Heels Just Need to be Broken In

In Hollywood movies, you hardly see plots that revolve around powerful female bosses. What would stick to us is that stereotypical character of Miranda Priestly. We all love Devil Wears Prada and Miranda's acerbic tongue spitting these lines:

"The layout for Winter Wonderland? Not wonderful yet."
"Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”

Ouch. Imagine having her for a boss.  But you've got to admit it, the Miranda’s of this world could actually make for effective bosses.  For that matter, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we have more female CEO’s sans the sarcasm? 

A few days back, I came across a tweet from Catalyst (@CatalystInc), a leading non-profit organization that does research on women. It reported in its findings that companies with the most female board directors earned 26% higher ROI than those companies with the least women.  If such is the case, why is it that heels have yet to invade the boardroom?  In 2010, only 2.4% of the US Fortune 500 CEO's were female.  More so, gender wage gap remained at 77% in 2012, and the numbers haven't inched closer to respectable levels.  

Heck, even in my line of work, I find myself 99% of the time being the only female in the room, conducting presentations to a group of CEO's, CIO's and company leaders. It felt like intruding into an all-boy's club.

But let’s not feel dejected because there’s always a hint of sunshine somewhere.

In Norway, about 44.2% of board members are women and this number just didn’t come about by chance.  The country actually passed a law in 2008 requiring publicly-listed companies to have boards composed of at least 40% women.  Now it's not surprising that Norway claimed the 3rd spot in the World Economic Report on Gender Equality, is it? 

Even In the political arena, women are slowly taking command, notwithstanding the fact that of the parliaments worldwide, only 13% are females.

Can you guess which country has the highest number of women in the parliament?

It’s Rwanda.

The country is now a far cry from the internationally-acclaimed film, Hotel Rwanda. It should no longer conjure negative images of genocide in your head nor should it make you recall Miranda Priestly’s sardonic line: 

“Is there some reason my coffee isn’t here? Has she gone to Rwanda for the beans?” 

Read the New York Times article, The Global Elite’s Favorite Strongman, and you’ll see what I mean. 

Fast forward to 2013, Rwanda now has the highest number of women parliamentarians in the world, with 56.3% seats in the lower house.  To add to this, Rwandan women also occupy more than half of senior government posts. Kagame Miracle?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  After all, there was Aloisea Inyumba. 

In the recent US shutdown, it was the bipartisan group led by Sen. Susan Collins that sparked the discussions between Republicans and Democrats over how to get past the deadlock.  Sen. John McCain even jokingly said that the women are taking over.

Of course, I can't miss Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who in her TEDx speech gave a compelling 3-point advice on how to bring in more women to the C-suite.   

Watch it here:  http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

An eye-opener, that talk, but I am more interested in finding out what each of us women can do individually and collectively.  Let me know what you think.  All I know is that high heels just need to be broken in, and that it's time for these heels to make a noise in the boardroom.