Catalyst's Response to The Shriver Report
Posted on Fri, Oct 23, 2009 @ 08:21 PM
California's First Lady Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress recently released The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything, a study evaluating the prominent role of women in America's workforce, in particular women nearing parity in terms of numbers but not so in other essential work-related arenas, like leadership. In a blog on The Huffington Post, Ilene H. Lang, President of Catalyst, a leading nonprofit membership organization working globally with businesses and the professions to build inclusive workplaces and expand opportunities for women and business, discusses some of the realities of the report's findings regarding women at work.
In Reality Check: What's Wrong With This Picture, Lang cites, "We are a nation of decision-making women -- the report notes that women make 80% of consumer buying decisions. Yet we still don't call the shots at work. As women approach 50% of the workforce, we languish at 15% of corporate boards, 16% of C-Suites, and 3% of CEOs. Women have long been 50% of mid-level managers and professionals, but they continue to lag in leadership and in compensation."
Lang also questions, "As our workplaces become more female, our business leadership becomes more male. What's wrong with this picture?"
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ilene-h-lang/reality-check-whats-wrong_b_330548.html and http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/womans_nation.html