Women on corporate boards better decision-makers than male directors: study

Shocking i know! Really can Anyone/anyone be surprised by this? -EJ

From The Financial Post;

Women who sit on corporate boards are more likely to “rock the boat” and be more open to new ideas than their male counterparts — skills that often translate into better decisions and financial success for the company, according to a new study.
The survey, recently published in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, found that of the 624 board directors polled in Canada, women were more likely to use “co-operation, collaboration and consensus building” when dealing with complex decisions.
While male directors more often made decisions by using “rules, regulations and traditional ways of doing business.”
Study co-author Chris Bart said Monday that his research showed that the way women operate as directors often contributed to a company’s success, raising the question of why women are still in the minority in Canada’s corporate boardrooms.

“Why would governance, nominating committees and board chairs not want to have that skill set, that competence available to them in abundance?” asked Bart, a professor of strategic management at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University.
“It’s no longer just a question of it being the right thing to do, to have women on the board... it’s the bright thing to do.”
The finds, part of a larger study conducted between 2004 and 2012, presented morally conflicting scenarios to board members, asking them to solve them and explain how they came to their conclusion. Of those surveyed, 75% were male and 25% were female.
Bart, who did the research with Gregory McQueen of A.T. Still University in Arizona, says the answers from female directors showed that they were “less constrained” in their problem-solving skills than male directors.
It also found that women were more likely to take into account interests of multiple stakeholders and viewed fairness as an important factor in their decision-making.

“Women seem to be predisposed to be more inquisitive and to see more possible solutions,” he said. “This quality makes them more effective corporate directors.”
A recent study by TD Bank found that women only make up 11% of board members at companies on the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which represents more than 240 of Canada’s largest companies by market capitalization.
Nearly half (43%) of the companies on the index reported no female board member and 28% only had one. Bart says the reality is that the “old boys” culture is still alive and well in corporate boardrooms across all sectors.
“Men are pack animals and they are very much quick to recognize the hierarchy of the alpha males in the group,” he said. “They would be very unhappy with people coming in with different values or views to the board.”
Bart says the study signals that boards, investors and shareholders, all benefit when there are more female directors.
“There’s a huge pool of qualified, available women who would certainly be eligible based on their experiences to fill the boardroom seats,” he said.
“(Companies) drum up all sorts of excuses as to why women aren’t being appointed to the board but they’re no longer holding water.”

Women : Just Plain Smarter

From the Huff Post - EJ

Is It Time to Let Women Take the Wheel?

Posted: 03/04/2013 12:59 pm

Our world needs a change in leadership.

I'm not talking about the divide between Republicans and Democrats. I'm not talking about the UN or the influence of U.S. foreign policy, or the power struggles in the Middle East. At the end of the day, all of these may end up being less important than a fundamental division of power that goes back to the beginning of the human race.
What I'm talking about here is the gender balance: the distribution of power and leadership between men and women.
Despite the tremendous gains made by women over the last 100 years, women still represent only a tiny fraction of the leadership in this country and worldwide. It's true that this year we saw a historic (and welcome) upturn in the amount of women elected to government. There are 20 women in the U.S. Senate and 78 in the House of Representatives this year. Similarly, the Fortune 500 for 2012 showed that 18 women were CEOs of the top companies in the nation. This is up from 12 female CEOs the year before. It's good news, but it isn't enough.
While most companies have male CEOs and most leadership positions in the U.S. and abroad are held by men, the "CEO part of the brain" -- the prefrontal cortex, which governs things like judgment, organization and planning -- is actually stronger in women, suggesting that women, not men, are a better suited to hold positions of power and are probably better equipped to change our world than men.
This isn't idle speculation. Research we have been conducting at the Amen Clinics over the past 22 years bears this out.
The Largest Brain-Imaging Analysis Ever^[1]
My team and I recently completed the largest brain-imaging analysis ever conducted to evaluate the differences between male and female brains. The results confirm what many of us have known intuitively for decades: There is a big difference between the brains of men and the brains of women. Only, the differences aren't what some of you may think.
In this study, we took single photon emissions computed tomography (SPECT) scans of 26,000 people -- some 46,000 scans -- and compared them to see if there were any differences between the sexes. Included in the group were healthy males and females as well as men and women with a wide variety of neurological and psychiatric conditions. What we found was stunning.
Women showed significantly increased cerebral blood flow in 112 of the 128 regions of the brain we measured. Put simply, this means that women generally have more brain activity than men. But what fascinated me as a psychiatrist and brain imaging specialist wasn't that women's brains were much more active than men's. I think a lot of us guys have known that for years. What I found particularly interesting were the specific areas of the brain that were more active in women -- areas that show women may indeed be better equipped to lead our world toward meaningful change than men are.
Why Women Make Better Bosses (and Leaders)
The first thing my team noticed was that the inner CEO (the prefrontal cortex) of women is much more active than men. This area of the brain governs things like judgment, forethought, organization, planning, empathy, impulse control and learning from the mistakes you make. These are the very qualities needed to successfully manage a company, lead a nation, mediate crisis, and get people working together toward a common goal.
This strength in the prefrontal cortex also points to a possible explanation for the lower incidence of ADHD, antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse, and possibly incarcerations (women are 14 times less likely to go to jail than men).
In addition, women showed increased activity in the hippocampus. Men, if you've ever wondered why your wife or girlfriend never forgets anything, here is your answer. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that helps memories get into long-term storage. Increased activity in this area means that women generally remember things better for longer than men -- a useful tool for leaders and CEOs.
Understand these are only a few of the key areas of increased brain activity that stand out in women. In fact, men were more active in only nine areas of the brain, those primarily associated with visual perception, form recognition and object representation. Men are better at tracking objects in space, usually female objects that get us in a whole bunch of trouble.
Due to this increased brain activity, women tend to exhibit greater strengths in the areas of:

