Glass Ceilings & Barriers

From The Telegraph:

The move to drop the “golden skirt” policy is a sign of ministers’ commitment to strip red tape from companies to get the economy moving.

Ministers said they were “standing up for British business” and were opposing the plans to impose more “burdensome regulation” on companies.

The European Commission launched a consultation in March proposing forcing companies by law to bring in the quotas.

The suggestion for quotas was praised by Prime Minister David Cameron at a summit in Stockholm in March.

However ministers will say the Government is not going to implement the quotas, and instead will merely encourage firms to hire more women in executive positions.

Figures show that nearly 16 per cent of senior positions are now held by women, up from 12.5 per cent last year. If the momentum continues, the number of women on boards will exceed 25 per cent by 2015.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary and Women’s minister, said: “We are encouraging firms to use women’s talents by helping them see the business benefits. But we must allow them to get on with their job.

“Our voluntary approach is reaping rewards. The past year has seen the biggest ever jump in the number of women on boards, and some of the UK's leading companies are now reporting on gender diversity, which will help more women rise to the top.”

[...]

From The Wall Street Journal:

A roundup of the highest-paid bosses from 2011 in an earlier Wall Street Journal article is a reminder that women are still a rarity in the corner office. And those that do make it to the corner office are earning far less than their male counterparts.

Kraft Foods CEO Irene Rosenfeld, the top-paid woman last year, ranked 62nd on the list of more than 300 chief executives compiled by Hay Group. With a total direct compensation of $15.5 million, she earned just 1/24th of what top-paid Apple CEO Tim Cook received. (Even considering Cook’s abnormally high pay compared to the rest of the list, Rosenfeld got just one-fifth of what No. 2 Oracle CEO Larry Ellison earned.)

Research suggests the pay disparity between the two genders begins forming early on. New female M.B.A. graduates earn on average $4,600 less than their male counterparts, according to a Catalyst study of graduates from 26 top M.B.A. programs around the world. By mid-career, that pay gap grows to $31,000.

[...]

From Bloomberg Business Week:

Unmarried women were among Barack Obama’s most loyal supporters in 2008, turning out in droves and delivering 70 percent of their votes to him. When many of them stayed home in the 2010 midterm election, Democrats lost the House and had their Senate majority trimmed.

Now, determined to get single women back, Senate leaders are reshaping their legislative agenda, advancing a bill to bolster workers’ ability to win pay discrimination lawsuits. A similar measure was blocked by Republicans two years ago, and proponents expect it to be rejected again, setting up a contrast between the parties over an issue that especially touches unmarried women.

It will be the third time this year that Senate Democrats will push for votes on policies affecting women, with the other measures focused on insurance coverage for contraceptives and programs for domestic violence victims.

They are aiming to fire up the 55 million single, divorced, separated or widowed U.S. women eligible to vote this year. While 60 percent of all unmarried women cast ballots in 2008, just 38 percent turned out in 2010, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. Democratic strategists see these voters as critical to helping return Obama to the White House and to retain Senate seats in Ohio, Virginia and other states.

“What is really at issue is their turnout rate,” Lake said in an interview. “Unmarried younger women plummeted in the turnout in 2010, and they came into this election cycle not very interested in the election.”

[...]

From ABC News:

Ellen Pao, 42, an investment partner with the firm, filed a lawsuit on May 10 alleging the firm engaged in gender discrimination against her and other female employees. She said she faced retaliation when she complained of multiple instances of sexual harassment, which included being pressured by a junior partner to have a sexual relationship and being given a book that had "sexual drawings" and poems with "strong sexual content."

Kleiner Perkins, the esteemed venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, Calif., is seven miles away from the headquarters of Facebook, one of the many tech firms in which it has invested in its 40-year history. Google, Zynga and Groupon are among other beneficiaries of Kleiner Perkins' investments, which can range from $100,000 to $50 million.

In this elite world, women represented fewer than 10 percent of high-level venture capitalists, and left the industry at twice the rate as that of men, according to an estimate from the Kauffman Foundation in 2004.

Teresa Nelson, a professor at Simmons School of Management in Boston and faculty affiliate at the Center for Gender in Organizations, said she has no knowledge that the situation has changed.

[...]

From the Huffington Post:

From Financial News:

Panellists including Zeina Bain, a director in leveraged buyouts at the Carlyle Group, and guest speaker Laura Tenison, founder of Jojo Maman Bebe, spoke out against the use of quotas following a European Commission proposal to impose mandatory quotas and a report by Lord Davies in which he called for more female board representation at FTSE 100 companies.

Bain said: “I am against quotas. It is hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman. You put yourself out there when you are working on a deal. If there are quotas in place, [people might say] does she know what she is talking about? Why is she here?”

Tenison said in a speech about her experience as an entrepreneur that she disagreed with quotas, noting that she believed that the hiring process should be dependent solely on achievements and merit. “It just so happens that all the directors [on Jojo Maman Bebe’s board], apart from one, are women, and that is because they are right for the job."

In a straw poll of about 80 attendees, only a handful agreed with the use of quotas.

[...]

From The Washington Post:

Gen. Raymond Odierno, Army chief of staff, said Wednesday that he’s asked senior commanders to provide him with recommendations and a plan this summer. And while he stressed that no decisions have been made, he suggested that Ranger school may be a logical next step for women as they move into more jobs closer to the combat lines.

“If we determine that we’re going to allow women to go in the infantry and be successful, they are probably at some time going to have to go through Ranger school,” Odierno told reporters. “If we decide to do this, we want the women to be successful.”