Speaking at the Women in Mining and Resources WA conference on Friday, Butler said line management experience would offer opportunities for women in an industry that was predominately dominated by males.

"It's critical for women to get line experience early in their careers if they want to get key executive positions," she said.

"And the fact is there are a very small percentage of women in line positions, so one of the key challenges for people running organisations is to allow women ... in line positions."

Butler said the industry could work towards gaining a critical mass of women in senior levels by increasing the awareness of barriers facing women, offering flexible working hours and increasing training opportunities.

"Preparing women for line management is absolutely critical because the more line experience they have the more chance they will have of getting promoted."

Butler went on to say the mining industry didn't see many women in leadership positions because the issue was misdiagnosed.

She said there had typically been a "glass ceiling" surrounding the issue of women in leadership roles, and admitted the reality in females reaching the top was a rather complex passage with multiple barriers.

Butler also noted that while having family responsibilities had positive effects on male promotions and salaries, it had the opposite effect for women.

"We need to get over this built-in prejudice and not hide behind some fancy statistics," she said.

"Having said that, the one thing that does have a more positive impact for women than men [is] the longer years of education the better impact on a woman's promotion opportunity and a woman's salary. So if you're at school, stay there."

Meanwhile, Woodside project manager for the onshore portion of the Pluto expansion project Mary Hackett told delegates schools were the key to attracting women into the resources sector.

"In 2011 we have eight year old girls telling eight year old girls that girls aren't good at maths, so something hasn't quite shifted for us and that worries me," she said.

"That story needs to be quashed, that story needs to disappear in this generation because it doesn't do anybody any good it and it doesn't achieve what we can achieve."

Hackett, who was one of three finalists for the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia Women in Resources Champion award earlier this year, called on women in the sector to do school mentoring, saying it provided an opportunity to change a generation.

"I've done a bit of work in mentoring in schools and it's amazing," she said.

"Girls come up to you in the end and they ask you questions [like] ‘do you really think I could work in mining?'."

"They ask it because the thought had never come into their mind before, they didn't think that they had rite of passage into mining on some level.

"So if in your career you do one talk at one school, that's 30 girls that have the opportunity to have their lives changed."