Friday, September 21, 2012

Blog 4: European Plan to Put More Women on Boards Runs Into Opposition

A proposed law, championed by Vice President of the European Commission, Vivane Reding, has the intentions of raising female representation in top management of corporations and businesses by imposing sanctions if less than forty percent of management board members are not female to all members of the European Union. Reding has sought the efforts of increasing women's representation in top business and corporation management since 2011 by pressuring such organizations but has remained unsuccessful as opposition of this proposed law has already risen from nine countries of the European Union, even in the proposed law's earliest stages.  These nine countries, specifically Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and the Netherlands, argue that "although barriers to success for women in the European Union companies are 'unacceptable' national governments should determine what sanctions, if any, should be applied to companies that fail to improve." These countries also argue against "anything that imposes new requirements on businesses during an economic downturn." However, Britain, one of the nine European Union states in opposition to Reding's proposition, has promised to actually reduce regulation on businesses, making the likelihood of equality in business management rather unpromising, ironically.

Men are likely to continue dominating management positions within Europe due to the idea of deregulation of businesses and corporations by national governments, like Britain, who claim to want increased female reprsentation but also don't plan on achieving it in the same way which Vivane Reding sees fit. However, there are countries in the European Union, such as The Netherlands, that have a high percentage of female representation in government, therefore making equality in management positions more feasible. (Global Problems, Sernau, 89) Nevertheless, a male dominated system is likely to repeat itself with the severity of Europe's economic state at stake with such a radical implementation of the law such as Reding's.

Ketsia Masse, Women, September 21, 2012 4:10 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/business/global/18iht-boards.html?ref=europe&_r=0

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