EDITORIAL

A more equitable future for our daughters and granddaughters

By BARBARA ANN FENTON-FUNG
Posted 3/10/21

By BARBARA ANN FENTON-FUNG As 2021's celebration of Women's History Month kicks off, it's time to take pride in all of the glass ceilings we've shattered in the past year. No longer are we preoccupied with fitting into glass slippers, but instead

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EDITORIAL

A more equitable future for our daughters and granddaughters

Posted

As 2021’s celebration of Women’s History Month kicks off, it’s time to take pride in all of the glass ceilings we’ve shattered in the past year. No longer are we preoccupied with fitting into glass slippers, but instead stamping out our own places in history.

However, in one area, women are making painfully slow progress. Corporate America continues to struggle with including women on their board of directors. According to a 2020 Spencer Stuart analysis, 72 percent of board directors in the United States are men, with more severe gender imbalances noted in the health care, energy, and information technology sectors. Multi-year studies of American corporations noted that even more significant inequality existed for women of color.

There are significant benefits to businesses when they diversify. Research out of Europe noted that increasing the number of women on boards correlates to higher financial performance. In Korea, having female directors also correlated with higher corporate social responsibility performance.

Based on the landmark legislation passed in California in 2018, I, along with co-sponsoring representatives Casimiro, Shallcross Smith, Serpa, Fellela and Tanzi, have introduced H 5905 to locally address this global issue. This bill would mandate female representation on the board of directors for publicly held companies here in Rhode Island. By January of 2022, each applicable business must have at least one female director, increasing to a minimum of three for boards of six individuals or more by January of 2023.

Here in Rhode Island, women have been hit exceptionally hard during the COVID pandemic. Female employment levels are still 11 percent below pre-pandemic levels, while male employment has fully recovered. We need to push harder than ever for women of merit and qualifications to be equally considered and then placed in directorship roles. This even means nudging corporate America via mandates given it clearly hasn’t happened organically over decades.

Women shouldn’t settle for being offered crumbs, and we aren’t going to make progress standing on the sidelines and complaining. It is time to enact policies that create change and help build a stronger corporate America. As the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm once said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” This legislation would upgrade those folding chairs to a more executive style.

As women of all races and political beliefs make progress across the spectrum, let’s push beyond our comfort levels and create a more equitable future for our daughters and granddaughters.

Rep. Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, a Republican, represents District 15 (Cranston) in the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

women, equality

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