As far as the Western corporate realm is concerned, it’s a white man’s world and women are still fighting to challenge that reality, particularly minorities. That is what Cheryl Packwood, the president of Business Bermuda, says life’s experiences have taught her.Speaking at the Bermuda Public Services Union’s International Women’s Day celebration yesterday evening, Ms Packwood shared her struggles to reach the top of the business world and once there, the difficulties of staying at the summit.But working in Africa at a law firm in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire — she found that women, once educated, there “is no underlying belief that she is less intellectually capable than a man.”Ms Packwood acknowledged that gender or racial equality is not perfect anywhere in the world, but found that in the West there is an ingrained, natural belief that women can’t carry the burden and don’t possess intellectual rigour required of executives in the corporate world.Bermudian Ms Packwood is a honours graduate from prestigious Yale University and from Harvard Law School. She then went on to pass the New York state bar exam on the first try when at the time, the failure rate for women and minorities were very high.She went on to work for a high powered Wall Street law firm and that’s where she says she first felt the presence of the ‘glass ceiling’, separating her from her white male counterparts, despite her education and credentials.“My experiences can be divided effectively into two groups: Western and non-Western. And, as a woman, I much prefer working in the Non-Western world,” said Ms Packwood in her speech. “You may find this a contradictory statement based on the somewhat simplistic perceptions we may all have of the non-Western world. Through my experiences in the Western business world, I have found a general undercurrent maintaining the presumption that women and minorities are inferior and, therefore, white men are inherently smart and capable.“Hence, the glass ceiling or the senior jobs which have been saved for women in human resources, marketing or associations and the like. We poke through very rarely, and when we do, the going can get very rough.”After ten years of working in the West African law firm, Ms Packwood stayed in the region to run a successful cell phone company for an American firm where she was given full control — something that she believes perhaps might not have happened in the West, she said.“In my travels through the Middle East, Africa, Asia, I have never felt discrimination or been mistreated because of my gender,” she explained. “I cannot say the same in the West. Sexual harassment and sexual discrimination are rampant.”From top executives showing up to a woman’s room late at night with a bottle of champagne to a randy politician propositioning every pretty lady he saw, Ms Packwood has experienced much of it and says that in Bermuda, women are expected to sweep it under the carpet.“In Bermuda, it is very difficult to locate statistics on sexual discrimination based on gender and sexual harassment,” she said. “Women are encouraged to keep silent or risk being black balled in our small community.”Despite what she has experienced or maybe because of it, Ms Packwood is intent on mentoring young women, particularly women of colour, to find their way in the corporate world, overcome any obstacles they come across and to find success.“Even though the western world has made great strides toward gender equality, being a young black woman in a white man’s world is no easy feat,” she said. “And, as I can now look back and analyse my experiences and how I handled them, I hope to inspire young women to face the fear, stand up for themselves, and push toward excellence in their goals.”