Does the Glass Ceiling Still Exist?
Posted on Thu, Apr 02, 2009 @ 05:44 PM
I'm so used to receiving junk mail and worthless forwards in my inbox, that when a friend of mine forwarded me an email with a link in it a couple weeks ago, I ignored the link entirely figuring it was trivial.
When she followed up two weeks later, I agreed to dig her email up, still thinking it was an amusing joke email- but the email wasn't that funny. Instead of the corny joke I was expecting, she had forwarded me the UC Davis Graduate School of Management's Study of California Women Business Leaders, and it turns out, there aren't as many Women Business Leaders in California as most women would expect.
UC Davis' overall findings: "It's clear that women continue to be an untapped resource. The same innovative thinking that drives the world's eighth largest economy is not propelling women into top leadership positions at the largest public companies in the Golden State."
Specifically:
- Women hold only 10.9% of the board seats and top executive officer positions, virtually unchanged from last year.
- 177 (nearly 30%) of California's 400 largest public companies have no women in a top executive position or on the board of directors.
- Essentially half -- 48.5% -- of the 400 companies have no woman among their executive officers.
- 47% percent have no woman in the boardroom.
- Only 13 of the 400 companies surveyed have a woman CEO.
I'm stunned by the pretty bleak findings. I work for a large non-profit, and our executive director and associate directors are all women. Now I wonder if that's because women are more accepted as leaders of organizations that don't aim solely to make a profit, if it's related to women seeming to be more interested in cause-driven careers, or if it's a fluke.
Regardless, the study is a great reminder that equality in the workplace is not necessarily a given.
You can read the rest of the study here.