Today we mark International Women's Day, and in my opinion, the main goal is to significantly promote women's leadership in key roles with an emphasis on public and state-run companies, which play an important role in Israel's economy. In recent years we've made progress, and today we see female CEOs at the helm of leading companies and women in important roles at the forefront of the financial market -- several bank presidents, the Bank of Israel governor, the supervisor of insurance, the supervisor of banks, and until recently, the accountant general were all women, clearly an impressive achievement. The Knesset is also making progress, and today there are more female MKs than in the past. The 33 female MKs of the 20th Knesset carry the burden of shaping policy for change, including Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, as well as MKs Aliza Lavie, Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin, and Aida Touma- Sliman. In 2015, Gamliel established a steering committee to track and critique a breakdown of the state budget by gender, and I have the honor of being a member. The various ministries' reports on gender, which have been partially collected, indicate a budgeting gap that is detrimental to women and demands massive steps to address. We must work to promote the issue through legislation and cabinet decisions in order to lead change and achieve gender equality in practice, not just theory, in all sectors. The government decision to ensure that women are appropriately represented on the boards of directors of government companies has led to the directive being more carefully observed. But the decision didn't touch on women serving as CEOs, so there aren't enough women in that role. This is one of the goals for change. There are enough talented, professional, and experienced women who can shoulder the responsibility. Maybe then we'll be able to fix the situation that still exists, in which men earn 32% more than women. Women make up about 20% of the senior directors and 10% of the CEOs of the companies featured in the TA 100 stock index. Women make up about 20% of the members of boards of directors in Israel and the percentage of board chairmen who are actually chairwomen is really low -- about 4%. Women are still far from represented in key leadership positions on boards of directors, in state-run companies and in public companies. We all expect the legislative branch to expand its activity and allocate more resources to the subject until we have achieved full equality. We want, deserve to, and can be an equal part of leadership at all levels. In my role as chairwoman of the Women's Basketball Premier League, I am spearheading a precedent-setting petition to the High Court of Justice to secure equal budgeting and equal rights in this field. Women are blatantly excluded from the budgets allocated for professional sports, which severely limits the chances of athletic breakthroughs and achievements in Israel. I hope that the High Court ruling will put an end to the discrimination that has gone on for decades and expand from the sports world to other areas. We are familiar with women's excellence, and their absence from influential positions hurts the nation's ability to grow. My hope is that in a few years, we won't need legislative tools, rulings, or reserved places for women, and that equality will be part of Israeli society's DNA. I long for another leap forward that will see leadership by women become part of our daily reality. Iris Stark is a founding partner of the Stark & Stark accounting firm.
