Bermuda is still struggling with diversity issues, a leading UK speaker on social issues has said, and continues to operate as a patriarchal society.

Elaine Sihera was a guest speaker for the ‘Wonder Women’ luncheon to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce and also spoke to an assembly at the Bermuda High School for girls on Friday.

Ms Sihera, from the UK, is a dynamic orator known as “Miss Diversity” because of her own family background and expertise and she is a tireless campaigner for fairness and justice.

She was the first recipient of the prestigious award ‘Leadership in Best Diversity Practice’ and presented the first ever diversity lecture in the House of Commons as well as to the UN’s Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation’s Global Women Leadership Congress in Paris.

In her speech to the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce, Ms Sihera also spoke of diversity, which she said is an inside job.

“If you feel terrible about your life, if you lack confidence and the belief that your are wonderful, you have a great potential and you matter, you will not believe that about others either,” Ms Sihera said.

“The main truths about all humans without exception is we gravitate towards our own kind. We feel comfortable with our own kind. That’s why only four percent of people have relationships across racial boundaries.

“Worst of all for a diverse society, we recruit in our image and likeness because we seek comfort in similarity and we fear the effects of difference,” she added as she spoke about Bermuda’s lack of wealth equality.

The inequality will not change any time soon, according to Ms Sihera, as promotions in Bermuda are not based on modern practices of interviews and applications, but rather are a matter of knowing the person in charge.

This may be the reason, she said, 65 percent of senior positions in companies are held by men and only 35 percent by women in Bermuda rather than the 48 percent of women in senior positions in England.

At her address to the Bermuda High School for Girls, she spoke about her relationship with her father and her background in an attempt, she said, to give the girls an idea where a successful person comes from.

She told The Royal Gazette: “My father didn’t want girls so he didn’t show me any love. I was trying to show how the background of a person moulds them and the way they view the world and treat others.”

Her message for the girls was that they have to be themselves no matter what because then you will evolve and though people might not like it, the experience will empower you.

And Ms Sihera believes the women of Bermuda need the message of empowerment, but should, also, not underestimate what is already happening in here because women are “getting on with it”.