that Barbara has become Ben, even with the stigma of being transgender, he’s already feeling that people treat him with much more respect than before. He reports that at work his authority is less frequently questioned and that when he talks, now as Ben, he’s hardly ever interrupted. As Barbara, Ben wasn’t sure why women always lagged behind, but now that he’s experiencing work as a man, he’s fully convinced that women are not breaking into top jobs because they are not taken as seriously as men, and not because of childcare, family responsibilities or lack of ambition.

Sociologist Kristen Schilt interviewed dozens of FTM (female to male) transgender individuals. One of her research subjects claimed that now, as a man, when he expresses an opinion everyone writes it down.

Another interviewee said that, before, no matter how many facts she presented to support her argument, she would still be faced with a torrent of doubts and questions. Now, as a man, she finds that this has changed dramatically.

In addition, certain personality traits that in women are viewed negatively, in men, are seen as positives. “Whereas before I was seen as aggressive, now as a man, I’m told that I have a take-charge attitude” said another interviewee.

However, when a biological man crosses to the female gender, the exact opposite seems to happen. Joan Roughgarden, also a biologist at Stanford, lived and worked as Jonathan Roughgarden until her early fifties.

From her experience in both genders she now claims that, “men are assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise.”

Back to Juncker and the European Commission…

Through his repeated requests for member states to nominate female commissioners, Juncker is clearly saying that as far as he’s concerned, the lack of female nominations are nothing but a result of this ingrained bias against women and not a lack of competence or interest from their part.

He’s not asking for any odd woman to be nominated, but for the right women and he’s convinced that every member state has competent and willing women who can occupy these posts but are not being nominated because of this ingrained bias.

Who knows, maybe Juncker read the above-mentioned research and that’s why he has gone as far as saying that, without enough women, the Commission would be “neither legitimate nor credible”.

And if you don’t give two hoots about equality, remember that if Juncker sticks to his promise of giving women the top posts, by sticking with Karmenu Vella Malta will lose out on a significant Commission role, leaving us with even less influence in the heart of Europe. 

According to the Euroactiv website, Karmenu Vella is set to be named European Commissioner responsible for Fisheries.

The study referred to in this article: Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality by Kirsten Schilt, was published in 2011.