Rainbow Alliance Scores Early Victory in Battle Over University of Pittsburgh’s Gendered Facilities Policy

The first volley in a challenge to the University of Pittsburgh’s gendered facilities policy was resolved in the challengers’ favor last week, when the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations denied the University’s motion to dismiss a gender discrimination complaint filed by the Rainbow Alliance, a student group represented by the Women’s Law Project and Drexel University Professor David S. Cohen. As a result of this ruling, Rainbow Alliance’s case against the University will move forward.

Rainbow Alliance filed its discrimination complaint in April 2012, after University officials announced that students and faculty would be permitted to use only those bathrooms and other gender-specific campus facilities that correspond to the gender on the user’s birth certificate. This policy has had a particularly harsh impact on transgender students and faculty, as well as people whose gender expression does not conform to traditional gender roles.

Transgender people who don’t want to run afoul of this policy must travel with their birth certificate within easy reach and be prepared to produce it if challenged at the bathroom door. Moreover, changing the sex designation on one’s birth certificate can be a difficult, expensive and time-consuming process for transgender people; and in some jurisdictions, it is impossible.  For anyone without a corrected birth certificate, the choices are grim: violate the policy and risk the consequences; go off campus to search for a restroom; or endure the humiliation and harassment involved with using a restroom reserved for the opposite gender.

To bar transgender people from bathroom facilities is to bar them from full participation in the University community. Congratulations to Rainbow Alliance for challenging this policy!

For more information about the Women’s Law Project in fighting against gender discrimination and LGBT rights, please visit our web site.

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Press Conference Tomorrow

Tomorrow, September 14, 2012, U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, will announce the introduction of a companion bill to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (H.R. 5647) at a press conference at 10:30 AM (in the large conference room at 2000 Hamilton Street, Philadelphia).  If you plan to attend the press conference, please RSVP to ecusack@maternitycarecoalition.org.

In the post below, the Women’s Law Project discusses the need for this legislation, which, if passed, would ensure that pregnant workers have the right to reasonable accommodations if pregnancy limits their ability to perform certain job functions.

Reposted from 5/8/2012:  The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Offers Hope for Women in the Workplace, If Congress Passes It

“Tina,” who is pregnant and works as a health aide in a nursing home, is told by her doctor that she should not lift more than 35 pounds.  Her job description requires lifting 40 pounds regularly, but lighter duty jobs, such as answering the phone and working at the reception desk, are available.  Nevertheless, her employer stops scheduling her for shifts and tells her she must take unpaid Family Medical Leave, which would run out before the delivery of her baby and leave her without the income she needs to pay the 50% of her medical insurance her employer does not cover.  Left with no choice, Tina loses her job.

“Jessica,” who is pregnant and works as a pharmacist’s assistant, needs to sit down occasionally throughout her day.  Chairs are available for customers, but the pharmacy does not permit the staff to use them.  As a result, Jessica loses her job.

For women like Tina and Jessica, whose stories are based on the experiences of real women who have called the Women’s Law Project, current anti-discrimination laws often do not go far enough.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), prevents an employer from treating a pregnant woman differently from how that employer treats non-pregnant employees who are similar in their ability or inability to work.  Some courts, however, have limited the protections of this federal law by requiring pregnant employees to identify a non-pregnant employee who works in the same role and has almost identical limitations but is treated better by the employer in order to succeed with a lawsuit.  Some courts even permit employers to refuse to accommodate pregnant employees when they accommodate non-pregnant employees because pregnancy is not a work-related condition.  In short, despite the PDA, pregnant women are often treated differently from other employees with similar limitations.

Other laws do not provide better protections for pregnant women. Courts interpret the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) similarly to Title VII/PDA.  In addition, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees, usually does not apply to women experiencing ordinary pregnancy.

A handful of states have laws that prevent employers from terminating women from employment or forcing them to take paid or unpaid leave when a reasonable accommodation is available, but Pennsylvania is not one of those states.  As a result of this gap in the law, many pregnant women in Pennsylvania, like Tina and Jessica, find themselves unemployed suddenly, without economic security and often without health insurance at a time when access to health care is crucial.

