Shift – A Game About Love, Fear and Life

I was reading my Time magazine last night and came across this article about the shift in women CEOs and Board members. There are countries that are actually legislating more equality. There is a new wave of women in the boardrooms of European corporations, which are being prodded by both legal and social pressure to add women to their boards. Norway has mandated that 40% of directorships go to women — a legal quota that other governments also are rolling out.

It seems that there is a shift happening around the world to change the way our corporations and governments are run. Mind you earlier yesterday, Obama announced another woman for the supreme court, Elana Kagan. That same evening I saw Tom Brokaw interviewing two women who held the two top seats at a major Fortune100- Anne Mulcahy and Ursula Burns, chairman and CEO, respectively, of Xerox Corporation. He asked about the changes that occurred in the boomer generation and whether they thought these positions were possible when they were growing up. I then read an interview with Kraft CEO, Irene Rosenfeld. These are the first women that are really setting the stage for a major transformation of the work landscape. The amazing thing is, they are everywhere.

I sometimes forget that when I was in grad school, not too long ago, almost no one had a cell phone. Now they are so ubiquitous that we have to consciously make a vow with Oprah to set them aside for more important things such as driving. I wonder if I’m already taking our female presence for granted.

With less than 11% of these positions held by women, we’ve still got a ways to go. Yet, based on these articles, I wonder if our daughters, or perhaps my generation in 20 years will be called in to fill a female exec quota. Who knows, perhaps there is a major shift and change happening around the world that will make the gender discussion a mute point. At that point, will we paid $1.20 to the man’s dollar?

Read more from Time: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1982304,00.html#ixzz0neL5Q8W8

This is another article along the same lines that’s quite interesting when it comes to shifting the gender balance at major corporations. http://www.20-first.com/538-0-gender-balance-in-the-fortune-100.html