On Suday, the Business Section of the New York Times ran an article complaining about the "dearth of female bosses"—only about 16 percent of corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies are women.
Included in the long list of lamentations is the fact that even the few women who do make it into the top ranks of corporate America are sometimes mistaken for secretaries. Here's the story of Autodesk's chief executive:
Despite her hard-won reputation as an astute businesswoman, Ms. Bartz found herself repeatedly skipped over during a recent meeting of business and political leaders in Washington. The reason was that the men at the table assumed that she was an office assistant, not a fellow executive. “Happens all of the time,” Ms. Bartz says dryly, recalling the incident. “Sometimes I stand up. Sometimes I just ignore it.”
Horrors! Or maybe not. Ever the contrarian, Steve Sailer reads this in exactly the opposite way the Times does:
Of course, the NYT interprets this as proof of male bigotry. But another interpretation would be that Ms. Bartz, and possibly many another female executive who otherwise has the requisite smarts and work ethic to make it to the top, lacks what the Marines call "command presence."Some men and a few women have the kind of personal bearing that advertises to others that you are in charge and that they should follow your lead.
So why aren't there more women at the top levels of corporate America? A perfect question for a reader poll.
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Posted by Anonymous, Dec 19, 2006 11:14AM
Women have it easier in finance unless they're ugly.