The Lack of Women Entrepreneur and Executives

It's lack of awareness and lack of role models for women. Women should be encouraged to be more confident and be aggressive. As Sheryl Sandberg said "The challenge to this is that being less aggressive in women is often equated with likeability – the more aggressive a woman is, the more people disliked her".

Victoria Pynchon, a correspondent for Forbes Magazine blog also made a very good point in her article: http://blogs.forbes.com/shenegotiates/2011/05/11/negotiate-no-thanks-id-rathe...

Bottom line is if women has aspirations, they should be encouraged. There is a significant increase of women entrepreneurs and executives the past fews years. I am sure the numbers will continue to go up.

This problem doesn't only exist in startups and in the Web 2.0 world. We recently did an infographic on the state of the world's female CEO's. Only 12 Global Fortune 500 companies are led by women.

http://www.focus.com/fyi/general-management/state-worlds-female-ceos/

I think Michael actually nailed some of the biggest reasons. It is a number game; it IS ABSOLUTELY a frat boy/ good ole boy culture in many places (not all); and it is a lack of awareness.

I would also add, having worked on, with, and having managed teams of women, there is a fear factor that exists for many women that does not or manifests differently than in men. Women are less likely to speak up (for themselves, their work, etc). They are less likely to ask for promotions, they are less likely to fight for what they really believe should happen. Now let me be clear in saying this is not the case for all women, AND there are many factors that exasperate the fear factor case by case (eg. the economy, unemployment, complacency, personality, etc.) Anyway, just my 2 cents. Love the infographic by the way! Only 3.2% females of the S&P 500, we DO have a long way to go...

Cindy

It goes even deeper. Women begin being steered away from leadership roles and into 'nurturing' jobs from their first toys, and there are still a lot of institutional barriers and cultural barriers to the sort of education and work history that leads to this sort of role.

While the last thirty years have shown tremendous strides in the legal rights of woman, our culture continues to lag, and that absolutely affects these numbers. There aren't one or two factors at play here, there are dozens, just as when you look at the same issues with regard to race.

We (still) have a long way to go, baby.

At the risk of being pelted with rotten fruit - can someone demonstrate that this is a business problem please?

Businesses are there for the sole purpose of making money for shareholders (it's their legal raison d'etre), if someone can demonstrate that women (or men) do this better then they should be recruiting them. If they can't, they shouldn't.

By the way - here in China, the "entrepeneurial face" in most businesses is male, but the real power is usually a woman.

Equality is a worthy goal, however there's no evidence to suggest that people (of any type - even two individuals such as twin siblings) actually are equal.

IQ maybe a poor measure of intelligence but the bell curve shows that women on average are smarter than men, but there are more very smart (exceptional) men then there are women. Maybe top job distribution is a reflection of this?

This is one of those areas that really needs some real research - not just opinions, number counts, and emotional arguments which is all we really have at the moment.

I have no idea where to start on this, but I do know it's what should be done to give this argument weight (one way or another).

@Nik

"IQ maybe a poor measure of intelligence but the bell curve shows that women on average are smarter than men, but there are more very smart (exceptional) men then there are women. Maybe top job distribution is a reflection of this?"

Can you please provide evidence to support these claims? What bell curve are you referring to? And how is intelligence measured? "There are more exceptionally smart men than women" Please support this claim with data, else the fruit might start flying! I'm very curious.

The reason this is a problem is because it's oppressive. Businesses are for generating money, yes, but the entire means to that end is supported by humans. If half of humans are not given a fair shot as the other half, it's a problem. Period.

Cindy

Simple here's a link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_psychology

It's perhaps one of the commonest references in the world regarding IQ - though you should note that men are also over-represented at the stupid end too.

If the link between roles and IQ is causal (it may well not be - but there's no evidence one way or another) - it's not unfair on half the human race, unless whatever it is that causes IQ levels is specifically picking on women (which is unlikely in that the "nurture" part (education) is mainly supplied by a profession very well represented by women, and the "nature" part is beyond our control - at least to date).

A "fair shot" is usually defined as an even playing field - and the winner is the one with the highest abilities.

In sports this doesn't exist - plainly because men competing against women in most sports would be ridiculously skewed in favour of men (who are on average stronger than women).

Maybe it's the case in business too - again there's no research to prove/disprove this.

The only sensible solution in this instance is to do the research - rather than complaining about "fairness" when it can't be demonstrated that it is unfair.