Kudos to Patience Wheatcroft for a brilliant article and analysis of the “Corporate Gender Report”.  In an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) she starts out

International Women’s Day was celebrated yesterday with the familiar flurry of surveys highlighting the dearth of women in senior business roles. The World Economic Forum, the organization behind the annual Davos gathering, added its voice to the chorus, with a hefty “Corporate Gender Gap Report” that purports to show women aren’t making it to the top in companies around the globe. Internationally, the report found that an average of only 5% of large companies had females at the chief executive officer level, although women made up between a quarter and half of their work force.

The OECD offered a similar thesis. Although 62% of women in OECD countries are in paid work, only about a third of managerial posts are held by females, it explains in its new “Gender Brief.”

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You really should read the entire article because her analysis of the report is right on.  Many politicians want to get involved to solve this great inequity but is that really answer?

This week my attention has been on the Iraq elections and right now they have a mandated 25% female representation in their government. This initial quota may be a good thing but it was noted that this is more than the United States has in their House of Representatives or Senate.  One woman running interviewed reported with a smile that it is fine that there are these spots for the women but the men still run the committees once elected.  But at least the women are there.

Right now I am old enough that many of my close female friends have leadership roles in companies and we have had some very interesting conversations about the “glass ceiling”.  I have been a Stay at Home Mom for the past 22 years and have worked from home all that time.

I am old enough to remember women burning their bras at protests (although I was not old enough at the time to even own a bra so I didn’t really get the significance at the time).

Yesterday was supposed to be Internation Womans Day but I didn’t hear about it until today.  Have we come far enough in the past 30 to 40 years or do we still have a long way to go?

This is why we have to pay such close attention to the article written by Patience Wheatcroft.  Because she looks at the “research” and doesn’t just shout about the inequalities on International Womans Day, she looks at the process of gathering the data.  Statistics can be helpful but they can also be misleading.  The information gathered for this report was sent out in a voluntary survey style and the data collected was only that from those companies that actually spent the time to assign someone to the task and then send it back in.  So, is the survey is not so much an accurate representation of all companies but of all companies willing to complete the survey.  What provisions were in place to account for the companies that did not submit the survey.  Did the companies primarily run by women decide that filling out this survey perhaps was not something that would improve their bottom line and so it went immediately into the round file?

It seems like the report may be an interesting conversation starter but possibly not the one to use as a basis for setting political policy.

There are so many women in the world today grateful for those women willing to stand there in a huge crowd and toss their bras into a big burning pile.  I applaud those pioneers for what they have done for me.  I think their original intent was to get more women in business and to be able to break through that glass ceiling but what really has happened is a little bit different. Today more women are being able to call the shots and determine how and when they work. ( There are currently alot of people around the world and particularly in the united states who are out of work and they might say they do not have a choice but for the women of the womens rights movement the goal was equality and right now both women and men are being equally laid off).  If a woman goes to school and becomes a laywer, she can decide to take a job at that big law firm and climb the corporate ladder to the partner position.  But she can also decide to job share or work from home or even work a couple of days a week.  No one questions her about this.  The roles have been reversed a little bit here because if a man did the same thing his motives might be questioned and people might wonder what he is up to.  Women doctors are setting up their practice hours to accomodate their lifestyle.  More and more women in the professional world are making their own way.

The women of the women’s right era have allowed me to live in a world where I can work from home and have a friend who is the project manager for a large corporation and who sits on several board of directors, and another friend who has introduced Presidents at fundraiser events as a representative of her companies board of directors.  It is a great start.

Do we still have a long way to go?  Absolutely!  We want to empower more women to become business owners and members of the Board of Directors and world leaders.  But we also want them to be able to do this on their own terms and not always be compared with the vision of the what it means to be successful by male standards.  Waking up before dawn, putting on our business suit, going into the office, doing our stint as the business mogul, returning home late at night to a few hours of relaxation before getting up again and doing it all over again.

The more we try to make the ultimate goal that a woman’s success is only realized when it is compared directly with a man then we do a disservice to not only to ourselves but also to all those men out there too who would like to work in a more creative environment where they can spend time with their kids and still be wildly successful businessmen.

But it all boils down to capabiltiy and competance.  We want to let our kids know that we are results oriented and not just punching the time card of life.  Do what you do and do it well.  Be passionate and strive for excellence.  We want to live life on our own terms and work in a world where your performance is the important thing not just being present.

One of my favorite quotes I saw on the internet (don’t know who said it) is “I’m unique.  Just like everybody else.”  And its the truth.  The only standard we can set for success is capability not quotas.

We want to teach our daughters that they can break through their own glass ceiling. To quote the wise sages the Cheetah Girls “I Don’t want to be no Cinderella, waiting in some dark and dusty cellar. Waiting for somebody to come and set me free. No No No No No – I wan’t to rescue myself”.

We have to reward capability and competance in whatever format it takes and avoid quotas for quotas sake.

Girl Power!

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE BY PATIENCE WHEATCROFT