Education, election or a tap on the shoulder: The gendered processes of appointment to regional development boards

Women's representation in regional governance bodies in Australia has been increasing in recent years, as public policy efforts to improve the representation of women on government and industry boards and committees have been enacted. For instance, the Office of the Status of Women's policy AppointWomen has been in place for nearly a decade, and between 2002 and 2005, 'has provided [the] Australian Government agencies with over 640 names and curriculum vitae of suitably qualified women' (Office of the Status of Women, 2006). That there has been varied success in opening the board room doors to women is evident by the statistics to emerge from the recent government inquiry into women's representation on regional and rural bodies of influence (Department of Transport and Regional Services, 2005). While it seems women have gained representation in many of the locally focused bodies, where facilitation is deemed to be a key component of their role (such as the regional development bodies), their access to the better resourced, higher status boards (for instance large agricultural companies), has been more limited. Just as in the UK and Ireland (Little, 2001, Little and Jones, 2000, Shortall, 2002), it seems the regional governance structures in Australia remain heavily gendered (Sheridan et al., 2006).