Diversity (unrelated to our topic) - reminds me of an old bumper sticker: Nuke the gay whales for Jesus!

Yes, what did you do with said company?

That sort of behaviour is legally challengeable but there needs to be a certain level of energy to take up that sort of fight. And would anyone still want to work for that sort of company even if they win the legal fight?

Thanks for the explanation Trudy, I've edited my post

Sorry, I didn't mean for you to change a thing...I was just trying to share a joke.

I like your joke @Trudy Downes

Thanks for the interest Steve - it turned out to be fortunate as I went contracting instead. But as far as I am aware, it's still an all boys club in that business. I did consider taking it further at the time, but once you are labelled as "difficult or demanding or even challenging" - often the stigma is hard to erase and we in H&S are a very small community. I've loving the idea of the list though

Good move Janet, that's the whole flaw with any employment matter, particularly in New Zealand where there are generally few,if any, degrees of separation. The issue is the same with company directorships, where breaking into the "old boys" club is nigh on impossible.

So a list of companies where females have reached branch manager or better level, the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Downer NZ & Road Sciences (National & Christchurch)
Cable Price (Christchurch)
Southfuels (Christchurch)
Corys Electrical (Ashburton)
Gribbles Veterinary (Christchurch)

I'll admit that I did get frustrated when working in "corporates" in NZ as there is very much still an old boys club but I'd like to give a shout out to 2 amazing women in the industry - Jo Prigmore, National Safety Manager for Fulton Hogan and Karyn Beattie, Health and Safety Manager at Icon who I see as trailblazers in the industry. I'm sure they still have their day to day issues but they've worked hard and show others what can be achieved.

I worked at Steel and Tube and we had 2 female branch managers and 1 regional manager, also the CFO was female. They were all very good at what they did

At the risk of adding yet another male voice here, I'll relate what my wife's thoughts were, as we have had pretty much this discussion.
She was asked to join the Board of an Association that represents a very male-dominated industry, but was very hesitant. Her reasons? She didn't think she had the required governance expertise and didn't want to get the position as the 'token female' on the team.

I couldn't really speak to the tokenism thoughts, but convinced her that two of the others on the Board definitely wouldn't take her on as a token gesture, but would definitely take her on in a mentoring way. Once she got involved, she quickly discovered that she knew as much or more about governance as most of the existing Board members.
My take-away from this was that men will apply for the job they want and work out how to do it. Women tend to gather the skills and then apply for the job. End result is that the man will look more ambitious.

I'm not commenting on the rights or wrongs with this, just making an observation.