Women Executives

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Women Executives

Even though women constitute 40% of all executives and administrative posts
(up from 24% in 1976), they are still restricted mostly to the middle and lower positions, and the senior levels of management are almost entirely male domains.
A 1990 study of the top Fortune 500 companies by Mary Ann Von Glinow of the
University of Southern California, showed that "women were only 2.6% of corporate officers (the vice presidential level up)." Of the Fortune Service
500, only 4.3% of the corporate officers were women - even though women are 6l% of all service workers.
Even more disturbing is that these numbers have "shown little improvement in the 25 years that these statistics have been tracked". (University of
Michigan, Korn/Ferry International). What this means is that at the present rate of increase, it will be 475 years - or not until 2466 before women reach equality with men in the executive suite.
This scenario is not any better on corporate boards. Only 4.5% of the
Fortune 500 industrial directorships are held by women. On Fortune Service 500 companies, 5.6% of corporate directors are women. The rate of increase is so slow that parity with men on corporate boards will not be achieved until the year 2116 - or for 125 years. (The Feminist Majority Foundation News Media
Publishing Inc., 1995)
In 1980, only one woman held the rank of CEO of a Fortune 500 company. This woman came into the top management by inheriting the company from her father and husband. In 1985, this executive was joined by a second woman who reached the top - by founding the company she headed.
Even though the newspapers are reporting that women have come a long way and are successful in the corporate world, women are banging into a "glass ceiling" that is "so subtle that it is transparent, yet so strong that it prevents women from moving up the corporate hierarchy". (Ann Morrison, The
Feminist Majority Foundation and News Media, Inc, 1955) Women can see the high- level corporate positions but are kept from reaching the top. According to
Morrison (http//www.feminist.org/research/ewb glass.ntml.) and her colleagues, the glass ceiling is not simply a barrier for an individual, based on the person/s inability to handle a higher-level job. Rather, the glass ceiling applies to women as a group who are kept from advancing higher because th...

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...mily, women are not as serious about their careers, women are not suited for top management because they are not aggressive enough and lack the self confidence required for the top jobs - to mention a few.) These myths seem work to keep women in their place and to justify the lack of progress for women. Worse yet, these myths often place blame on women rather than on sex discrimination.
Men in corporate management tend not to perceive discrimation as a real problem, thereby making it virtually impossible to implement effective remedies.
White men have ranked problems encountered by women executives as insignificant compared to how women ranked them. Therefore, without constant pressure from the outside and strong legal remedies, the very real problems of race and sex discrimination in the executive suite may never be adequately addressed. Even though feminists have fought to establish and vigorously enforce guidelines and laws prohibiting sex discrimination in employment, women feel they are a long way from equality in the ranks of American business. They feel that further gains depend on getting more feminists into decision-making positions and creating new strategies for change.

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