Despite the fact that modern society puts a great emphasis on gender equality, more men are in charge in major business fields. And even as many corporations make significant efforts to alter the situation, most of their leading personnel are still men. Considering all these aspects, it’s only natural to ask yourself, “why?”
Are men and women equal in the business world?
In most developed nations there’s an obvious pattern across levels and types of positions, and generally,female employees tend to occupy middle and entry level positions, and only rarely are they at the head of a major corporation. The proportion of women over men in these positions is reduced in most countries, although it has increased during the last decade. Also, based on the information provided by Riskmetrics International (a ranking with the depiction of women in important positions was made for the year 2011), it was illustrated that in the European Nordic countries,approximately 20% of the company executives are women.
Nordic European countries are followed by United Stated corporations, with 12%, and the remainingEuropean countries where women are in chargeinclude Germany, France, Italy, and Portugal. At the bottom of the list we have Asian countries with extremely low percentages. However, the good news is that these figures have slowly increased throughout the years, meaning that things are changing.
An objective point of view highlights that the presence of women in corporate governance, as well as in the majority of government institutions,can lead to great leadership and fine diversity management. Providing that diversity means more women occupying top executive positions, it’s easy to assume constructive effects on the shareholder values, along with a better firm performance.
Women are great leaders
Until now, a great amount of research and various studies have made efforts to connect women’s contributions to companies’ performance, but so far there haven’t been any conclusive results. It’s risky to make a straight correlation between the financial success of a particular firm and gender diversity, and with this rationality, it’s quite difficult to offer extra responsibility to the role of women inside a corporation.
Also, there’s a really impressive amount of literature on the effect of diversityona corporation’s performance, and many individuals claim that great diversity comes along with a more comprehensive knowledge, a better understanding of the market place, and a more facile identification with customers. Plus, others argue that gender diversity can offer much more intricate and complex solutions,as well as innovative ideas, because men and women belong to very different networks. By having representation from both sides, final results can be greatly improved.
Women make up approximately 50% of the global population, and this means half of the workforce. Also, in most developed countries, the medium levels of education for women are just as high are those of men, meaning that they arejust as capable. Therefore, it would be expensive to lose the potential value, the knowledge, and the skills of so many people just because of gender.
Are companies reluctant when it comes to hiring women?
There are two main reasons that can make companies reluctant to placing women in top positions. The first is the belief that women are much more connected with family responsibilities than men; thus, it is believed that they will be less dedicated.The second reason is that there are not enough women to fulfill all the requests to become an eligible member of a board, as many women devote more time to raising families, mainly in their thirties and forties.
To conclude, gender shouldn’t get in the way of how we do our jobs. But still, there are men who can’t accept women as leaders. Their misogynistic behavior occurs because men just want to be in charge, and sometimes that can’t happen. Just like men, women are also natural-born leaders!