Only a handful of phrases that instantly provoke an angry reaction from me. And while I am grateful the list is limited, some entries are now common.

The most recent addition is “Pale Male Stale”, which is being used by governance activists as a rallying call to shake up the status quo of the corporate sector.

The phrase is so catchy it is now being used as part of everyday speak to describe any group where the average age is over 50 and contains more men than women.

Its popularity has no doubt been helped by its oh-so-neat acronym of PMS – ironic given how premenstrual syndrome has so often been used to diminish the value of women in the workplace.

However, catchiness should fool us: “Pale Male Stale” is nothing but racism, sexism and ageism wrapped in a pithy phrase.

First, it fails the reverse test. If someone were to publically describe non-white women in the workplace as “brown clowns” you can be assured it would give rise to a storm of moral outrage -- and rightly so.

And yet many seem happy enough to swallow the negative discrimination inherent in PMS. It implies that old white men have nothing fresh to offer society.  Nothing could be further from the truth. A board is a collective repository of hundreds of thousands of hours of experience and specialist knowledge.

That some of this experience and knowledge was acquired when the workplace culture excluded women from positions of power does not detract from its value. This is particularly true when it applies to highly complex areas such as corporate finance. A misstep here can easily land you in prison.

Boards also need to be credited for their survivorship – the corporate world is a cut-throat place, and those on mahogany row have gotten there through skill, hard work and probably a fair dash of bloody mindedness.

Change Urged
This point was underscored at a recent event where a consultant was advocating demographic change at a governance level because the status quo was seen to be holding back company performance.

This person was adamant that changing the age, race and gender settings of senior leadership and governance teams would unleash untapped capacity.

Yet when challenged by a senior business figure to quantifiably prove this, all that was offered was an anecdote. Surely if the case was so clear cut, it would be easy to show how young, multi-ethnic and gender reflective leadership teams outperformed on a bottom line basis?

Furthermore, why do many young companies fall over themselves to bring senior advisors (often at the insistence of their lenders)? The appointment of Eric Schmidt as Google CEO is prime example.

That is not to say that corporate leadership could not benefit by being more reflective of societal make-up and their respective markets.

Research into this area has long shown that boards tend to refresh their ranks from among their cohorts.

Change needs to be more than skin deep. To the credit of many New Zealand businesses this is already taking place. For example, one major banks already has a programme to support the progression of women (one that relies heavily on merit as well).

Finally, one of the successes of feminism is the widely accepted notion that words matter. A good case could be made that “Pale, Stale, Male” tells young white men their contribution and hard work will never be valued as highly because of an accident of their birth.

That is hardly the basis from which to tackle the remaining gender and ethnic disparities that still exist in the workplace.

We don’t need to denigrate one group in society in order to promote another.