How Suite It Isn’t: A Dearth of Female Bosses

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: How Suite It Isn’t: A Dearth of Female Bosses
By JULIE CRESWELL
Published: December 17, 2006

.... While top business schools are churning out an increasing number of female M.B.A.’s, only about 16 percent of corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies are women, according to Catalyst, an organization that studies women in the workplace. The numbers are even sparer at the top of the pyramid: women fill only nine, or less than 2 percent, of the chief executive jobs at Fortune 500 companies.

“There have been women in the pipeline for 20 to 25 years; progress has been slower than anybody thought it ever would be,” laments Julie H. Daum, the North American board practice leader for Spencer Stuart, the executive search firm. She says she does not expect the situation to change anytime soon....No one disputes that more women have highly visible roles as chief executives. During the past year alone, several women joined the ultra-exclusive C.E.O. club, taking the reins at large, prominent Fortune 500 companies. In June, Irene B. Rosenfeld was named the chief executive of Kraft Foods, a job that once eluded her earlier in her career at Kraft; she joined a competitor before she returned to the company. Two months earlier, Patricia A. Woertz jumped from the Chevron Corporation to become chief executive at the chemical giant Archer Daniels Midland. Those two anointments were followed by Indra Nooyi’s ascent to the top seat at PepsiCo.

Even so, those women remain statistical anomalies. And the complex question of why women remain so underrepresented in the corporate suite yields a variety of possible answers. A number of women leave their careers — sometimes by choice, sometimes not — to focus on rearing families. The remaining pool suffers from a lack of networking or mentoring programs, others contend.

Many other women end up in dead-end staff positions, says Ilene H. Lang, president of Catalyst. “Women are almost two and one half times as likely to be channeled into staff jobs like H.R. and communications than into operating roles where they would be generating revenue and managing profit and loss,” Ms. Lang says. “When more women hold line positions, there will be more women top earners and C.E.O.’s.”

Analysts and executive women also say that one of the biggest roadblocks between women and the c-suite is the thick layer of men who dominate boardrooms and corner offices across the country. “The men in the boardroom and the men at the top are choosing and tend to choose who they are comfortable with: other men,” (Carol) Bartz says....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/business/yourmoney/17csuite.html?ei=5094&en=f5a250fe7f24f30d&hp=&ex=1166418000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all

[hlthe2b]

1. Compounding the problem...

Some of the few "women" who have made it, or feel they are on the "track," become convinced the path is lined by powerful men and that other women colleagues are "expendable" as they attempt to engratiate themselves to the "good ole boys." Some women in management are more ruthless than any man I've seen--but to other women.

[kedrys]

2. I agree

I have a female boss right now, and she's made no bones about not giving a rat's ass how many bodies (men and women) she leaves in her wake on her way to the top. She'd been in her present position like 15 minutes when she announced she was gunning for her boss' job.

[hlthe2b]

3. There are some progressive men who could/would be helpful...

(and are the ones who ultimately would be necessary for any woman to advance), but they do not recognize this pattern--or at least don't believe it is THEIR place (via action or policies) to step in and stop it. When they DO recognize the pattern, most often I see them "shake their heads" and bemoan how "nasty" or "unfair" or whatever the adjective, that women are to each other. They don't, however, intervene and so they become ENABLERS.

Most of the time they don't recognize what is going on (and why should they when the woman in question is playing up to them with flattery and "brown-nosery" all the time)