For Pennsylvania’s pregnant women and for women in many other states, the proposed federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would offer important workplace protections.  Introduced on May 8, 2012 by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and other representatives in the House, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would:

• Require employers to make reasonable accommodations to employees who have limitations on the job related to their pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer.
• Prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who need an accommodation.
• Prohibit employers from forcing a pregnant employee to accept an accommodation she does not want.
• Prohibit employers from forcing a pregnant employee to take unpaid or paid leave if a reasonable accommodation is available.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been in effect for over two decades.  Thus, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act employs a familiar framework that simply requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations that do not present an “undue burden.”  If passed, this law would help pregnant women stay employed and maintain their economic security and benefits, promoting the health of mothers and their families, while imposing only a minimal, temporary burden on employers.

Please contact your representative and tell them that they should support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.  To call your representative, dial 202-224-3121 and tell the operator the name of your representative.

For more information on this bill, take a look at the National Women’s Law Center’s Fact Sheet.

To learn more about the effects of sex bias and discrimination in the workplace on women’s health, see WLP’s report, Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women.

Women’s Law Project Releases Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women

The Women’s Law Project (WLP) released today a major report, Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women, linking sex bias to adverse health outcomes in women.   The release of this report coincides with National Women’s Health Week (May 13-19^th), during which time organizations around the country are raising awareness about the benefits of the health care law.

Inspired by the public debate on health care, WLP embarked on an examination of the relationship between the sex bias that women experience and their health, resulting in the publication of Through the Lens of Equality.  “As familiar as we were with ongoing bias and discrimination against women and with data on critical health measures for women, our in-depth examination of the linkage between the two truly shocked us,” said Carol Tracy, Executive Director of the Women’s Law Project.  “The focus is on Pennsylvania, however, the finding and recommendations have nationwide application,” she added.

“For all of the years that I have been involved in women’s rights and women’s health care, I have never seen the connections between health and equality more dramatically demonstrated that it is in this report,” said Kate Michelman, former President of NARAL Pro-Choice America and long-time Pennsylvania resident who served as a consultant to this project.

Through the Lens of Equality examines the health impact of sexual and intimate partner violence, caregiving responsibilities, poverty, and bias in the workplace, school, and health care.  The report delves into the politicization of women’s reproductive health care and shows how women are harmed by limited access to abortion, contraception, and maternity care.  It repeatedly points to the importance of implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) to expand access to better health care for women, while acknowledging the ACA’s serious gaps, including not mandating abortion coverage.

“This is not a publication about diseases, but instead an exposition of how biased environments in which women live, work, study, and receive health services are infected with outdated notions about women’s role in society which in turn have negative health consequences for them,” said Amal Bass, staff attorney at the Women’s Law Project.

The publication also provides a series of recommendations tailored to both overcoming sex bias and improving women’s health.  “Numerous targeted interventions well beyond improving access to insurance through the ACA — are necessary to cure institutional and individual prejudices about women,” said Terry Fromson, Managing Attorney of the WLP.  “Failure to do so will result in significant inequitable and avoidable health problems for women,” she added.

Through the Lens of Equality acknowledges the impressive strides that have been made in women’s rights over the past fifty years, but shows that past victories are not enough.  “Looking to the future requires insistence on equal treatment, equal access, and equal opportunity to achieve not just healthy women, but a healthy society,” said Susan Frietsche, Senior Staff Attorney

The Women’s Law Project is a legal advocacy organization based in Pennsylvania.  Founded   in 1974, its mission is to create a more just and equitable society by advancing the rights and status of all women throughout their lives.  The Law Project engages in high impact litigation, public policy advocacy and community education.   Through the Lens of Equality is available at http://www.womenslawproject.org/NewPages/wkTLE_Base.html.

 

Street harassment: A bigger problem than you may think

Honks. Wolf whistles. Shouting. Unsolicited remarks, positive or negative, about one’s clothing or appearance from strangers. Unwanted conversations when there’s no escape route or polite way of excusing oneself. Unwanted touching and solicitations for sex.

