Board Of Director's Spot example essay topic

The United States of America values democracy and human rights more than anything else. Despite this, only about 50 percent of the population makes all the decisions in the country, the men. In the 21 century you would think that the worlds, leading democracy would have reached a whole lot of further, but sorry, it hasn't. In 5 of the biggest companies (General Motors, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Nike and Procter& Gamble) in United States of America, there are nine women out of 65 directors of the board (2003). At Procter & Gamble, which mostly sales baby care, cosmetic and women protection products, just anyone would think there would be mostly women in the board of directors.

Well you better think again, there are two women out 16 sitting in that board. Maybe it isn't that strange after all, since the most powerful person is a man, and always has been. The United States of America are still waiting for their first woman president. This is of course a problem. It's wrong to call a country, where 50 percent of the population really has no power when it comes to business, a world leading democracy. It's even questionable if you really can refer to it as a democracy, especially in America where major corporations have such extensive influence on culture and society.

Moreover, the low amount of women at directors positions is really a problem for American companies, even though, it seems like they haven't thought about it. Again, women do stands for approximately 50 percent of the world's talent reserve, and for a lot of companies, women are their final customers. When companies take this talent into consideration, they will for sure be more competitive. The difficulty for women to manage to get hold of a high position at companies, really is a problem for only a few women.

Most people, men and women, can probably not, count on getting a board of director spot. The lack of women at high positions, however, gets consequences at other areas. A man that never gets in contact with a woman CEO, can never replace his stereotype point of view of a CEO, because of a real life experience. This creates a leadership problem at companies; the man becomes a norm and the woman is seen as insufficient and incompetent. Men receive a misguided view of a woman's role and what the definition of competence is.

This definition of competence is patriarchal, which leads to a fundamental injustice (Sanders, 1996). This is what had happened, people take this preconceived thoughts home, and now everybody refers to a CEO as a man. There have to be change how people describe a person in power. Almost everybody uses the word "he" when they talk about a CEO, even though they don't know if CEO in fact is a man. Since everybody does, the first thing you learn about a CEO, doctor, or a president, is that it is a man. So the only way of actually change peoples stereotype way of thinking and the way there are talking is naturally in school.

You can of course encourage parents to think of their language, but that is going to be hard, since they actually are the ones that have these preconceived thoughts of a person in power. Teachers go through education, and that's where they should learn to be concerned about their own language, and how their students refers to person in power. When a student uses to the word "he" to describe for example a CEO, a teacher could simply ask the student if he or she actually is sure that the CEO is a man. This should be done already in first grade, and continues all the way to the university, where teachers actually can set higher standards and lower grades if this stereotype language is used in papers and exams. It's no secret that a CEO often is regarded as an intelligent person who has succeeded in life. If people put aside their preconceived thoughts about men and women and start referring to a CEO as a woman just as well as a man, girls will probably be more certain about what they are capable of doing.

(Katz) Girls will start picturing themselves as CEO's in the same way that boys have done for ages. Most of all boys will start looking at women as competent and just as skilled as men are. Heilman (2001, p. 14) claims that. ".. the descriptive aspect of gender stereotypes promotes gender bias because the discrepancy between the stereotyped conception of what women as a group are like and of what upper level managerial jobs entail leads to expectations that women will be unable to perform such jobs effectively" In the long run this will develop girls, boys, women and men. Men will start to communicate more objective with women, and men and women will be able to cooperate in a better and more efficient way.

Sanders (1996) make it clear that "Stereotypes are just that... stereotypes. They are not necessarily good job performance indicators nor accurate descriptors of someone's complete personality. During communication, before responding to another's "stereotypical" behavior or comments, evaluating all the clues available offers several benefits. Searching for more of the whole picture will enhance communication to be more objective, meaningful, and productive". Today's stereotype thinking of a CEO's will faint away, and The United States of America will take a step forward to a more equal society. Then, as mentioned earlier, American companies will be more competitive, since more directors spots will be filled by women.

Some would argue that there is nothing wrong in referring to a CEO, president or a doctor as a man, and why shouldn't we refer to presidents as a man, since there's never been woman president. It's just a figure of speech that will do no harm. In contrary, I say. When people do that, CEO's and presidents becomes masculine, subconsciously in peoples minds, and that creates unjust and inaccurate expectations. Additional, for declaration, the work of a president is not only a mans job.

One of the most popular prime ministers ever in Great Britain was a woman, Margaret Thatcher. By people that yet thinks this is a problem, another solution has been suggested to get more women on board of director's spots, quotas. Simply, you decide that 50 percent of the spots at board of directors must placed by women. This is not a good idea. First of all, companies should have the right to decide themselves who they want at certain work spots. Second of all, quotas would instead be unfair against the men, and that's not better.

The most qualified should sit in board of directors; you " re not supposed to get a spot because of your gender. Further, this would probably in the long create problems for the girls that have received a board of director's spot. People would question if she got that spot because of personal skills or because of quotas. In that way, women would still not be taken seriously and then we are back on scratch. United States of America are no worse than any other country when it comes to equal rights between women and men, but it's not better than any other developed country either. As the world leading industrial country it should be, not just because of human rights, also because it will develop companies and societies all around the world.

My solution and the effects of it are definitely not going to happen over night, but the least everybody could do, is to think of their own behavior and language. That will at least affect some people and hopefully those will start question their own actions and further on encourage others with same thought they just been informed with.