In Norway, a woman's place is in the boardroom
Firms must introduce female directors or face closure under a new law
Gwladys Fouché in Oslo and Jill Treanor
Monday January 9, 2006
The Guardian
The 500 companies listed on Norway's stock exchange face being shut down unless they install women on their boards over the next two years in a radical initiative imposed by a government determined to help women break through the "glass ceiling".
After a week in which the Equal Opportunities Commission in Britain has warned that it would take 40 years for women to break into the ranks of the FTSE 100 in the same way as men, Norwegian companies face a two-year deadline to ensure that women hold 40% of the seats of each company listed on the Oslo bourse. New companies have to comply now with the rules and the government is considering extending the law to family-owned companies as well.
The requirement came into effect at the start of this year after companies were given two years to embrace the demands voluntarily following the passing of the law in 2003. State-owned companies are already obliged to comply and now have 45% female representation on their boards.
The failure of companies to act - about half of the companies on the stock market are estimated to have no women on their boards - has prompted the Norwegian equality minister, Karita Bekkemellem, to take the draconian step of threatening firms with closure.
"From January 1 2006, I want to put in place a system of sanctions that will allow the closure of firms," she said. "I do not want to wait another 20 or 30 years for men with enough intelligence to finally appoint women.
"More than half of the people who have a business education today are women. It is wrong for companies not to use them. They should be represented."
It is a cry that is familiar to organisations such as Britain's Equal Opportunities Commission, which are trying to promote the elevation of women to boardrooms in Britain. The EOC's report last week, Sex and Power, found that women make up only 11% of directors in FTSE 100 companies and painted a bleak picture for the prospects of much improvement.
The British government tried to tackle the problem after a report into boardroom behaviour by the City grandee Sir Derek Higgs highlighted the "pale male" phenomenon in companies. There was an attempt to draw up a list of 100 women who might be candidates for boards, though Laura D'Andrea Tyson, an academic and former adviser to President Clinton who was charged with finding candidates, decided in the end that such a list was unnecessary.
Norway's imposition of quotas seems unlikely to be embraced by Britain. The few women who have reached senior roles in British firms appear to oppose a target system. Deanna Oppenheimer, the American banker recently appointed to run Barclays' branch network, says: "In my experience, mixed teams, mixed by gender, ethnic background, by age and experience, perform better than homogeneous teams."
The banking industry - traditionally a bastion of domineering male managers - is one area of British business where women are in senior roles. Ms Oppenheimer is the second American woman named to run a British branch network. Terri Dial has joined the board of Lloyds TSB to run its UK retail operation and is one of two women holding executive positions on the Lloyds board, where Helen Weir is finance director.
Ms Weir wonders whether her job - a profession requiring number-crunching - makes it easier for women to achieve a senior role. However, she is a reluctant role model for women eager to progress in business, partly because of the work-life sacrifices required. "The trade-offs I make won't necessarily work for everyone else," she says, adding that 90% of her time is divided between work and her three children with the remaining 10% fought over between her husband, friends and herself.
Ms Oppenheimer acts as a mentor for men and women and believes women need to be "very articulate, to form points well" and should work in environments that "value performance" if they want to get on.
Like Ms Weir, Ms Oppenheimer, who has moved her two children to Britain, thinks a supportive home background is crucial. "I have two children and have a career," she says. "You need a support structure ... a husband who is involved."
In Norway, women have been very successful in reaching top positions outside business. In politics, for instance, a third of the country's MPs are women and nine of the 19 cabinet ministers are women. In Britain, 20% of MPs are women and the Equal Opportunities Commission has warned that it could take another 40 elections for equality with men to be reached.
The near-equality of Norwegian women in politics might explain the determination to tackle under-representation in business, where 16% of company directors are women.
The law being implemented was the brainchild of the former businessman Ansgar Gabrielsen, a trade and industry minister in the former government. "The law was not about getting equality between the sexes; it was about the fact that diversity is a value in itself, that it creates wealth. From my time in the business world, I saw how board members were picked: they come from the same small circle of people. They go hunting and fishing together, they are buddies," he said.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Norwegian business community is opposed to the government's attempts to interrupt the status quo. Businesses would prefer a more flexible approach, such as organising networking events where companies can meet potential candidates. The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) has a database of 400 women and claims that a quarter of them have been offered management or board positions.
Sigrun Vaageng, of the NHO, said: "The punishment is completely disproportionate ... It is far too harsh to close a company just because it lacks one woman."
She doubts whether the government will carry out its threat. "It is science fiction to think that the government is going to shut down a company that employs thousands of people over this," she said.
Some companies are completely opposed to the law and are waiting to see if the government will use the sanctions, according to Marit Hoel, head of the Centre for Corporate Diversity.
