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Article: Can't get distaff: the vast majority of leading UK firms still have no female executive directors. Camilla Berens finds that there are more complex forces behind the continuing lack of women in board-level jobs than old-fashioned sex discrimination.
- Article from:
- Financial Management (UK)
- Article date:
- April 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Less than a century ago the idea that a woman could become an MR let alone PM, was inconceivable. Women may have come a long way in their fight for equal standing since achieving full suffrage in 1928, but it's surprising to see how few are attaining positions of power. Today they make up only 20 per cent of MPs in the Commons and less than a quarter of the Cabinet. At the upper echelons of the business world, progress is even slower: just under 15 per cent of non-executive directors on FTSE-100 boards are women--and the proportion of female executive directors in these companies is a paltry three per cent.
So why, more than 30 years after the Sex Discrimination ...