These Companies Have Achieved Gender Equality at Board Level

photo credit: Tommy Ton 

The UN describes parity as between 40% and 60% of each gender in the workforce. And some companies, like Tupperware are leading the charge with 59% female workers. 

But the role of women in senior leadership positions (defined as the top 6% of a company) is not nearly as high. In fact recent reports released by Catalyst have shown that despite a call for equality in top-tier positions, men held 80.1 percent of S&P 500 board seats, while women only held 19.9 percent. "Although some US companies are prioritizing board diversity, building it into the fabric of their key talent decision-making, they still have a long way to go before women's representation on their boards and throughout their executive ranks is near parity with men," the report said. 

The way things are going, some predict it may be 80 plus years before we achieve equality at all levels of the workplace. But these companies aren't waiting around. They have made the push for equality now. 

1. GENERAL MOTORS 

GM made news when they hired Mary Barra as their first female CEO in 2014. Barra started 36 years ago as a co-op student at GM and became chief executive in January 2014. But they didn't stop there. 

They have also been slowly and quietly working toward board parity. The automaker made quiet, though significant waves in June of this year when the shareholders elected Jane Mendillo, the chief executive officer of the company that manages Harvard University’s endowment, to its board of directors. Notably, they did not release any press release about the achievement, letting it stand on its own. The 12-member board is now evenly between men and women.

GM isn’t the first company to have an equally split board, but it's one of the biggest names to do so.  

2. TUPPERWARE BRANDS

There's a reason Tupperware has landed on Forbes' most admired companies list eight years in a row. Chairman & CEO, Rick Goings, has been dedicated to promoting gender equality in business since joining the brand almost 20 years ago and has been urging other companies to do the same. 

"Say it ain't so: it may be 80+ years before we achieve equality at all levels of the workplace."

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In 2015 the company signed on as one of the first companies participating in HeForShe, the UN Women’s program in support of gender parity. Tupperware made a three-year, $500,000 commitment to the program. 

In January of this year Tupperware added Meg Crofton to the company’s board of directors, joining 12 other board members, including Goings. Five out the 12 seats are currently held by women. 

3. MICHAEL KORS HOLDINGS LTD. 

There may be more lauded male designers than women, but this is still fashion you can feel good about. The parent company of Michael Kors has 50% parity on its board of directors. Of the eight seats four are occupied by women.  

4. SELECT COMFORT

Leave it to a sleep solutions company to help up rest a little easier that board parity can be a reality. Achieved in March of this year, Select Comfort added two new female board members. 

Barbara R. Matas and Vicki A. OMeara now serve the board, effective as of April 25th, making for an even 50/50 split between male and female members.   

5. VOYA FINANCIAL 

Four out of 10 seats on Voya's board are occupied by women. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Voya Financial informally took this approach after the provider of retirement, life insurance and investment services went public in spring 2013 with a nine-man board. CEO Rodney O. Martin Jr. and another director soon interviewed male and female prospects."

Of the five open board seats, women took four of the. Mr. Martin told WSJ that he hopes the split will be 50/50 soon. "Our board should look a lot like our customer base,” he explained. “More women than men control family financial decisions.’’

6. GOLD STANDARD

Two S&P 500 companies, student loan company Navient and utility company American Water Works Company, have more women than men on their boards. Navient added five female directors in 2014 and now has six women on its 11-member board.

HONORABLE MENTION: BEST BUY 

Men might be known to gather around the TV for game days *congrats Cubs* but women fill up the majority of leadership positions at Best Buy. The Richfield-based company, and nation's largest electronics retailer reached a turning point April, 2016 when Trish Walker was hired to become president of services (which, includes the Geek Squad). Walker's hiring made for 6 out of 10 executives who report to Hubert Joly. 

Best Buy's board is not far behind. It is a focus and priority for the company, which added two new female board members this year. Currently four of the 11 seats are held by women. 

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Why Diversity and Representation Matter in Business and Media

photo credit: Sidney Copeland

Gigi Gorgeous looked into the Create & Cultivate crowd this past Saturday in Atlanta and said excitedly, "There is so much diversity under this tent!" The audience cheered, acknowledging the importance of representation at the conference.

The six women on stage, Gigi, Jodie Patterson, Nicolette Mason, Daniela Ramirez, Maya Penn, and Mattie James were gathered to discuss the importance of diversity and representation in business and media. Nicolette put it simply, "People deserve to see themselves in the media."

Here are some of the other important takeaways. 

ON NOT PUTTING OURSELVES IN BOXES

Jodie Paterson, co-founder of (recently sold) DooBop and mother of a trans son, Penelope, told the crowd, “We have to be able to choose all of the things that we are, not just one. We have to let our whole selves out." 

"I never thought working for a fashion magazine was ever in the realm of possibility for me," said blogger and writer Nicolette Mason. "I had the education and the background, but there was no one who looked like me. No one I could look to as an example," she shared. "When Vogue Italia reached out to me and asked if I would be a contributor and a year from that point Marie Claire asked me to come in as a columnist and I penned a column for five years-- it was so amazing and surreal to know that my voice did have the potential and ability to be part of the mainstream." 

