subject: Few Women Permitted In Real Leadership. [print this page] Data collected from the research from the nonprofit Catalyst disclosed that sixty of the Fortune 500 corporations do not possess any female directors. Out of the same group, 136 firms have no women among their top five executives.
Moreover, there are 26 Fortune 500 companies which have neither a female in executive management, nor a woman board member.
Above half of the American workforce consists of women. They are paid lower wages than their male counterparts and the numbers are even worse for coloured women.
40% of the students at elite business schools are women, yet they have an especially hard task of moving into the ranks of senior management in the United State's biggest corporations. The unfairness worries women at every level of the job market.
The companies were labeled in categories by industry following a review of the Catalyst information. 24/7 Wall St investigated their corporate websites to find out if they had any females in top management at all. While they finally managed to find somebody, they were usually in public relations, human resources, investor relations, or accounting.
The figures are horrendous and point to an ever lingering misogyny in the executive suites and board rooms in the majority of the largest companies. It is unfathomable how these public companies in the 21st Century can still rule women out from such vital roles, when Intuit Inc states that a billion women will enter the workforce by 2020.
The study revealed that with micro-credit burgeoning and low market entry costs, a 'she-economy' is about to be created. It is widely recognized that females are a powerful universal consumer force, which has brought about urban migration, increased access to education for women, greater knowledge of mobile technologies and a wider understanding of the Internet.
There are more females in national positions than at any other time in history. The list consists of 3 queens as Head of State, 4 Governor Generals and 14 concurrent women national leaders.
This, united with the study's findings, has led some experts to say that we are on the verge of entering the 'women's decade". This claim however, is definitely not reflected in the board rooms and executive suites of the world"s business sector. In the arena of global politics, females are still only noticed through their lack of a majority presence.