All of the above fall under the umbrella of “street harassment” and according to a study of 811 women, one in four girls experience some form of this by the time they are twelve years old, and almost 90% by the time they are nineteen.

The thought of a twelve-year-old girl being whistled and leered at by grown men is disturbing on its own, but research is beginning to show that the really troubling threat of street harassment isn’t even the way it humiliates women and makes them fearful in public: the real threat is that this fear, and the elaborate survival-style measures many women take to avoid it, limits girls’ and women’s mobility and their access to education and employment on a wide scale.  According to StopStreetHarassment.org, 50% of women report altering their traveling routes to avoid persistent harassment; 45% avoid being out after dark, and 40% avoid going out unaccompanied.

Street harassment costs women money. Women shell out for taxis to avoid harassers on public transportation or to avoid waiting at bus stops where they feel unsafe. They buy gym memberships because it’s safer and more peaceful than exercising outdoors. Nearly 20% have moved neighborhoods to avoid harassers in the area, and nearly 10% have switched jobs. Uncounted numbers have let daily harassment influence their decision whether to take night classes or go on business trips.

The good news is organizations like Stop Street Harassment and Hollaback are drawing attention to this issue worldwide. In 2011, they started International Anti-Street Harassment Day, which expanded into a whole week in 2012.

These organizations provide a number of suggestions for taking action to make women and girls safe from harassment in their own communities. Some are aimed at promoting awareness, with low-tech strategies such as hanging flyers around your neighborhood with the friendly reminder that harassment can be a crime; and higher-tech ones such as the Hollaback iPhone and Droid apps. They also offer in-the-moment ideas for confronting harassment, when it appears safe to do so, when it happens to you or when you see another person being victimized.

For example, Stop Street Harassment’s guide to bystander intervention points out that stepping into help somebody doesn’t necessitate braving a full-scale confrontation with their harasser:

Many of the suggestions that do not directly challenge a harasser, such as asking the woman if she wants help or asking the harasser what time it is, are excellent to use when one is not sure if it is harassment that is occurring, if they do not want to dis-empower the woman, or if they fear becoming the target of the harasser’s inappropriate behavior themselves. Something as simple as clearing one’s throat or coughing can help defuse a situation too, particularly if a harasser does not notice other people are around (such as on a dark street).

The verdict is in: public harassment limits opportunities for girls and women just as effectively as outright discrimination. So this spring and summer, the Stop Street Harassments movement suggests that women get out their smartphones or make some homemade fliers and take action

For more information about the ways street harassment affects the lives of women, and what you can do to help, visit the links below:

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/strategies/creative/

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/13/sexual-harassment-women-commuter-forbes-woman-leadership-workplace.html

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/about/what-is-street-harassment/why-stopping-street-harassment-matters/

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/about/what-is-street-harassment/

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: Time to Treat Trans Patients Right

This month, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a set of recommendations by committee opinion, urging reproductive health care providers to improve their treatment of transgender people.

These new guidelines encourage ob-gyns to do the following: ask patients about their gender open-endedly on their patient intake forms rather than requiring they check “male” or “female,” to post LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination policies visibly in their offices, and train staff to handle transgender patients professionally and with compassion.  ACOG says that physicians must be prepared to offer gender-nonconforming patients the same basic preventive services as their cisgendered patients (those who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth), such as STD testing and cancer screenings.

This is a huge, much-needed victory in LGBT health and wellness. In October 2010, the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force released the results of the largest survey of transgender people on healthcare discrimination to date, and the results were dismal. Not only are trans people at elevated risk for most of our nation’s worst health problems, but according to the report:

