Women in buisness

Essay by ThE_TruckCollege, UndergraduateA-, December 1996

download word file, 4 pages 3.5

well done, and it was hard to do good

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...