A great article by Ruth Sunderland in The Observer asks how the lack of women at the top of corporate boards could have contributed to this global recession. It is a great point as " to the many thousands of female workers who have lost their jobs the recession may well look like a case of highly-paid men creating a mess, and low-paid women suffering the consequences." It certainly is true that twice as many women as men have lost their jobs since this recession began. As Sunderland explains: " the credit crunch is quite literally a man-made disaster, a monster created in the testosterone-drenched environment of Wall Street and the City. There is a growing body of opinion that, if there had been more female decision-makers, the agony could have been avoided. " Increasingly, many women are aiming for the recession to strengthen the argument for boardroom diversity as a preventative measure to avoid poor decisions, particularly in the finance and banking sectors, being made by a small number of rich white middle-aged men and it bring a healthier gender balance and a more rounded skill set into the upper echelons. Could this be our silver lining and the last nail in the coffin for such homogenous boards?
