Following a report from Bloomberg News, recent headlines have been touting the fact the glass ceiling has been shattered. That’s because Carol Bartzof Yahoo with her $47.2 million compensation package, and fifteen other women CEOS of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index averaged higher salaries than their male counterparts.
That’s nice for Carol Bartz and her 15 peers, but does it change anything for the rest of us? Yes and no.
It helps to have women earning and performing in the highest echelons of corporate America. Bartz and others serve as examples that women have done it, can do it, and will do it again. But it hardly signals pay equity across America. In a Bloomberg articleon the subject, Frank Glassner, CEO of San Francisco-based Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants LLC, was quoted as saying, “When you see numbers like this, one can truly say that the glass ceiling in corporate America has been shattered.” Not so fast Frank.
Perhaps there are a few more cracks in the ceiling, but shattered it isn’t. Women still earn, on average, .77 cents for every dollar a man in a comparable job earns. And big name companies like Walmart and Outback Steakhouse are still getting dragged into court to settle pay discrimination cases.
Then there is the latest report on women directors and executive officers of public companies from The InterOrganization Network (ION), an alliance of fourteen women’s business organizations across the U.S. According to ION nothing has changed when it comes to adding women to the boardroom. So even though a few women might get paid handsomely when they reach the top of the corporate ladder, the chances of reaching the top are still slim.
Consider these facts from ION based on research of public companies in the fourteen regions where the organization has representation:
- Women hold between 7.6 and 17.8 percent of the board seats in all of the companies included in their research.
- The percentages of companies that have no women directors at all range between 11 percent and 55 percent.
- Women hold between 7 percent and 15.2 percent of all executive officer positions.
- Between 32 percent and 70 percent of those companies have no women in their executive suites.
- And finally, the percentage of women who are among the top compensated executives in their companies range between 5.1 percent and 9 percent. Between 60 percent and 78 percent of those companies have no women among their most highly paid executives.
So what do you think ladies? Is the glass ceiling still there?
I’m not surprised Bloomberg would present this news as evidence of the “shattered ceiling” because presenting the success of a few to make the struggling accept the status quo is a common oppression tactic.
Informative post.
Isn’t it crazy Kim. It’s 2010, what are we waiting for?
~~Shattered Ceiling! I still find these stats hard to believe. Seriously. 2010, and this is still the case. What The Hell?