• Empathy -- the ability to share or understand the feelings of another
• Intuition -- knowing that something is true without knowing exactly why
• Collaboration -- the ability to work with other people toward a common goal (another key reason they make such great bosses)
• Self-control -- which, as mentioned above, points to their reduced risk of substance abuse, going to jail, or even getting a traffic ticket
• Appropriate worry -- women tend to worry about and take care of their health, their family, etc. more effectively than men. This point is actually quite fascinating -- in a large study, it was found that the "don't worry, be happy" people, more typically men on motorcycles, died earlier from accidents and preventable illness. Appropriate worry may be one reason women live longer than men.^[2]

Females are neurologically well-equipped to lead, manage and help us resolve the major problems of the world. Men have been in positions of power since the inception of the human race, and while the progress of civilization is impressive, we still face war, strife, power struggles, ill health and more every day. By understanding and honoring the female brain, we can empower girls and women to use their brains to change the world.
My hope is that you women out there use this program to unleash the extraordinary power of your female brain. Our world needs you and your brains now more than ever to lead us toward a more peaceful, more collaborative, more sustainable, healthier way of life.
This idea and the data from our study inspired me so much that my latest book, Unleash the Power of the Female Brain, is dedicated to it. In it, I show how women can supercharge their brains using the techniques we have developed at the Amen Clinics for better health, energy, mood and sex. The book gives women a complete step-by-step program that teaches them how to love their brain, overcome mood disorders and optimize brain function.
References
[1] Amen, D, Trujillo, M, Keator, D, et al. "Gender differences in rCBF in a healthy and psychiatric cohort of 46034 SPECT scans." Amen Clinics. 2013. In advance of publication.
[2] Friedman H, Martin L. "The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study." 2011. Plume.

Beauty and Brains Part 1

Danica McKellar

"Occupation: Actress

Credentials: The actress best known as Winnie Cooper is said to be a member of Mensa with an IQ of 154. As an undergrad at UCLA, she co-authored a scientific paper that put forth what is now known as the "Chayes–McKellar–Winn theorem."