• Respondents reported more than four times the national average of HIV infection, 2.64 percent in our sample compared to 0.6 percent in the general population, with rates for transgender women at 3.76 percent, and with those who are unemployed (4.67 percent) or who have engaged in sex work (15.32 percent) even higher.
• Over a quarter of the respondents reported misusing drugs or alcohol specifically to cope with the discrimination they faced due to their gender identity or expression.
• A staggering 41 percent of respondents reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6 percent of the general population.
• Nearly 1 in 5 (19 percent) reported being refused care outright because they were transgender or gender non-conforming.
• Survey participants reported very high levels of postponing medical care when sick or injured due to discrimination and disrespect (28 percent).
• Harassment: 28 percent of respondents were subjected to harassment in medical settings.
• Significant lack of provider knowledge: 50 percent of the sample reported having to teach their medical providers about transgender care.  (see Source)

Reproductive healthcare is often stressful for transgender patients even when they aren’t treated disrespectfully by their providers, because many transgender people experience gender dysphoria, a feeling of extreme discomfort and anxiety with their assigned genders. Gender dysphoria is what many trans people refer to when they talk about feeling “trapped in the wrong body,” and it frequently includes strong feelings of disgust about their sexual anatomy.

A transgendered man with strong feelings of revulsion and anxiety about the parts of his body that are still “female” would find receiving care for something like an ovarian cyst upsetting under the best of circumstances. The last thing this man should have to worry about is whether he’ll have to argue with health practitioners who insist despite his protests that they’re going to make every effort possible to preserve his ovaries because he “might want to be a mother someday.”

Hopefully the new recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will make that kind of transgender healthcare horror story a thing of the past – or at least a glaring anomaly. No one should have to receive health care in a hostile environment, and we commend ACOG for recognizing that ignorance and disrespect from providers is a serious and attention-worthy barrier to healthcare access.

Women’s Law Project Leads Call for Review of Penn State University’s Handling of Allegations of Sexual Assault and Violence

In the wake of the recent disturbing reports that Penn State University failed to properly respond to allegations of sexual abuse by a former assistant football coach, the Women’s Law Project (WLP) spearheaded a group of civil rights organizations, including the National Women’s Law Center, ACLU-PA, Women’s Sports Foundation, Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, California Women’s Law Center, Legal Voice, Equal Rights Advocates, Southwest Women’s Law Center, and Equity Legal, in requesting the Office for Civil Rights for the U.S. Department of Education (OCR) undertake a Title IX compliance review of how Penn State University handles allegations of sexual assault and violence, particularly when such allegations are lodged against athletes and athletic department staff.  The OCR is an agency tasked with ensuring equal access to education, which includes investigating and resolving compliance issues and complaints of discrimination.  A primary tool of the OCR is a compliance review, a process by which the OCR can target its resources and proactively take steps to focus on specific compliance problems that are particularly acute or national in scope. 

In the letter submitted last week on behalf of ten civil rights organizations, WLP requested that the OCR enforce its requirement that schools adjudicate sexual harassment and violence complaints on an equal and consistent basis.  The organizations’ request referenced a statement in the OCR’s recent April 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter which stated no preferential treatment would be given to athletes in such circumstances, providing that “[i]f a complaint of sexual violence involves a student athlete, the school must follow its standard procedures for resolving sexual violence complaints.  Such complaints must not be addressed solely by athletic department procedures.”   

Given the shocking allegations made against Penn State regarding its purported failure to sufficiently respond to reported child sexual abuse perpetrated by a member of its athletic department, this request for the OCR to conduct a thorough and comprehensive review of Penn State’s procedures is not only timely, but essential.  Indeed, in their letter to the OCR, the civil rights groups cited disturbing statistics regarding the frequency of sexual assault by student athletes in general, and significantly, point out numerous red flags with respect to Penn State’s poor track record in this area.  Specifically, the groups cite several examples of publicly available information that highlight incidents suggesting special treatment and slaps on the wrist for athletes committing sexual assault and violence.  The letter also calls for routine reviews to assess whether schools across the country respond differently to complaints of sexual harassment and violence when athletes and athletic department staff are implicated.

Please visit http://www.womenslawproject.org/ for more information.

Undergraduate Women Face Discrimination, Fewer Leadership Opportunities

In March 2011, the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership at Princeton University found  that “there are differences—subtle but real—between the ways most Princeton female undergraduates and most male undergraduates approach their college years, and in the ways they navigate Princeton when they arrive.” The Committee also saw that their findings seem to be indicative of broader trends at undergraduate universities—“Through the work of our subcommittee on comparative data, we learned that many of the patterns we observed at Princeton are common on other campuses.”

