Despite a major drop in the number of top companies with all-male boards, many are still refusing to move with the times – and some of the worst explanations firms have made for not having women among their top employees have been revealed today (Thursday 31 May).

Outrageous explanations for not appointing more women include suggestions they are not able to understand the ‘extremely complex’ issues FTSE boards deal with and the idea women do not want the ‘hassle or pressure’ of sitting on a top board.

The explanations, which come from a range of FTSE 350 Chairs and CEOs, were heard by the team behind the government-backed Hampton-Alexander Review, which has challenged all FTSE 350 companies to make sure at least a third of their board members and leadership are women by 2020.

The explanations include:

1 ‘I don’t think women fit comfortably into the board environment’

2 ‘There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board – the issues covered are extremely complex’

3 ‘Most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board’

4 ‘Shareholders just aren’t interested in the make-up of the board, so why should we be?’

5 ‘My other board colleagues wouldn’t want to appoint a woman on our board’

6 ‘All the ‘good’ women have already been snapped up’

7 ‘We have one woman already on the board, so we are done – it is someone else’s turn’

8 ‘There aren’t any vacancies at the moment – if there were I would think about appointing a woman’

9 ‘We need to build the pipeline from the bottom – there just aren’t enough senior women in this sector’

10 ‘I can’t just appoint a woman because I want to’

The number of women on boards has more than doubled in the FTSE 350 since 2011 according to the most recent statistics (November 2017). In that time, the number of all-male FTSE 350 company boards also fell from 152 to 10.