Why does "Woman CEO" still need to be a story?
Yes, in 2021, a company having a woman as its CEO is still a newsworthy story. By now, you’d think such a story wouldn’t be so remarkable but we are far from breaking any figurative glass ceilings anytime soon.
As of April of this year, only 35 women hold the position of CEO across the 500 Fortune companies. Yes, 35.
That equates to about 7% of major companies being run by women, down from an all-time high in 2020, with 38 women in the position of CEO. In Canada, only two out of the 100 most influential companies in the S&P/TSX Composite Index have women CEOs, according to a BNN Bloomberg Review. As female CEOs are still few and far between, until this placement becomes a regular occurrence--or at least closer to 50%--a company appointing a woman as a CEO will continue to be a celebrated story.
In 2021, the conversation of gender equity is still very prevalent across every industry, but finding these female trailblazers is like looking for a needle in a haystack of under appreciated talent. And it’s not for lack of trying. Women are often passed up for leadership opportunities compared to their male counterparts. Despite the award’s vibrant 92-year history, director Chloe Zhao was just celebrated as the second ever woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director. Plus, even if they do manage to climb up the corporate ladder, they only make 68% of what male executive leaders earn on average-- even if we get to the top, we still have ways to go.
The common understanding is that women who display “leadership” characteristics, which also seem to be characterized as “masculine”, such as assertive, confidence, and competitive are labelled aggressive, difficult and overbearing. Men, however are praised for such qualities, and despite best efforts, the needle hasn’t moved in changing this sentiment. It’s a double standard work places have yet to ditch, even though a study released last year from S&P Global Market Intelligence found companies with women as CEOs often were more profitable and had better stock price performance. You’d think companies would be flocking to hire women as their CEOs as a result, but, alas, this is not the case.
We need to continue to celebrate female CEO stories to pave the way for more female leadership, especially within marginalized groups. Of the CEOs helming Fortune 500 companies, only four are black and two of those four are black women. Two out of 500 companies. That’s 0.04%. Other groups, such as Asian, Indigenous and Latinx people don’t fare much better either. In Canada, these numbers are equally as abysmal.
We still have a long way to go to achieve equal opportunities for men and women, and while supporting female leadership as a way to break the mould, talks of gender diversity only ever seem to include boosting the number of women an organization employs, rarely, if ever, addressing the lack of gender non-conforming and non-binary folx. The inclusion of diversity in gender, race, ability and sexuality would give companies a vast array of perspectives that they are often lacking when overrun by cis/het white men.
“Woman CEO” shouldn’t still need to be a story in 2021. But as far as we have come, we have so much further to go. A story about a woman being promoted as a company’s CEO should celebrate her accomplishments, talents and all the reasons she was made CEO, rather than a celebration of her gender.
It should be about everything she has done for the company, and everything she plans on doing to drive business as its leader. Especially if she’s being promoted for all the right reasons. Having women in leadership positions cannot be about optics or trying to meet a diversity quota. It has to be authentic and needs to start from policies and practices put in place to give women AND other marginalized groups the opportunities they need to succeed and move up in the leadership pipeline.
A better question to ask then, is when will this story stop being a novelty? When it equalizes between men and women, that’s when. When stories about changing CEOs will be small blips in the news cycle that only matter to investors in the stock market. Until then, we continue to celebrate female CEO stories as they continue to pave the way for diversity in leadership.