“For years, I was the first woman this, or the only woman that. And in those days, I couldn’t work on the stock exchange, I couldn’t drive a bus or fly an airplane. Indeed, I couldn’t open a bank account without my husband’s permission. My generation of women fought the battles for the right to work and the right for equal pay.”
As a tech entrepreneur, Dame Stephanie Shirley pioneered many business practices accepted today, including working from home and maternity leave, while breaking social and legal barriers at the same time. Hitting the glass ceiling multiple times, she demonstrates the vast opportunities we deny and miss out on, as a society, by allowing inequitable systems to remain in place.