Where are Apple’s women execs?

Robert T. - The original article was apparently edited to remove the references to “white men” (and fairly quickly since your comment came less than 3 hours after mine).

I hate it when they do that kind of stuff without mentioning it; but as I said it my comment, it’s a stronger article without the reference.

reinharden

I’d be more interested in this article if they published the percentage of qualified résumés from women vs. the percentage actually hired (and the number of résumés typically received for a position).

Just saying there are no females executives has vastly different meanings depending on the context.

Apple publicly takes a stand against Prop 8 and gets high marks from the LGBT community for fair practices, and yet they’re getting nitpicked for not forcing a woman to be an exec? Non-story. Dig into some real news CNN.

Who cares? Today question like this are just to make noise, have no point. The Media needs to stop and report on something that’s real and not on time wasting stories.

Apple is a company that values your brain and not your looks. Since most women are put in management positions just to raise the companies inclusion figures. Apple cannot afford dead weight and has therefor declined this quasi gender mandated figure over substance.

Example: If they valued looks, they would not have hired Andrea Jung.

I guess Women just arent that bright.

First, true diversity is based on perspective, not what race or sex you are. To suggest otherwise is absurd. Second, this is knowingly unscientific, but most women I know are interested in raising children, often times along with being a professional. Unfortunately, to rise to the level of a high level executive of a company like Apple you 1) need to know somebody or 2) sacrifice wanting to raise a child. Many women simply don’t want to make that kind of sacrifice when people are never guaranteed to rise to the very top (regardless of their sex). Third, again this is an unscientific inquiry based just on various news articles, but it seems many more men then women are interested in engineering, especially from a real early age. Apple likes not only to hire MBAs, but MBAs with an engineering background. That is going to exclude a lot of women. Fourth, Apple’s highest legal officer up until not too long ago, Nancy Heinen, was a woman. Not such a good example with all the back dating, but it is one of the few executive positions at Apple that you don’t necessary need to have a strong technology background. Another example is Danielle Lambert, senior vice president for human resources. Again, one of the few non technology related position. Fifth, I remember when Jesse Jackson showed up at an Apple stock holder meeting a few years ago trying to insinuate that Apple’s hiring practices are discriminatory because there weren’t any blacks in upper management. Jobs quickly pointed out that highly competitive tech companies are interested strictly in talent, and most of it’s workers are asian minorities. This was after Jackson got Honda to give him like a billion dollars for supposedly discriminating against blacks based on some clearly not discriminatory commercial. That didn’t happen to Apple. Finally, again from experience. Men love women. If you are remotely attractive, a guy is going to hire you over a man if you aren’t quite as qualified. That of course is reverse discrimination, but men are weak.

Apple is quite diverse, they even have an alien. I’m quite sure Bertrand Serlet, is from the same planet as Mork.

(yaaaaaaawn)

what a non story. big freakin deal…

Because true diversity comes from people who look different.

They’re home having babies.

It is a shame these companies do not value diversity, you also need to take a hard look at minority representation, I bet there are a lower percentage of minority men or women on these boards also.

Two points of clarification:
1. To reinharden, after reading the article and every response I don’t see any “white” references. Sad that you tried to steer the meaning of the article in the wrong direction. Please do better next time.
2. To Nick, you obviously have not worked with many women in your career. I have seen many women that have bigger #@^^$ than most men. Do not discount a woman’s ability to get in and mix it up.

Class dismissed

Wow… people are real fired up over this one. Well, while I agree it’s a pointless article, I will agree with the majority of the comments here in that there are reasons why you find fewer women in executive positions that have nothing to do with their ability and I think a lot of it has to do with priorities and willingness. The fact is that more often than not men are willing to work the insane hours and put up with the constant travel and job stress than women are. As well, you have to consider relative interest in a field. I work in a tech support call center and we probably have <10% female employees. Not because we discriminate but because few women want the job.

While I think that the report cited is a waste of time, I don’t there’s an active attempt to characterize Apple as sexist.

If the rumours are true, then any exec at Apple will be yelled at vehemently by Jobs, and women are less willing to endure that kind of beratement. Good for them, but it makes it harder to co-exist at such a volatile company.

