29 Corporate Boards Have No Female Members

It may be 2011, but the glass ceiling still hasn't shattered. There are still 29 publicly traded companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 that don't have any women on their boards or among their highest-paid executives, reports Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

One-third of the boys club companies are in the oil and gas sector, which has the lowest percentage of female directors of any industry, but many other industries are represented on the list.

Instead of working toward gender parity, corporate American seems to be moving away from it. The number of women on corporate boards on the S&P 500 dropped from 16.6 percent to 16 percent last year. Many companies didn't make the BusinessWeek list because they have a lone female board member, who sources told the magazine are often included only as a "token gesture of gender diversity."

It's difficult to believe that even today, there are only three companies in the S&P 500 who can boast a more than 40 percent female board: Macy's, Avon, and Estée Lauder. And while it makes sense that women would serve on the boards of cosmetics and retail companies, whose consumers are traditionally female, it doesn't make much sense that Discovery Communications which owns the Oprah Winfrey Network, has no women on its board, or that Cintas, the largest uniform manufacturer in the U.S., doesn't either.

Aida Alvarez, who sits on the boards of Walmart and Union Bank, told the magazine that it's just good business to have women on the board because there isn't a large, public company in America that doesn't have women as consumers and investors.

Comments

[beadingchef]

06:11 PM on 06/25/2011

With the comments below.......and the say there is no war on women, the 2 men below are a prime example of why it is hard for women to advance in the work places. The world is changing. When men become the primary care givers of our children then perhaps the glass ceiling will change. Most of the women I know work as hard as men and take care of the families also. I know women truck drivers, garbage collectors, no I do not now any coal miners. But I know women who would have no problem working in these jobs, but the men who run the companies don't hire women for these jobs. The day men can have babies the world will change.

[edtastic]

12:07 AM on 06/26/2011

"Late last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that for the first time, women made up the majority of the workforce in highly paid managerial positions. The change in the status quo has been marked enough that several erstwhile women's advocates have started to voice concerns about how to get more men to go to college. "

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html#ixzz1QLrZF1oJ

Times have changed, women really need to stop complaining and help their sons get a degree.

[Grinling Gibbons]

06:01 AM on 06/26/2011

From your link:

"Here's the deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide."

In other words, only women suffer economically from the fundamental human act of becoming a parent. They even lose money just by getting married. The social structure is still unevenly rigged against them when it comes to LIFETIME earnings. Old women will still be poorer than old men.

As for boys getting degrees, I speak as one who has a PhD son and a Deans List undergrad. This is how it's done: Discipline. And you know who can also enforce discipline? DADS. Men need to step up and stop raising their boys to be jocks and start modeling the proper behavior for them - which means hard work, efforts to be attentive, respect for teachers (including women teachers), a self image that's about more than how many muscles you have or how many aliens you can kill in a video game.

Men like yourself need to stop complaining and find a boy to mentor. Would you be a worthy mentor to any boy? Are you man enough to try? Or would you just rather whine all day on the internet?

[grapost]

10:51 AM on 06/25/2011

It's because women are unwilling to make the FULL committment to a company to get on a corporate board. They still want time with their families and other special considerations and accomodations because they are Female. Women don't want equal rights they want SPECIAL RIGHTS that allow them to have what men have WITHOUT making the same contributions or committments.!

[JoeySoCal]

07:42 AM on 06/25/2011

90% of teachers are female, 80% of nurses are female. 90% of models and porn stars are female. 70% of marketers are female. A majority of lawyers are female.

What is your problem feminists? Do you have no capacity to appreciate the vice of pettiness and self-intoxication?

99% of combat deaths are MALE. Females do not risk or sacrifice their lives to defend their 'sacred' 'right' to vote. They are content to have men do it for them, in the name of equality, and then use that vote to slay those very men, by stealing his jobs, his kids, his income, his dignity and respect. Is there a more vile disfigured character?

You can lather it in as much soft pink and purply fuzziness as you want. What you are selling is mother of all epic fails.

[JoeySoCal]

07:42 AM on 06/25/2011

3,000 refuse collection companies still have no female applicants.

50,000 trucking jobs. Nope no delicate ladies are up to the sacrifice.

All coal mining companies still have no female applicants, for the actual coal mining part.

All jobs involving even the slightest bit of risk or sacrifice, still no female takers. The tokens who are put their by feminists are sheltered by the males who actually risk and sacrifice on the front lines.

96% of workplace injuries and deaths, still no females.

All jobs which actually involve building something useful for society. Nope, no females.

90% of men are more dedicated, work longer hours, commute longer, take riskier more difficult jobs, actually compete to EARN their position- how novel.

Men die 7 years earlier than females.

90% of men actually earned their qualifying educational degrees rather than being affirmative actioned through and leaving them with only fake 'skills' like the ability to formulate words, er 'communicate'.

90% of men, as in sports, perform phenomenally better than females in almost every category that produces social and economic value. The market tries to reward this natural ability, all though the market's ability to do so has been crippled by the iron fist of feminist corruption.