Promotion was barred to part-timers then, but no longer, so she was lucky not get stuck. For 10 years she worked part time, looking after her four children, youngest now aged 19. At the Inland Revenue,all 22 top jobs are held by men, although 60 per cent of total staff are women.Ann Bowtell becomes permanent secretary at the Department of Social Security in September She has been in the department since 1975. The Government has a target of putting women into 15 per cent of the top three grades by 2000. With only 10 per cent so far, few expect them to reach it – although women occupy half the bottom managerial posts in the civil service. I could spend much more time with my three children.”CIVIL SERVICEOnly two women have made it to top jobs in the civil service – Barbara Mills, director of public prosecutions and Valerie Strachan at Customs and Excise, ranked alongside 35 men at permanent secretary level.

Gradually it got easier as I went into more specialised inquiry work. When I became an expert in licences for buses and lorries people started to recognise my name.”Having children did not disrupt my career I was offered a job as district judge, which suited me. She is married with three children, and earns more than £100,000.”I was lucky My father was a judge People were prepared to take me on as a pupil and a tenant It was easy getting into chambers Getting work was much more difficult. For six years, she put up with the title “Lord Justice” as there was no feminine title for her job. Women barristers are still more likely to concentrate on the lower-paid, lower prestige areas of family and criminal law.The number of female solicitors who hold practising certificates is more promising: in 1984 there were just over 5,000; in 1993 there were nearly 17,000.Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, 60, is the only female judge in the Court of Appeal.

For six years she was head teacher of St Paul’s Way School in Tower Hamlets, east London, once notorious for poor results and low morale. Under Ms Cutler’s direction, attendance shot up, exam results improved and two Bengali girls won places at Oxford. She now is head of Highbury Grove boys’ school in Islington, north London and earns more than £50,000.She is divorced, with no children. Education is more open-minded about equal opportunities than many careers, she says, although there are still too few women in senior management. “The real problems arise from the attitude of the staff,” she says. “Some find it difficult accepting a female headteacher.”LAWThe likelihood that a female head will be under a judge’s wig in a British court is tiny – only 6 per cent of High Court and circuit judges are women.

The only woman among the 32 Court of Appeal judges is Dame Elizabeth Butler- Sloss.The Lord Chancellor accepts that women need encouragement to apply for senior ranks. Last year only 43 of the 539 applicants to be QCs were women, although their success rates were higher: 21 per cent of female QC applicants were successful, against 13 per cent of men. There are more female lecturers than ever employed to teach them.There the good news ends. According to the lecturers’ unions, women’s jobs are most likely to be in the lowest, worst-paid grades They are often part timers, or on short-term contracts. In 1989-90, 97 per cent of professorial posts were held by men – women’s share had crept up to 4.9 per cent by 1993.