Women on Corporate Boards: Where is the Difference

I appreciate Susan's reply to my post, and her disagreement with my argument that having more women on corporate boards is more a matter of equity than "difference." At least we do agree that it is at least a matter of equity, if not anything else. I remain unconvinced, however, that having a critical mass of women would mean much of anything to "governance," at least in general. While I've read Carole Gilligan, and am familiar with the theory of "woman's way of knowing," I'm not convinced that such work avoids a type of essentialism that unrealistically discounts the range of individual variation among women. More important, a general assumption that a critical mass of women on a corporate board would mean different or better governance remains unconvincing until someone can posit an explanation for "why" better than a belief or suspicion that it's gotta be that way. To be sure, if we are talking about businesses engaged in the type of activities where women's diifferent experience is of paramount importance -- a health care company, for example, or even a hotel company that employs lots of low-paid female service staff -- then maybe having more women on the board might make a difference (although that would depend on the particular female board member's ideological, class or even racial identities as much as their gender.) But if what we are talking about is how corporate governance in general -- as applicable to all companies -- then I must say that the case is not proven -- indeed, it is not even begun. Of course, my reservations about the business argument do not undercut women's very strong equity claims to greater board representation.

--Mark