The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania conducted studies of the communications industry's exclusion of women from top decision-making tiers of telecommunications, printing and publishing, entertainment, and advertising companies.

[The Glass Ceiling Persists: The 3rd Annual APPC Report on Women Leaders in Communications Companies by Erica Falk, Ph.D., Washington Research Director and Erin Grizard, Research Associate; December 2003]

"While discrimination against women in all industries is of public policy concern, the role of women in communications companies is of particular interest because communications companies play a special role in society. The news, movies, television shows, websites, papers, advertisements, books, and magazines that we watch and read not only tell us about the events of the day through their content, but also tell us about our world in the way that content is presented. They communicate in subtle and often unconscious ways who and what is important and normal and who has status and power, and the media help tell us what our national agenda should be. Communications companies therefore play an especially important role, and the people who make decisions about what kinds of news, information, and entertainment get produced have additional power." [p. 7]

For three years running, the communications industry ignored the APPC survey findings. The industry leaders and management believed it was a "non-issue" -– not worthy of print or commentary.

Here are the facts from the survey of 57 telecommunications companies from the Fortune 500 firms in four industry sectors:

• The odds of having ZERO women on boards of directors at telecom firms was higher (17.5%) than having any woman on the board (13%).
  
  
• The odds of having ZERO women in the executive ranks at telecom firms was 12.3% compared to only a 17% chance of having any woman in the executive tier.
  
  
• Tokenism on boards of telecom firms is rampant: 42.1% of telecom firms had ONLY ONE woman on their board.
  
  
• Tokenism in the executive ranks also exists in 31.6% of telecom firms with ONLY ONE woman executive officer.
  
  
• By combining the number of firms with ZERO women plus TOKEN (1) women, the result is 54.4% of all Fortune 500 telecom companies have little or no input from women on their boards of directors and 49.1% with little or no input from women in their executive ranks.
  
  
• The average number of women per board of directors at:
  
  
  
  • telecommunications companies - 1.2 women
    
  • printing and publication companies - 2.0 women
    
  • entertainment companies - 1.2 women
    
  • advertising companies - 1.0 women
    
  
  
  
• The average number of women in the executive levels at:
  
  
  
  • telecommunications companies - 4.0 women
    
  • printing and publication companies - 3.7 women
    
  • entertainment companies - 3.6 women
    
  • advertising companies - 0.3 women
    
  
  
  
• The comparison over the past 3 years showed that the percentage of women on boards of directors at telecom companies went from 10% to 11% and back down to 10% in 2003.
  

The comparable 3 year comparison for women in executive leadership ranks at telecom companies went from 11% to 12% up to 15% in 2003.

# posted by ChampionBoards.com @ 2:15 PM