I received some interesting facts from the Michigan Women’s Commission that I would like to share with you. 

The Michigan Women’s Leadership Index is calculated by taking the percentage of women on boards of directors and the percentage of women among the top five or fewer officers as reported in Security Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.  This shows there are now less women in the three groups than there were in 2003. 

Group one includes 20 fortune 500 companies.  There were no women.   

Group two includes 54 companies with annual revenues of $100 million or more, but not among the Fortune 500.  These companies are Compuware; Energy Conversion Devices; Somanetics, X-Rite Inc; and Steelcase.   

Group three includes 36 companies with annual revenue under $100 million.  These companies are FNBH Bancorp.  Not a single board chair is a woman.  Of the 100 companies surveyed, thirty-four have no women as either directors or top-five officers. 

Women officers receive only 49% of the compensation paid to their male counterparts.

Only 21 companies have at least one woman officer.

Not a single Michigan Fortune 500 company has a top woman officer.  When I get a stock proxy I always look to see how many women are directors and then comment on the proxy when I return it.  It really upsets me to see that there are so few women in this capacity.  This article confirms how unfair it really is. 

Reps. John Dingell (MI-15) and Carolyn Maloney (NY-14) are leading the fight against the gender wage gap.  They have introduced legislation to establish an institute to continually examine the gap and make recommendations for businesses to combat it. 

The Center for the Study of Women and Workplace Policy would be housed at a public university and would produce annual reports on wages, as well as best-practices guides for businesses. 

We know the wage gap exists.  The question is how do we resolve this injustice and break through the glass ceiling once and for all.  It is important that ways to close the gap are found and it is felt that the Center would find the tools needed to accomplish this goal.  

Of the industries examined, women were less represented in management positions than they were in all positions filled by women to a statistically significant degree.  These relationships were the same in 1995 and 2000.     

There is a sense of continued progress toward gender equality in the workplace, but the wage gap has persisted for the past two decades.  Men with children appear to get an earning boost, whereas women with children lose earnings if they have children.  Where is the equity here???

The Michigan Women’s Commission has asked our support of HB 5399.  This bill would amend the Probate Code to state that two unmarried persons may jointly adopt a child in Michigan.  In addition, the bill would clarify that an already existing legal parent would not need to terminate his or her parental rights in order to consent to a second parent adopting the child.  We will be asking for a vote of support at the Spring Board next weekend.  See you there???