Why Aren't There Women On Facebook's Board?

Bloomberg:

Most of Facebook Inc. (FB)'s more than 800 million users are women. You wouldn't know it from looking at the board, whose seven directors are all men.

The disconnect puts the social-media company at odds with others in the industry that have at least one female director, including LinkedIn Corp. and Google Inc., and from most big public companies in the U.S. Just 11.3 percent of the Fortune 500 had male-only boards last year, according to Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit that researches women and business issues.

Read the whole story

Comments

[BigWillyG]

03:52 PM on 02/07/2012

Maybe because the board of Facebook is pretty much still Zuckerburg and his personal friends? If FB was started by a Michelle and not a Mark who filled the board with friends you'd see a board with men underrepresented. Some things are luck, demographics or nepotism not discrimination.

[greenlass]

02:03 PM on 02/07/2012

DIdn't Zuckerburg start FB as a way to "rate the hotness" of women at his college? No surprise he doesn't see the value in including them...

[m1jones]

11:54 PM on 02/05/2012

Hey, women out there! Wanna see more women on FB's Board? The way to do this is to shut your FB account. Write Mark Zuckerburg the reason. Tell him to put two women on his Board and you'll come back. If 50 million women do this, I guarantee you, Mark will pay attention.

So, if you are a woman with a FB account, either get off or realize that you are agreeing to let all those guys exploit your buying power without giving you any representation. Don't be stupid - get off of FB until MZ puts two women on his Board.

Use your spending power wisely, ladies!

[edtastic]

09:34 AM on 02/06/2012

Why do all that so two ladies can get a cushy job?

[TarzanWannaBe]

07:02 PM on 02/06/2012

Yeah! Today FB, tomorrow you can, en mass, stop your shopping at Wal-Mart. Good luck! You go girls!

[madddoggydawg]

04:27 PM on 02/05/2012

why don't women just climb the corporate ladder higher instead of complaining about how it's someone else's fault

[Astraea Muse]

03:17 AM on 02/06/2012

Why do you think they aren't? Why do you suggest that this is the problem? Why are you so ready to put down anyone who brings up a valid issue? Afraid of something?

[madddoggydawg]

11:50 AM on 02/06/2012

Astraea you irrelevantly added that Planned Parenthood's board is only 30% men. Yet somehow that's not breaking news. Why? Because men don't have a philosophy that thrives on pointing out inequities of a system that doesn't forcefully stop either gender from achieving anything.

[Veritas 1]

02:48 PM on 02/05/2012

Simple, Pre-IPO companies have boards that reflect the ownership of the company. If that are x directors and you own a significant share of the company, you more or less get a board seat. This is especially true for the venture capitalists who are the early financiers of the company. So, it comes as no surprise to me that along with Zuckerberg some of the board members are Jim Breyer, Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel. That leaves a couple of spots for independent board members. Since it is a tech company, the chances of finding a women exec to fill the spot is probably much more difficult. Wait for it to go public, the ownership structure will change and the VCs will soon be replaced with "slightly" more diverse board members. In other words a woman or two on an expanded board which is probably par for the course.

[JoeHurley]

02:41 PM on 02/05/2012

"Zuckerberg has 56.9 percent voting control of Facebook shares, which some corporate-governance experts have said gives one person too much power. "

This about says it all. Envious and deranged busybodies want to control what others do with their own property and businesses.

If you don't like the makeup of the Board of Facebook, don't utilize their services.

[olitenup]

07:19 PM on 02/05/2012

"Envious and reranged"...you are so correct. and they are called venture capitalists and investment bankers.

[Astraea Muse]

03:18 AM on 02/06/2012

Why is it that when someone points out a factual scenario (no women on the board) some men get hyper-defensive and start calling people names?

[JoeHurley]

02:41 PM on 02/06/2012

Hyper-defe­nsive? I am not a stockholder of, or a member of the Facebook board of directors.

[failureofreality]

02:11 PM on 02/05/2012

The reason that there are no women on the board of Facebook is because it is still an innovative technology company. When it stops innovating, women will be on the board. Look at Xerox. When Xerox was a technology company , it was run by men. Now it is a service company which is run by women.

[Heather Ferreira]

01:50 PM on 02/05/2012

Because a woman is somewhere designing the next and better one ;)

[MrOnePercent2012]

11:10 AM on 02/05/2012

Forget the women.......
Why aren't there any left handed dwarfs on the FB board?

[IslamicPacifist]

02:11 AM on 02/05/2012

Because women don't have to be on every board
why aren't there any/many men on Susan G Komen board?
or Planned Parenthood?
or NOW?

[urbancitygirl]

03:26 AM on 02/05/2012

Because those organizations serve primarily women!! Last I looked, Facebook markets to both!

[Astraea Muse]

03:23 AM on 02/06/2012

Susan G. Komen's board is 35% male.

Planned Parenthood's board: 30% male.

Users of Komen's and Planned Parenthood's services are 80% female.

Compare that with Facebook. 0 female board members. 50%+ of users are female.

Do you see the mismatch?

[Badger33]

12:39 AM on 02/05/2012

My guess/observation is that women (at least those with taste) tend to value privacy more than men. Facebook respects nobody's privacy.

[fireart]

07:39 PM on 02/04/2012

Could be they are too busy posting their activity minute by minute.

[banzaimaur]

07:12 PM on 02/04/2012

Why? Who cares?

This article reminds me of the law that one of the Scandinavian countries passed that forbid urinals in men's public restrooms. For equalities sake, if the women had to sit to pee.....so did the men.

[fireart]

07:36 PM on 02/04/2012

More women are standing up now. They also blow their nose with their fingers.

[MrOnePercent2012]

10:43 AM on 02/05/2012

I hope your joking about that law. I used to respect Scandinavians.

[rubadub]

06:45 PM on 02/04/2012

America MUST have quotas for gender equal hiring.

[PC Destroyer]

06:08 PM on 02/04/2012

Aren't Whites under-represented in the NBA?

[Greg Bell]

01:13 AM on 02/05/2012

Not in management.

[urbancitygirl]

03:26 AM on 02/05/2012

Thank you!!

[MrOnePercent2012]

10:44 AM on 02/05/2012

You're right. That's not fair.