Thank you for visiting nature. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer.
In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. There is ongoing debate on a global level about the lack of women in senior leadership.
Despite years of discussion about the alleged advantages of gender diversity progress has been glacial: top management roles and senior positions of power throughout society remain largely the preserve of men. Using thematic and discourse analysis, this article covers empirical research, academic writing, government reports, non-fiction and fictional writing, and some anecdotal evidence gathered by the author, who has executive experience spanning two decades in multinational corporations.
For reasons of space, I focus on just three of the stories currently dominating the discussion about gender equality in business: first, the story that there is nothing or little left to fight for, the battle is won ; second, the story that gender equality is straightforward because there is a business case for parity ; and third, the story that women are not at the top because women choose not to run the world.
Each of these has a counternarrative supported by empirical and anecdotal evidence, which I outline; nonetheless, I argue, they serve to maintain the status quo in leadership, reassuring those in power that they have no responsibility for and therefore no responsibility seriously to address the lack of women in top positions.
