Linda, a new play at the Royal Court Theatre in London, U.K., is nothing if not ambitious. Like the play’s middle-aged, executive, female protagonist, the production confronts the big issues facing women who aspire to the upper levels of companies: bad vibes from the beauty industry, ambition vs family, disloyal spouses, kids who can’t function despite brains and educational opportunity. Even cyberbullying gets an airing. Ticket sales have been brisk.

Things get pretty dramatic – complete with a thoroughly Shakespearean ending. But whatever the play’s value as drama, seeing such topics tackled on stage or in film or television is not common and so it’s interesting to ask why. One reason may be that women still remain significantly under-represented at the executive level in most workplaces; there still aren’t that many stories to tell.

This gender gap is difficult to understand, given the high proportion of women now graduating from professional faculties such as law and business – 50% or more of the class in some cases.

So, it’s encouraging to see some organizations in the financial services sector upping their game when it comes to supporting bigger roles for women at executive levels. Bill Downe, CEO of Bank of Montreal, is chairman of Catalyst Inc.’s Canadian division’s advisory board. Catalyst is a non-profit that advocates for greater workplace opportunities for women. The Canadian group recently handed out some awards and, among other honourees, recognized Bill Thomas, CEO of KPMG LLP in Canada, for establishing procedures to battle unconscious biases in the workplace.

The investment side of the sector – traditionally a steeper mountain than banking for women candidates – also is taking steps to bring about change. As of 2015, the Canadian Securities Administrators requires publicly listed companies to file annual reports of the number of women on their boards and in executive officer positions.

Tackling the problem at its root – women’s own perceptions of what they can and cannot do – Women in Capital Markets recently launched an internship program in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The initiative is designed to help female university students explore the investment industry while still at school.

Although programs like these are not entirely new, there does appear to be a change in the heft being brought to bear on what seems, at times, to be an intractable problem. Perhaps that change is because organizations are beginning to recognize the cost of failing to tap into a rapidly expanding talent pool: highly educated young women.

Of course, organizational change tends to be incremental, and measuring success is not always easy. There’s one barometer though, that’s likely to change once gender becomes what it should be in the workplace: irrelevant. And that’s the point at which the drama of a woman’s life unravelling has nothing to do with roadblocks based on gender at the office, at home and in the world.

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