To close the gender gap, what needs to change - Women or the System?

Women have outnumbered men on US college campuses since 1988. They make up about 47% of law students and 32% of students in full-time MBA programs, with the percentage being even higher at elite schools. Women represent 50% of the labour force, yet the numbers of women leaders in government and business remain low. Women hold 16.6% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies; one tenth of those companies have no women serving on their boards, according to Catalyst, a non-profit group that works to expand opportunities for women in business. Women represent 18% of the seats in the US House of Representatives and 20% of the US Senate. The fact that these numbers have barely budged in a decade is partly what prompted Sandberg to write Lean In. "The blunt truth," she writes, "is that men still run the world."

Sandberg recognizes that there is a "chicken and egg argument" about which should come first to correct this situation: Should we focus on biases within organizations or on women's "internal impediments?" She chooses to concentrate on the latter ... READ MORE

Released by Knowledge at Wharton - 27 March 2013