We Educated the Girls. We Just Never Planned to Promote Them.

Globally, we educated the girls. Girls now out-enrol and out-complete boys and women out-graduate men. So why are only 22% of Australian CEOs women?Andrea opens a four-part series with the uncomfortable answer: educating girls costs money, but it doesn't cost anyone power. A government can fund a school and rank higher on every index without a single man in a decision-making seat giving up a thing. Promoting a woman costs a seat. Somebody has to move.If your career stalled somewhere below where your qualifications were pointing, you're not a personal failure. You're a data point.Do something with itAsk your employer for the staircase, not the pay gap, what share of women sit at each tier, and how it changes going up. Every employer with 100+ staff reports it publicly.Sponsor, don't mentor. Mentoring is advice. Sponsorship is spending your credibility on her when she isn't in the room.If nobody senior works part-time, somebody decided seniority and caregiving don't mix. It can be undecided.Links Where do you have leverage? Take my new Quiz 'The Equality Check' fifteen questions, about five minutes. Half of them are about the world. Half are about what you already have some say over.Next week: Where the money went.Sources: WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2025 · UN Women Gender Snapshot · WGEA Gender Equality ScorecardAndrea Ryan is a women's leadership coach working with women in their 40s and 50s who are ready to lead their own lives on their own terms. Her work sits at the intersection of identity, power and reinvention.Take the Second Chapter Quiz — free, three minutes, and it shows you exactly where you are right now. → https://yoursecondchapter.scoreapp.com/Work with Andrea → 1:1 Coaching: https://www.limitlesswomenlead.com/one-on-one-support Website: https://www.limitlesswomenlead.com/Connect: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrearyan77/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limitlesswomenleadIf this episode resonated, the most useful thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it.