One important difference that the Committee found was that women are less likely to run for elected positions for a variety of reasons. Some undergraduates who were interviewed said that they chose not to run for a traditional elected position because they doubted how much change they could affect in that position whereas some were just intimidated by the public visibility that is involved in a campaign for elective office. However, there were also “women who do consider running for visible campus posts, especially a presidency [but don’t run since they] get the message from peers that such posts are more appropriately sought by men.”

Sexism that prevents women from running for leadership positions on college campuses is not just external. The Committee found that internalized sexism also plays a role. “Female undergraduates may say that they do not have the skills or experience to run for a highly visible post, that others (usually men) are better qualified. Even women who are regarded as strong leaders by their peers and faculty and staff members may not see themselves in such a light.” For this reason, women are more likely to need encouragement in order to reach their potential. Whereas “men are more likely to consider themselves plausible candidates for office or prizes and step forward without special encouragement; women often report that such encouragement led them to take the steps that produced significant achievements.”

Of course, gender discrimination does not affect undergraduate women only around issues of leadership. While “male undergraduates may also feel pressures to conform to a certain set of campus norms… the pressures seem to be especially marked for women.” Undergraduate women at Princeton “sometimes feel that they are expected to measure up to an impossible standard. They are supposed to be smart, involved in many different activities (as are men), and also ‘pretty, sexy, thin, nice, and friendly,’ as one undergraduate reported.”

You can read the entire report here. You can stay updated on various efforts to make campuses a better environment for women at the Feministing Campus page.

Report: Single-Sex Education is Ineffective

A new report by the Board of the American Council of Coeducational Schooling (ACCES), The Pseudoscience of Single Sex Schooling, recently published in Science magazine  reveals (pdf)  that “placing children in single-sex learning environments is ineffective, misguided and may actually have harmful effects on children.” This data comes at a time when the number of single-sex classrooms in the U.S. is growing.  There were only two single-sex public schools in the 1990s but today there are more than 500 public schools that either offer single-sex classes or that are entirely single-sex.

The popularity of single-sex schooling has grown partially because of misinformation spread by proponents of single sex public schooling that boys and girls should be taught separately because of differences in their brains.  One of their proponents, Leonard Sax, executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, relying on research on rats, claims that boys need to be stressed in order to learn and therefore they must must be taught in cold classrooms in aggressive, confrontational styles.  Girls, according to Sax, require quiet warm classrooms, where they can take off their shoes and cuddle in a blanket brought from home.

Dr. Diane F. Halpern, the lead author of the report and past president of the American Psychological Association who holds a chair in psychology at Claremont McKenna College in California, said in an interview with the New York Times that Sax’s logic is faulty. She stated,

“A loud, cold classroom where you toss balls around, like Dr. Sax thinks boys should have, might be great for some boys, and for some girls, but for some boys, it would be living hell”…She said that while girls are better readers and get better grades, and boys are more likely to have reading disabilities, that does not mean that educators should use the group average to design different classrooms. “It’s simply not true that boys and girls learn differently…”

Indeed, the report argues that not only is single-sex schooling ineffective at improving educational outcomes, but it is actually harmful. The report states that “sex-segregated education is deeply misguided and often justified by weak, cherry-picked or misconstrued scientific claims rather than by valid scientific evidence.” It argues that “single- sex education reduces opportunities for boys and girls to interact together, which serves to reinforce negative gender stereotyping.”

The report “calls on the Education Department to rescind its 2006 regulations weakening the Title IX prohibition against sex discrimination in education.” These regulations allow single-sex classrooms provided they are voluntary, the school believes single-sex education will provide a better education for students, and that “students have a substantially equal coeducational option.” 

The Women’s Law Project has fought against discrimination in education. To learn about our work to prevent single-sex classrooms, click here.

