It was time to interrupt.
‘To return to my original point,’ Toni said, reining in the host like she was lassoing a wayward cowboy, ‘I know the army-style exercise sounds like good boyish fun, but the listeners want to hear about what Gerry’s female management employees add to the team. That’s the crucial thing in such a female-friendly company and, as Lanigan’s have a lot of women executives, you can explain the benefits to listeners who run businesses that aren’t so women-friendly.’
She waited a beat. There was the sound of silence.
‘Obviously, you have women on your management team?’ said Toni politely. ‘Don’t you?’
She waited again. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
‘How did the female members of staff fare on the bonding exercise?’
‘Uh, the thing is ... uh women work for me, of course,’ Gerry stuttered.
If she’d been on television, Toni would have directed her clear gaze at the person she was about to eviscerate but this was radio and gazing was no use. She needed to paint the picture.
‘I’m a little confused, so I’ll rephrase.’ Toni had many years of experience as an interviewer and she knew that one should be calm when one went in for the kill. ‘I’m not getting the sense that you have female executives after all, Gerry. I must have misunderstood. Can you clear it up – do you have employees at managerial level who happen to be female?’
She waited another beat.
‘Right,’ she said in meaningful tones. ‘If there are no women in management positions in Lanigan’s, perhaps you could tell us precisely what is the turnover of women employees in your business? I can understand that you might not want to give out such statistics, but in companies without women in management roles, the turnover of female staff generally reflects whether what a company says publicly matches the actual facts.’
She smiled then at Gerry, who, too late, recognised an apex predator in the jungle.
‘We can’t let out important business information like that,’ he muttered.
‘We’re here to discuss Women in Business and how you feel the world has become too “woke” as you put it. You implied that the world of business, especially in your own company, is an equal opportunities paradise. Information on how many women hold key positions in your company is surely vital to that.’
‘True,’ agreed the radio host. ‘How many women are in key positions in the company?’ he asked.
‘Now...’ Gerry looked harassed. ‘I mean, we did ... but she didn’t work out—’
‘Nowomen in managerial positions, then?’ said Toni. ‘Apart from one person who may feel libelled at it being announced on the radio that her employment – what was it you said?Didn’t work out.’
‘I didn’t come on the radio to be ambushed—’ began Gerry, rage spreading like the red of sunrise on his face.
‘You came on to tell us that there was no need for organisations like Women in Business to further the rights of women in business and that pro-female organisations are pandering to the concept of “wokeness”,’ Toni said, mask off now. ‘You told us your lady wife runs you – and my congratulations to her – but in fact, by your own admission, you have no women in key positions in your business, despite your previous assertions to the contrary. Your company’s male bias certainly appears to be proof that the report we’ve seen today is an accurate one.’
She rearranged her papers significantly, taking one up as if she was about to read from it.
Gerry took the bait, assuming that she was about to launch a broadside with actual details of precisely who worked for him and what gender they were.
‘Of course we need organisations like yours,’ he said, in an attempt to sound humble. ‘It’s not always easy to know what various voluntary bodies do—’
‘Women in Business is a network of women,’ Toni explained, ‘and we talk as openly as we are legally allowed to about our jobs and our industries. We mentor women, we share information on what we get paid and correlate that to real-world analyses of what men in the same positions get paid. I hope a time will come when society won’t need us, but right now, clearly, it does.’
‘Well put, Toni,’ said the host, spotting a moment to close and move on. ‘Thanks to Toni Cooper, inimitable mentor lead of Women in Business and one of Ireland’s most successful broadcasters. And thanks to Gerry Lanigan ...’
Gerry Lanigan gave a terse nod. He was glaring at Toni with absolute venom.
She had made an enemy there, Toni thought. She gathered her belongings and was out the studio door in a flash. She had no desire to hear the inevitable tirade when Gerry got to his feet knowing he’d been made to look foolish on national radio. That was on his head, not hers.
‘Why do they come on the radio to bluster like that?’ asked Morag, as she and Toni left the building at speed.
‘He came on the radio because the fact of being invited makes him feel important,’ Toni said, thinking that she was somehow going to pay for showing up Gerry Lanigan on live radio.
Her phone rang and she answered quickly.
‘Toni—’ It was Oliver.
