More comments in the press today about women in leadership. Sir Alan reckons that employers should be able to ask women about their plans to have children and whether they have provision for childcare worked out. He says in The Times today, ‘Be under no illusion. There are women employers who are more ruthless than men. Women employers think about the point more than men do. They are more conscious of not employing other women because they feel they're not going to get the value of work out of them. I think it's right for women to be asked the question and I think it's right for women to volunteer the information ... companies have no divine duty to help with childcare. Companies employ people. It's the Government's responsibility to provide childcare. You pay a person a salary and they cut their cloth accordingly.’

UPDATE: The Guardian has an article picking up on Sugar's comments on how women are discriminated against at work because they are pregnant. 68% of employers would like the right to ask women about their plans for a family or about childcare. More here.

Meanwhile in the Guardian, Dee Dee Myers who was the White House’s first female press secretary talks about her book Why Women Should Rule The World which is published early next month. One of the inspirations for writing the book was a conversation with her daughter who was in nursery at the time, that only a boy could be president, while a girl could be a president’s wife. Dee Dee believes that on some level she got the job as press secretary because she was a woman, and Clinton was under pressure to employ more women. But she found that she was a lower rank than any other press secretary, and with less access than her predecessors which made it more difficult to do her job. Eighteen months later she found that a male deputy assistant with less responsibility than her was being paid more. When she asked for a pay rise, she was refused, partly because the man had a family to support. The book reflects on these experiences and others and looks like it will be an interesting read – not least as a conversation starter with the men in your life when they see the title.