The Supreme Court ruling against the women looking to create a class action saying there wasn’t enough “glue” holding their claims together at Wal-Mart still baffles me. Is this application of the letter of the law more form than substance? While the lack of “glue” may be true in their case, the question of whether women are equally represented in management can definitely be answered by looking at the numbers. Let’s start at the top. The Wal-Mart Board of Directors has 15 members, 3 of which are women making it only 20% female. This number may be acceptable to corporate America but not to me, particularly for this industry where there are many women candidates. It is difficult to compare Wal-Mart to other companies because of its dominant size, but other retailers do better. Target Corp has 4 women on its board out of 11, giving it 36%; Macy’s has 10 members on its Board of Directors, with 4 women or 40%; and JC Penney has 12 members on its Board with three of them women, 25%. In terms of senior management, Wal-Mart lists 36 senior managers on its website, 6 of which are women (again not representative of the workforce or the customer base), and the Chairman, CEO and President, and CFO are all male. (Please correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.)
While the 20th century tools popular with companies to move towards gender equity like hiring a diversity manager or paying for women to join associations or go to luncheons are great tools for improvement, they are no replacement for jobs for women at every level that offer equal opportunity and higher pay. The 21st century is about giving management jobs to women who deserve them. There are so many ways to shop today, companies should realize that if they want to keep their customers (women shoppers, who like a sleeping giant at any moment could awaken and move on to a company that provides a better environment) companies need to treat them properly, both in the store and in the office.