Smartest Moment: She's written three The New York Times bestsellers: Math Doesn't Suck, Kiss My Math, and Hot X: Algebra Exposed."


from complex pop culture
-EJ

Lysistrata: Female Power & Democracy

Women Emerge As Crisis Leaders In Macho Balkans

by The Associated Press

March 04, 2013 7:58 AM

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Women in the Balkans are leading a political revolution.
Historically given little say in the politics of the conservative region, they are increasingly taking top leadership posts, signaling that the traditional rules are changing as Balkan countries shake off their war pasts and move toward membership in the European Union.
During the bloody 1990s, many in the Balkans turned to warrior leaders, mostly male nationalists they thought would protect them from the ethnic conflicts that flattened cities and left over a hundred thousand dead. The new millennium has brought crisis in a different form: economic doldrums, naggingly high unemployment and glaring political corruption.
Encouraged by the EU and influenced by closer ties with the West, more and more it is women who are stepping in to change the old ways of doing business in the macho Balkans. Some see women as less nationalistic and more attuned to the needs of a new era — diplomacy, consensus, and compromise.
"Women have always been more successful than men, with all due respect," said Duska Latinovic, a nurse from the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia. "Women are ... more sensitive, stronger, emotional, and in these rough times people need more of a heart."
Although overall gender equality standards are still far from those in Western democracies, strongly patriarchal Kosovo and the post-war Serb mini-state in Bosnia have both installed women in their top positions. Male-dominated Serbia and Montenegro have passed laws to increase the numbers of women in leadership positions, part of a slate of efforts to convince the EU they belong in the bloc.
"The power of women in the politics is a soft power," Atifete Jahjaga, the female president of Kosovo told the AP. "It is a positive change that our country and other countries in the region ... are making by giving a chance to women."
The latest political newcomer is the charismatic 43-year-old financial expert Alenka Bratusek, Slovenia's first ever female prime minister. While Slovenia has traditionally been more socially liberal than the rest of the Balkans, Bratusek's election last week was significant because it came at a moment of deep financial and political turmoil in the small Alpine state.
A rising star among veteran Slovenian politicians, Bratusek has been entrusted with consolidating the nation's economy and restoring confidence in state institutions, which have been badly shaken by the EU's broader financial crisis.
"It is important that this happened at a sensitive moment, a period of crisis," sociologist Milica Gaber Antic said. "It's a strong message to other women: 'We women can do it!'"
Many women leaders are already being lauded for steering their countries through the storms.
Croatia's former Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, took over the premiership in turmoil after her predecessor Ivo Sanader was forced to resign in 2009 in a whirl of corruption scandals, and then wrapped up her country's accession talks with the EU.
In 2011 in Kosovo — where Parliament members were recently issued notebooks with an assortment of sayings including one saying that "silence is the only treasure a woman possesses" — the little-known Jahjaga was elected the first ever female president, part of a U.S.-brokered compromise that put to a rest the bickering between political groups dominated by formal rebel fighters and murky business leaders.
Last week in the ethnically Serb mini-state in Bosnia another little-known female politician, Zeljka Cvijanovic, was proposed as the new head of government after the previous Cabinet resigned. That would make her the first ever woman to lead the government in any of the country's many levels of power-sharing, where no ministry in the central government is headed by a woman.
"As a woman, I hope to add a new flair and a new dimension to the institutions of Republika Srpska," she said in an interview.
Women accounted for only 1.6 percent of Serbia's Parliament in 1990, the lowest rate in Europe. But with strongman Slobodan Milosevic ouster in 2000 and the country's efforts to join the EU, the proportion of women has soared to 20 percent. Serbian law now calls for every third candidate on an election list to be a woman — a rule requested as part of EU reforms.
It isn't always the same story across the region. During the communist rule that followed World War II, authorities promoted women's inclusion in politics as part of the communist agenda of gender equality. At the time women served at top positions in the governments and were granted equal rights, jobs, salaries and education.
Bulgaria, for example, had the highest percentage of working women in the world in the 1970s, and women in top offices include the vice president, the parliament speaker, four ministers, and the mayor of the capital city, Sofia.
But, old habits die hard. Kosovo's Minister for European Integration Vlora Citaku acknowledged that "it is almost impossible to forget even for a moment that I am a woman — I've been reminded of that every day since I became a minister."
She said that being a woman in the male-dominated politics is "a tough life."
"First of all they ask you are you married? What your dad think of you traveling alone surrounded by all men?," she scoffed. "I mean, it's all these stereotypes ... There are certain duties that a woman must do in order to be 'complete.'"
And in Slovenia, shortly after Bratusek won Parliament's approval, political opponents tweeted that "her mandate will be as long as her skirt."
Bratusek responded simply: "I wish we women were no longer judged only by the length of our skirts."

Really Nice Video

A really nice Female positive video with Women overcoming fear to take and do what They please.