Study Reveals Women Still Not Recognized as Capable Leaders

A recent meta-analysis (integration of a large number of studies on the same subject) by Northwestern University reveals that most people still use gendered stereotypes when thinking about leadership. The consequence of this is that “Women are viewed as less qualified or natural in most leadership roles…and secondly, when women adopt culturally masculine behaviors often required by these roles, they may be viewed as inappropriate or presumptuous.” These biases against women are most likely contributing to the ever-present leadership gap in the U.S.—women still only hold 17% of seats in Congress and in 2008 only 15.7% of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies were women.

Previous research found that women are perceived as inherently having more “communal” qualities such as being compassionate. Men, on the other hand, were perceived by participants in the studies as inherently having more “agentic” qualities such as being assertive. Research found that it is agentic qualities that are perceived as being an important element of leadership. The Times of India sums up, “Because men fit the cultural stereotype of leadership better than women, they have better access to leadership roles and face fewer challenges in becoming successful in them.” Both female and male participants in the studies that made up the meta-analysis saw men as being inherently better leaders than women.

It is incredibly disheartening that, as Laura Hibbard commented, in an era where “women hold some of the most powerful positions in the United States (see: Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State, Nancy Pelosi, [Former] Speaker of the House, etc.) we still haven’t really changed the way we think about leadership roles and women.” However, the study did show some encouraging trends. The meta-analysis collected data since 1973 so could see if attitudes towards women in leadership are changing over time. Most people still view leadership roles as inherently male but Alice Eagly, professor of psychology and a co-author of the study told Hibbard, “women should be encouraged that leadership is culturally not as extremely masculine as it was in the past…That’s progress because it makes leadership roles more accessible to women and easier to negotiate when in such a role.”

To learn more about the effort to see more women in leadership positions and to find out how you can help in that effort, visit The White House Project’s website.

29 Fortune 500 Companies Have No Women on Boards

Among Standard and Poor’s list of top 500 companies, 29 do not have a single woman on their board of directors or among their highest-paid officers. The 29 companies represent a diverse range of industries. However, it is noteworthy that one-third of the “boys club companies” are in the oil and gas sector, which also has the lowest percentage of female directors, at 9.6%.

Many companies which were excluded from the list only had one woman on their board, which critics say “are often included only as a ‘token gesture of gender diversity.’” Other companies that were excluded include those that had no women on their board of directors but had one or more women as one of their top earning executives. For example, the Philadelphia-based retailer Urban Outfitters was not among the 29 companies listed because “two of the highest-paid executives on the company proxy—Wendy Wurtzburger and Wendy McDevitt—are women.” This is misleading as there are a disproportionate number of men in positions of power in most of the other 471 companies as well.

Indeed, only three of the Fortune 500 companies have a board composed of 40% or more women. These three companies are: Macy’s, Avon, and Estee Lauder. Huffpost Women commented:

[While] it makes sense that women would serve on the boards of cosmetics and retail companies, whose consumers are traditionally female, it doesn’t make much sense that Discovery Communications which owns the Oprah Winfrey Network, has no women on its board, or that Cintas, the largest uniform manufacturer in the U.S., doesn’t either.

Unfortunately, the problem of women’s underrepresentation in companies’ top positions is getting worse. Last year, the number of women on corporate boards dropped from 16.6% to 16%. Some companies in the oil and gas sector, such as Pioneer Natural Resources, cited a lack of qualified female applicants as the reason for the lack of women on their board. However, Terry Savage, who sat on the board of Pennzoil-Quaker State for six years, told Bloomberg Businessweek that “there are women qualified to sit on the boards of oil and gas companies. ‘The fact is that more than half the employees of that hugely industrial corporation were women.’”

The growing problem of a lack of female leadership in top companies is bad for women and the economy in general. Aida Alvarez, a former administrator of the Small Business Administration who now sits on the boards of Wal-Mart and Union Bank, said in Bloomberg Businessweek that “‘It makes no sense not to have diversity on the board’ …The large public company doesn’t exist…that doesn’t have women as end users or investors.”

You can view the list of the 29 companies that do not have women on their board or as at least one of their top five highest earning executives here.