But Ms Bekkemellem, the equality minister, seems convinced that firms will not risk it. "Are there companies that will risk closure just because they lack one woman? They have another two years to fix the situation," she warns.
Double-standard treatment for child abusers
by Carey Roberts
Heather Thomas of Fairfax, VA was arrested last week in the shaking death of her 6-day-old granddaughter. On Christmas Day Valerie Kennedy held her son in a tub of scalding water as punishment, causing his death. A few days later Genevieve Silva was arrested in Oklahoma on child rape charges for luring a high school student to run away from home.
Chances are you didn't read about these incidents in your local newspaper. Because when a man commits abuse, it seems the story is splashed all over the front page. But when the perpetrator is a member of the fairer sex, the story is relegated to the bottom of the Police Report on page C9.
Each year the federal Administration for Children and Families surveys child protective service (CPS) agencies around the country to spot the latest trends in child abuse. And according to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, women are the most common abusers of children.
In 2003, females, usually mothers, represented 58% of perpetrators of child abuse and neglect, with men composing the remaining cases. In that same year an estimated 1,500 children died of abuse or neglect. In 31% of those cases, the perpetrator was the mother acting alone, compared to 18% of fathers acting alone.
Then there's the scandal of Dumpster babies. In 1998, 105 newborn infants were discovered abandoned in public places. One-third of those babies were found dead.
In a civilized society that makes adoption services widely-available, that practice should have been condemned as unconscionable and wrong. But instead of prosecuting the abandoners, we accommodated to the societal imperative to provide choices to women no matter the moral consequences. So we passed laws to establish "safe havens."
Under New York law, mothers can now anonymously drop off their infants up to five days old. But if she later has second thoughts, not to worry. She can come back and reclaim the child up to 15 months later.
That satisfaction-guaranteed-o r-your-money-back offer might work at a Macy's handbag sale, but that's not how a moral society treats its most vulnerable members.
Patricia Pearson has written a blockbuster book called, When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence. Pearson documents repeated examples of violent women who draw their Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card by claiming PMS, battered woman's syndrome, or postpartum depression.
Remember Andrea Yates who admitted to drowning her five boys in a bathtub? Of course the National Organization for Women rushed to her defense, claiming that postpartum blues justified the serial murder. And two weeks ago Texas 1st Court of Appeals ruled that her conviction should be reversed.
Then there's the problem of women, usually female teachers, who seduce and deflower teenage boys. Look how the media sanitizes the issue. Reporters trivialize the incident using clinical phrases such as "sexual contact," or worse envelope the story in a snickering "didn't-he-get-lucky" tone.
I once knew a teenage boy who was raped by his older sister's girlfriend during a holiday visit to his parent's home. Ten years later, he was still devastated by the incident. Of course he never reported the assault, no one would have taken him seriously.
When these cases go to trial, the double standard persists. As CNN's Nancy Grace plaintively asks, "Why is it when a man rapes a little girl, he goes to jail, but when a woman rapes a boy, she had a breakdown?"
And shame on reporters who use limp clichés to excuse the inexcusable. Like the story about a New Orleans mom who stuffed her 3-month-old son in the clothes dryer and hit the On button. This was the feeble explanation that the Times-Picayune offered in its December 8 edition: "Murder Suspect 'Was Trying her Best.'" [www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1134027 521231650.xml]
That condescending headline brings to mind the Solomonic words of columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez: "There are mental-health issues in many of these cases, obviously, but regardless, a society can and must say loud and clear: 'That's wrong. That's evil. That can never happen again.'" [www.nationalreview.com/lopez/lopez2005101708 30.asp]
To which I say, "Amen."
In radio talk shows and internet bulletin boards around the nation, Americans' ire has reached the boiling point over female child abusers who are treated with reverential deference by the media and our legal system.
As long as we tolerate this gender double-standard, the problem will fester and grow. And our children will continue to be at risk.
Carey Roberts is an analyst and commentator on political correctness. His best-known work was an exposé on Marxism and radical feminism.
Mr. Roberts' work has been cited on the Rush Limbaugh show. Besides serving as a regular contributor to RenewAmerica.us, he has published in The Washington Times, LewRockwell.com, ifeminists.net, Men's News Daily, eco.freedom.org, The Federal Observer, Opinion Editorials, and The Right Report.
Previously, he served on active duty in the Army, was a professor of psychology, and was a citizen-lobbyist in the US Congress. In his spare time he admires Norman Rockwell paintings, collects antiques, and is an avid soccer fan. He now works as an independent researcher and consultant.
Carey Roberts
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----
Carey Roberts is a researcher and consultant who tracks gender bias in the mainstream media.
