Archive for June 24th, 2008
Wall Street is a bumpy ride for women
Jessica Wakeman writes about women on Wall Street as two high-profile female executives are fired. Despite the negative headline, it’s kind of a good news/bad news story. The bad:
They may make up 46% of the workforce, but women held only 15.4% of Fortune 500 corporate officer positions in 2007… According to Gail Evans, former executive vice president of CNN (TWC) and author of the book Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman. “There’s so few women [that] when one of them gets fired [from an executive position], the percentage drops 10 percent.”
What’s the good news? The consensus is that these two executives deserved to be let go for straightforward professional reasons. And as far as I can tell, Wakeman is relieved that the coverage of the demotions wasn’t sexist:
The headlines were all about the Lehman firings, not about the “lady executive” getting the axe.
(Hat tip to Feministing.)
