On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:58:45 -0700, "NewsToBeRead"
NewsToBeRead@UncleSam.com> wrote:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_7190951?nclick_check=1
In Silicon Valley, few women reach top jobs
NEW UC-DAVIS STUDY SUGGESTS LITTLE HAS CHANGED IN DECADES
By Mark Schwanhausser
Mercury News
Article Launched: 10/16/2007 01:30:33 AM PDT
Silicon Valley boasts that the future is invented here, but a critical study
released today suggests that tech companies are mired in the past when it
comes to promoting women to top posts.
Valley companies based in Santa Clara County ranked dead last in the state,
elevating fewer women to executive ranks and corporate boards than any other
county.
Only 9 percent of companies in the county have promoted a woman to a top
post, according to a University of California-Davis study of the 400 largest
public companies in the state. Only 7 percent of corporate boards include
even one woman.
But most frustrating of all, said Nicole Woolsey Biggart, is that California
companies have shown little improvement over the past three years that
Davis' Graduate School of Management has conducted the study.
"The numbers are abysmal," said Biggart, the management school's dean. "What
has absolutely dumbfounded me is we look just like the Industrial Belt. We
don't look any different to me. That is the big shock."
In Silicon Valley, the question generally hasn't been whether there's a
glass ceiling - it's how thick it is. Survey after survey has portrayed the
tech industry as a male-dominated bastion, leaving a handful of exceptional
women such as eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, Oracle Chief Financial
Officer Safra Katz and Yahoo's Susan Decker, who was recently promoted from
chief financial officer to president when Terry Semel was ousted as chief
executive.
In the valley's defense, some have countered that women have yet to play a
bigger role because they have generally steered clear of engineering and
tech careers, leaving too few women in the pipeline to fill executive and
director jobs. Over the years, companies say, they have worked hard to
recruit, retain and promote women.
There are notable exceptions. Hewlett-Packard was ranked among the top 25
companies in the state because women fill one-quarter of its executive and
board jobs. Meanwhile, Franklin Resources, Electronic Arts, Plantronics and
SJW boast at least three female executives.
Nonetheless, the study - based on data as of June 30 - suggests that the
role of women in corporations has changed relatively little in decades.
Among the findings of the UC-Davis study, done in conjunction with the Forum
for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, are:
. The electronics industry ranks last among 16 subgroups, with women filling
only 2.9 percent of executive jobs. Even the No. 1-ranked retailing industry
has women in just 21 percent of the executive jobs.
. Though 183 companies filled 304 directors, they appointed women for just
16 percent of the posts. Nearly half the companies have no women on the
board, and one-third have just one. A handful of women fill directors' posts
at more than one company. For example, 20 board posts at the valley's 150
biggest companies are filled by 11 women.
. The ranks of women are so thin that one or two departures can send a
company cascading down the rankings. Gymboree dropped from No. 3 to No. 79
because two women directors and two female executives quit.
Some experts in workplace and gender issues say the study's statistics
underscore deep problems that involve social issues, the educational system,
and how businesses recruit and treat women.
Among them:
Career confusion. Girls are as tech-savvy as boys. Yet high schools do a
poor job exposing either gender to the broad range of engineering and tech
careers, said Rosanna Hertz, professor of sociology and women's studies at
Wellesley College. Likewise, colleges should work harder to recruit girls
into engineering programs, she said.
"If you begin to look at the skill sets high school girls have, there are
lots of people who could be recruited," Hertz said. "But somebody has to
decide that girls are worth recruiting."
Structural barriers. More women than men earn advanced college degrees and
women are flocking to MBA programs, but many companies have erected
structural barriers that discourage women from climbing the career ladder,
Biggart said. For example, she said, men are more likely than women to get
corporate training and nominations for executive MBA programs, she said.
"It's as if women are just invisible," Biggart said. "Women aren't being
groomed the way men are being groomed."
Networks favor men. Silicon Valley is as much who you know as what you know.
Men have broader networks because they've been in the field longer. And when
they reach for their Rolodexes, they're more likely to find other men
because the tech industry is dominated by men. The problem is accentuated at
smaller companies and start-ups.
Tech culture turns women off. Many women decide to stay home with kids or
start their own companies. One simple reason: They burn out on the culture
that defines the Silicon Valley mythology.
"How prevalent is this in tech - you live, sleep and breathe your job?" said
Liz Ryan, a workplace expert who founded AskLizRyan.com in Boulder, Colo.
"There are just too many other choices, too many other demands on their
time, where the rewards for them might not be financial. It's like you're
pouring your energy down a drain at a corporation where you don't see
promotions, and you decide, 'You know what, life is too short.' "
Where is the proof of discrimination? There is some false logic here.
Simply because there is a lower proportion of women does not prove
they have been actively discriminated against. The false assumptions
are that the women deserved to be promoted, the women aspired to be
promoted, the women deserved to be promoted more than the men who were
promoted.
