Only 6% of the companies on America’s Fortune 500 list are led by women. Corporate America is substandard in advancing gender quality in the workplace particularly in regards to leadership positions and the Rockefeller Foundation are determined to change this.
The foundation is aiming to increase the number of female CEOs on the list to 100 to 100 by the 2025. Many people don’t hold much faith in this project though, in fact, one in four Americans actually believe we will be using time travel before we find equality in the workplace.
You can’t really blame the lack of trust in the mission to seek quality when you consider the lacklustre number of women leading large corporations in America hasn’t increased since 1955. The fact we are still stuck in the past doesn’t really give us much hope for the future, does it?
Women make up 47 percent of the workforce in the U.S, but clearly gender inequality is still prevalent. Last week, the Rockefeller Foundation released the results of their new survey in their mission to boost female CEOs. 1,000 men and women from the corporate sphere were asked why gender equality still hasn’t been reached in the workplace.
The main barrier holding women back from reaching the top of the corporate ladder? Male attitudes.
90% of the females surveyed said they felt held back from succeeding in their career due to the negative attitudes towards them by the males in the workplace, only 49% of the men agreed with this.
Rockefeller Foundation managing director, Laura Gordon expressed her sadness at the findings. Acknowledging that the current 94% of male CEOs are the ones who determine the fate of future female leaders, she told the Huffington Post, ‘They’ll have to provide the opportunities for women to rise up through the pipeline’.
Whether this will happen anytime in the near future is unknown, but fingers crossed we figure out how to stop gender discrimination before we figure out how to build a time machine.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.