“In a year in which a woman came this close to winning the highest public office in the land”

Huh?

Clinton didn’t make the cut for the nomination. Palin would have been #2.

Your definition of “this close” is a lot more generous than most

I find it ironic that you class people as “white” simply by looking at their picture.

Steve Jobs was given up for adoption by a Syrian father (Abdulfattah Jandali). Classically, Syrian isn’t “white”.

Sina Tamaddon is Iranian. Classically, Iranian isn’t “white”.

If your rant is about the absence of women in positions of authority, then you’d be better served dropping your reference to “white men”.

#####

Apple also used to have Nancy Heinen as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Unfortunately, she was one found to be most responsible for the stock options mess.

Anyway, I think if you look at Apple’s behavior historically and if you do so without deciding that all men whom you decide are white are white regardless of their individual heritage, then you might find that it’s better than average at diversity.

reinharden

Far fewer women entered the tech industry in the last 20 years than men. That is one reason there are few women execs in these industries, including Silicon Valley. Up the road in San Francisco, there is a far broader variety of types of institutions and thus a higher % of execs. In fact, the highest in the country. It’s an interesting contrast within the same SF Bay Area region.

….you’ve just substituted one reality distortion field for another….

Although I have no Love loss for apple, give me a break here,. who cares about quotas, if someone ( anyone ) is cabable then the job is their job. I can’t stand PC ( thats polically correct, no pun intended ) as stated before look at the HP disaster and now look at Homedepots ex pres and what he has done to another company,..please just find the better person and get away from counting gender, color etc.

Glad that every commenter so far has disagreed with you.

Pick the best people, whether they are men or women.

“Research” like this disgusts me.

I could care less if companies had men, women, dogs, or palm trees running them - as long as they can do it competently.

In this economic climate, there’s really NOTHING more meaningful that you can report on?

I want to know how many house husbands from the upper middle class have been having babies and generally doing their thing from home.

Personally, I want that job. I tried it once, but got sacked when a richer man came along. The lady in question wanted a “secure” home life, you understand. Such is life.

Of course, I have just uttered the utterly taboo word for western entertainment fundamentalists: “class”. Sorry about that.

But the lack of class awareness in Universities is what has created feminism. As we are not allowed to mention class based politics, it is acceptable logic to compare a rich man to a poor woman and claim inequality. That is what feminism is, and for those who are curious, the origins of feminism co-incide precisely with the demise of class based political analysis in western universities. About the time of McCarthy, I believe.

Now saying that makes me a marxist, commie etc etc. Hence it is taboo. But I am not really a commie.

I might think that telecommunications license fees, and the subsequent cost to the public, are taxation without representation, but that is because, deep down, I like the idea of democracy. If you want real commies, go check out citi bank. Your children will be working 5 hrs a week to keep the shareholders of that cosy commisariate in power, and living in the manner to which they were born. Why? Because they are too big too fail. Just like the soviet union.

Right. We don’t want a Carley Fiorina (sp) at Apple. Talk about a disaster at HP. Pick execs on quality not quotas.

So, what? Stocks are down and would having a woman exec change that? What difference does this make anyway. If we are all equals then why should it matter if a woman is running the show or man. For that matter why does it matter if it asian, hispanic or black?

Why do you use Apple to point out an industry concern and then go on to say ” * Almost half (48.5%) of California companies have no women executive officers and even fewer (46.8%) have female directors.
* The telecommunications sector has the lowest percentage (3.6%) of women directors; the pharmaceuticals sector has the highest percentage (14.6%).
* Only 2.4% of executive officers in the electronics sector are women.
* Among counties with at least 20 companies, the Bay Area has the county with the greatest number of women directors (San Francisco, 15.2%) as well as the county with the least, Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, 8.4%)”
HOW ABOUT NAMING ALL OF THE “OFFENDING” COMPANIES? THIS IS VERY BIASED IN ITS PRESENTATION. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO PERSECUTE APPLE TO GET NOTICED????

Stop with the quota business! I am sick and tired of gender based bias. Women are judges, almost presidents, lawyers, physicians and any other job role.

In the year 2008 your incessant social engineering prattling is outdated and a holdover from the 60s. STOP, it is over!