ON HOW TO OVERCOME STEREOTYPES

Maddie James, moderator and the blogger behind Mattieologie kept it simple, but succinct “Stories kill stereotypes,” she said. The more we share, the more the outliers become part of the cultural narrative. 

This was echoed by Jodie who said, "I see diversity as a domino effect. Diversity is some of us taking the first steps and putting ourselves out there and then asking and demanding it from all. If it's stunted in one area, it's stunted in all areas. People see and feel their way through change, not just statistics. It’s our job to tell stories. It’s also the media’s job to let the story happen."

"It’s our job to tell stories. It’s also the media’s job to let the story happen."

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Gigi agreed. "Being a transgender woman I know the hardships that the people in my community go through," she shared. "I think it's important to get my story out there for the world to see. We saw this with Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox-- they're huge media icons but they made transgender a household topic and that's really powerful. It changes people's perspective." 

"When you start sharing stories," said Jodie, "people are able to see and feel their way through change, rather than statistically analyze change. 

ON THE MEDIA'S ROLE IN RESHAPING THE NARRATIVE 

Maya Penn, CEO of Maya's Ideas, and the youngest (16) on the stage told the crowd, “I think the media needs to start stepping up. They need to say we need more diversity.” 

Nicolette added, "It's the job of content creators and media creators to reflect our real world." 

Maya said no one should feel like an odd one out. "We need diverse voices to show that representation matters. In non-traditional fields like STEM and science."

“I think the media needs to start stepping up. They need to say we need more diversity.” 

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"My third child is trans and we did a video with Cosmo and it received 9 millions views," said Jodie. "It's the media's job to allow the story to unfold. I read this quote that everything is copy, meaning if you slip and fall on a banana, people laugh at you. If you slip and fall on a banana, and then you tell people, you own the laughter because that's your story." 

"There have been baby steps along the way," explained Nicolette, "but there is so much more room to include diverse voices."  

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Google Finally Introduced These 11 New Much-Needed Emojis

Illustration by Chloe White

Since the dawn of the emoji, we've seen a fairly restrictive approach gender stereotypes. More often than not, we see more male emojis that tend to describe general everyday actions and certain jobs, while female emojis are restricted to reactions, princesses, brides, and even that spicy salsa lady dressed in red (because, truth, sometimes you need to send someone a cha, cha, chaaaa, but sometimes you want to show someone you're cha, cha, ching the boss). 

It’s 2016 - and women are holding down jobs in STEM, the C-Suite, and HRC is running for POTUS. So our digital emoji world was running a little behind up until last week. 

Thanks to Google, women are now represented not only as pretty princess emojis. Earlier this year, Google proposed to Unicode to introduce 11 new emoticons that represented women in diverse work fields to promote gender equality. This week for World Emoji Day, Google announced that they’re coming to life as part of 300 new Google emojis that are being introduced with Unicode.

Sometimes you need to send someone a cha, cha, cha, but sometimes you want to show someone you're cha, cha, ching, the boss. 

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“While there’s a huge range of emoji, there aren’t a lot that highlight the diversity of women’s careers, or empower young girls,” wrote Nicole Bleuel, Marketing Lead & Diversity Champion, Emoji, in a recent blog post. 

The 11 new emoticons include: doctor, policewoman, cook, coders, a female David Bowie-esque rockstar, farmer, mechanic, construction worker, and many more. The only two emojis that did not make the cut: tech line worker and a nurse. 

“We proposed a set of new emoji to the Unicode Technical Committee that represent a wider range of professions for women (as well as men), and reflect the pivotal roles that women play in the world.,” said Google in their announcement on their blog. The new emojis will “make emoji more representative of the millions of people who use them.”

However, of course you can’t have progress, even in the emoji world, without a few haters.

“Why don't we get emoji's to represent humans/ mankind? Why women in particular? Then men also need some emojis like father, son etc.,” said one Twitter user in response to the announcement.

“I can't believe you let feminists get to you. Where is our Demi-queer Bi-gender disco pony day????,” said another user. 

However, the fact that a conglomerate like Google was the first to campaign for more emoji representation of women in diverse work fields speaks volumes to the movement that continues to create equality for women in the workplace in the past century. (Even though there is a whole group of boys who see Anna and Elsa from Frozen as the new superheroes. More on that here.)

If Google, a powerful Silicon Valley-based tech company that is notorious for it’s lack of gender and racial diversity, is calling out for more representation within the world of tech itself, it's a step we can throw some love at. (Include all happy emojis here.) And it's a move that will hopefully influence the rest of Silicon Valley to recognize women for tech jobs.

We commend you Google, and we thank you. Because finally, we can show via text that we’re businesswomen, and we don’t have to substitute with a male emoji. Heart. Smiley. Thumbs up.  

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