Women Are a Hot Topic, But It’s Access to Capital That Counts
It’s surprising given women’s dismal holdings of positions of leadership and global wealth- but empowering women is very hot right now. It’s wonderful to see. At conferences, corporate and NGO presentations, and media sessions I frequent, leaders stress their organizations’ commitment to improving the global situation of women and girls. I usually experience three common themes in these discussions.
Theme One: Teach a Woman to Fish, Save the World
This argument is a given among leaders now: empowering women and girls globally is crucial to global security, ending violence, and lifting countries out of poverty. This year, almost 32% of the commitments from public and private entities at the Clinton Global Initiative directly impacted women and girls through classroom education, health education, micro finance and other teaching tactics. It’s crucial, lifesaving work.
CGI is a public private partnership, but the heavy lifting in creating such programs has been done by NGOs, governments and other charitable entities, according to Dr. Isobel Coleman from the Council on Foreign Relations. She says if you add up all the money spent on women by NGOs and other non-profit organizations it’s somewhere under $5 billion dollars. This is significant money but pales compared to the estimated $1 trillion alone of investment capital wanting to invest in socially responsible business. Dr. Coleman notes, it is crucial to enlist the private sector in this empowerment to really make change.
At CGI, Andrew Kassoy, Co-founder, B Lab said there are 60-70 million consumers who WANT to buy from good companies. And many companies, whether explicitly socially responsible in their charter or not, have the intention to have a positive impact on society. But it’s tough to make money and it’s hard for socially responsible businesses to scale. Many explicitly pro-women businesses are in this spot.
Theme Two: Women are Power Consumers, Hence They Have Power
Nearly every US-focused public conversation will touch on women’s sheer might as consumers of goods and services. Organizations usually seize women’s purchasing power as proof of the strength of women’s voices in the marketplace. I’m not sure this translates. And frankly, if I hear this statistic again, I’m going to scream: women drive 85% of household purchases. Women are the “Chief Household Officers.” Women are the power consumers…you know the story.
This information is accurate, valuable and hey, I make my living largely from it. But it’s not enough to change the balance of power and improve the global plight of women. I’ve written before how the single-minded emphasis on women’s role as power consumer is the new Feminine Mystique. I don’t see much evidence that women’s predominance as consumers of packaged goods, etc. translates into our larger power.
Theme Three: If Things Are Really Going to Change, Women Need More Access to Capital
Empowering women as producers of economic wealth is the hardest part of the equation to solve. There is incredible work being done globally and in the US in the micro-finance sector, but women need access to capital beyond the micro scale. There are two examples I want to highlight below of how this can be done at scale.
Wal-Mart’s recent commitment to empower women is an example of bringing socially responsible business to scale but also of an organization committing to tackle the hardest question behind women’s lack of global equity.
In a strong new women’s empowerment initiative, Wal-Mart has taken the lead doubling sourcing from women suppliers, source $20 billion from women owned businesses. They promise to track and measure their actual spending with women suppliers worldwide and hold themselves accountable. This includes large and small batch producers of goods and services.
Wal-Mart also pledges to work with more women professional services providers, such as lawyers, ad agencies, accountants and technology firms. Yes, Wal-Mart has a tough record when it comes to championing women in the workplace. But ultimately, it’s empowering women as key producers in the multi-billion dollar Wal-Mart supply chain. The vision, according to Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs Leslie Dach, is to bring about a “global marketplace where women’s contributions are really and truly valued…Helping women live better will make Wal-Mart a stronger business.”
It’s not micro, and while it’s a PR campaign, there are real numbers behind it.
And yes, in a press conference to announce the initiative, he noted women are the majority of Wal-Mart shoppers. But I’ll forgive him that one.
Second, there’s great energy afoot to increase the number of women on corporate boards of directors. The average Fortune 500 company board is only 16% women. This means corporate decisions that affect us in the US and all over the world are 84% made by men. Doesn’t that figure put the “82% of purchases are made by women” figure into a stark new light?
At a launch for the new non-profit organization 2020Women on Boards, both MA State Treasurer Steve Grossman and CEO of PAX Worldwide Joe Keefe, who runs a mutual fund featuring only companies that invest in gender equality, drummed home this simple and powerful point: women hold more power than we think. Not only are many women individual investors in mutual funds, but our pension funds, unions and employers are among the largest holders of company shares. Every year, we are sent proxy forms and we usually throw them out or check the boxes suggested. But these boxes approve Boards of Directors, and we can use our proxy votes to change things; we need to read them, and scout them for gender diversity. There are also several new databases that host the information of thousands of qualified women Board candidates. This is a powerful way to change the ratio and get more women on Boards.
Because it’s all about numbers, and all about scale.
Disclosure: I did consulting work for Wal-Mart at a past job in 2005.
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About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
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