I thought this article was a great example of how to string together a bunch of anecdotes and quotes to promote a particular point of view. There is no real evidence presented as to why there are so few women at the top. Just a lot of opinion heavy speculation.

What exactly does it mean that women sometimes leave their careers to focus on their families--not by choice? That makes no sense. I mean if the husband earns more money, then in a lot of marriages the lower earner sacrifices their career to take care of the kids. But to characterize that as involuntary is a big stretch.

I don't know if there is a boys club or not. The thing is that nobody ever seems to offer scintilla of proof. But these executives are clearly considered guilty until proven innocent.

Several of the women interviewed are clear advocates for affirmative action for women. But employers can either hire the most qualified candidates, regardless of race or gender. Or they can set quotas for women and minorities, and ignore qualifications. And I'm just gong to say it. There is something deeply fascist about enforcing diversity.

Men are HARD WIRED to denigrate, deter and annihilate us. I know. The more I tried to cultivate respect and reciprocity from men, the more ferocious they became in their need to extinguish me. So, what do you do when the boys won't let you play with them? You make up your own game. Having successfully generated a superb income for the last three years ($150,000-$200,000 per annum.) I am now hoping to climb into the next tier by building new web software based on a niche market opportunity. With any luck, in 3-5 years, I'll be on the cover of Forbes. Or not. But, I'm in the game. I make the rules. And, I help others generate excellent incomes through my business acumen and willingness to gamble. And, given that I make the rules, I have no deterrents in cultivating my female employees and male employees, equally. So, forget the glass ceiling. Blast through the impasse with a business of your own design. And, be ready to play hard ball, just like the big boys.

To me the article just seemed to be an opportunity for Carol Bartz to toot her own horn and Catalyst to perpetuate more claptrap. Bartz gets to tell what an extraordinary leader she is by overcoming more hurdles than anyone who has ever endeavored in business. Catalyst has zero credibility. The truth is that Catalyst has no idea what the f*ck they're talking about. As long as their "research findings" contain plenty of baseless speculation of discrimination, they're ready to go to print.

Here's my response from the Catalyst "study" that Broadsheet lamented in July-

"Just last year Catalyst lamented that gender parity in the boardroom would take 70 years. One year later they've pared it down to 40 years. You'd think that such improvement in just one year would be cause for serious celebration, but then who could cry discrimination?

“Our research reveals that if we continue at this pace, it could take 70 years for women to reach parity with men on corporate boards!” said Catalyst President Ilene H. Lang.

http://www.catalyst.org/pressroom/press_releases/3_29_06%20-%20WBD%20release.pdf

I love the exclamation point!! Wouldn't this be a good time to examine the accuracy of their "research"? At this rate of improvement, the countdown to parity will be about 24 years in 2007 and down to about 14 years in 2008, finally reaching actual parity around 2013. That's a lot less than 40 years.

Of course, Catalyst has zero men on its executive staff.

http://www.catalyst.org/about/staff.shtml"

No, Serene, you have it wrong. Just sit in on a women's studies course in an American college campus, or look at the tripe written about men on just about any feminist blog.

Women in the US have utter contempt for men, they are even more sexist and bigoted then the men from the 50's they originally sought to fight back against.

This article is complete nonsense, along the lines of the crap written about Carly Fiorina a few weeks ago and regurgitated here on Broadsheet. "Oppressed" and "discriminated against" are terms that ring hollow when applied to a women who received a $41 million severance package after almost destroying a once-fine company.

Oh, but since she is a woman, we must not criticize her performance, lest we be seen as sexist. Serene, please go back to the Womyn's Center and finish your paper on the clitoral orgasm. That is a much more useful outlet for your undergraduate energies.

You're exactly why I've been celibate for seven years. Please send me your email address so I can copy you on my Forbes cover when it happens.

...for keeping that cooter out of the public domain for such a long time. Speaking on behalf of all men, we appreciate your efforts.

I think Serene has the right idea - and like many men before her, she's decided that the road to riches and freedom lay in her own hands, certainly not at a dinosaur like IBM or GM or wherever else the men still rule. Forget the old paradigm - how do companies like Google and Ebay do in respect to women? If we see an improvement in the new corporate leaders (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft), then I wouldn't worry so much: it's not like GM, Ford and IBM are still the leaders of the pack. Complaining that men won't give up what they earned is a waste of time. You can't join them ladies - you have to go out there and beat them!

Regardless of whether the reasons suggested in the article are speculation, it is still fact that women are underrepresented in many arenas-- in business, politics, and academia, just to name a few I am familiar with.

I think most of us can agree that women are not inherently less intelligent than men, so we have to ask why half of the population is not reaching its full potential. In this age of being concerned about falling behind our foreign competitors, I'd think that severely under-utilizing the talents of nearly half of our adult population would be cause for concern.

In academia, more than half of graduate students are women; but as you advance up the ladder, the proportion of women decreases sharply at every rung. What is happening to all of these women? There is some explanation for where they all are going, but until we figure what that explanation is and do something about it, the human resources of this country are not being used as efficiently as they could be.

For those of you who think that women only get hired through affirmative action, let me point out just one of many factors: in fields like business, politics, and academia, qualities that are typically gendered male, and encouraged in men and boys but discouraged in girls and women, are often linked to being a successful job applicant. I'm talking about things like aggressiveness, speaking highly of oneself, being opinionated. So from your perspective, it might seem like the men are always the better candidates because they have these qualities, while they have been socialized out of many women, and if a woman is hired then she was hired only through affirmative action. It's these kind of unconscious biases that we need to be aware of and try to counteract.

I once witnessed a job search where one of the candidates was an Asian-American woman. Now, many Asian-Americans and women are taught, more so than Caucasian males, to be deferential to those in positions of authority, to be modest, to speak more quiety, etc. The search committee, when explaining their reasons for going with another candidate, said specifically that she didn't seem like that strong of a candidate because she was too quiet, not firm enough, not confident enough. I'm not saying that the search committee should have hired this woman, but I am saying that it would have been nice if the all-white-male-older-than-55 committee had taken into consideration these issues when evaluating her-- but they aren't even aware of them, and that's the problem.