318 Macho-fashion

The Wall Street today featured an article on the clothing style I mentioned in #316--ultra-masculine dressing for women. It's not called "dress for success" as 25 years ago, but "dual gender" dressing.

It is Annual Report time for our investments. I always flip through and look at the names and photos of the officers and board members. No matter how women dress (and usually they look more casual and cutesy than the men of the same level), they are poorly represented or stuck in the feminine ghetto of PR, HR or "consultant." I've already tossed some, but here's the current batch results.

AMBAC has many women in the photos, but none in the Directors' offices, one out of ten in the executive suite, and eight out of thirty-nine among senior officers.

ManorCare has thirty-eight Directors and Officers, six of whom are women.

Fording Coal Trust identifies all officers by initials, but includes Mr. or Dr. before the name. No women in the photos, except for Jackie Gentile, who operates some coal machinery.

Home Depot has twenty seven on its Leadership Team, with four women; the Board of Directors has eleven white men and one black woman, a two-fer. Photos that include women staff (about 1 in 4) show them either wearing the orange apron or doing volunteer work on behalf of the company.

ExxonMobil lists all officers by initial (with no Mr.), but the Directors' photo shows nine white men, two white women, and one black woman.

Nextel has nine men and two women on its Board of Directors, and two of the twenty-one Officers are women.

Apache's cover shows eleven men in hard hats in Qasr, Egypt, who are various geophysical experts and operations managers. The leadership photo shows two guys, the Founder and the CEO.

Everest Re Group has seven men on the Board of Directors and sixteen male Senior Officers. This company is in the reinsurance business, so I'm not sure why it is such a tough area for women.

Healthcare Realty Trust has eight on the Board of Directors, the one woman is a consultant. Of the other twenty four corporate officers, seven are women.

Pactiv has sixteen Directors and Officers, only five of whom, all men, showed up for the class photo. Two are women, and one of those is an "advisor."

My church has thirteen on its leadership team--all men.