Women’s leadership lags in every country, in every field, because of cultural and structural barriers. At the current rate, parity will be reached in the United States in 2085! Whether it’s politics, finance, entertainment, or the military, few women have a seat at the decision making table.
THE FACTS
Benchmarking Women’s Leadership Report compares fourteen job sectors. Bottom line, although outperforming men, women still do not have parity in salaries and leadership positions. Some examples:
Academia. Women win more than 55% of the most prestigious awards despite only holding 29% of tenured positions.
Law. Women were 47% of the graduates, yet only 15% of equity partners and 5% of managing partners in 2012.
Business. Women held 51% of professional and managerial positions but only 15% of executive positions and 13% of board of director seats in Fortune 500 companies in 2013.
Politics and government. Women hold 18 percent of seats in the 2013 Congress, cosponsor more bills, and bring in more federal spending to their districts. Similar to other states, the NYS legislature is only 22% female. More
Catalyst research connects gender diversity and financial performance and builds the business case that Diversity Matters. Yet U.S. businesses are slow to embrace needed change or initiatives like the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles “Equality Means Business.”
FEATURED CAMPAIGNS
Take The Lead prepares, develops, inspires and propels women to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors by 2025!
Lean In Circles, an outgrowth of Sheryl Sandberg’s book, are small peer groups that meet regularly to learn and share together. These 21st Century support groups are feeding the growth and dreams of 1,000s around the U.S. The New York group can be reached at: www.nycleanin.com
2020 Women on Boards, responds to this lack of representation of women on corporate boards and the fact that the numbers are not increasing. This nonprofit organization concentrates on mobilizing stakeholders, from the consumer to the boardroom, to get involved and raise these numbers. Contact NY Chapter at: nyc@2020wob.org
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