Comparative Sex Regimes and Corporate Governance: An Introduction

Authors

Darren Rosenblum, St. John's University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Introduction

Publication Title

Pace International Law Review

Publication Date

2014

Volume

26:1

First Page

1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.58948/2331-3536.1332

Abstract

(Excerpt)

In February 2013, on the day of the worst snowstorm in many years, Pace International Law Review conducted a symposium on “Comparative Sex Regimes and Corporate Governance.” Despite a total shutdown of all transport networks and the consequent absence of a few stranded scholars, we met to discuss the fraught questions posed by corporate board quotas and formulate answers.

Led by Norway in 2003, several nations have begun to mandate certain levels of women’s inclusion on corporate boards. In the face of widespread exclusion of women from corporate power that suggests structural biases, these quotas appear radical and compelling. The wake of the financial crisis has accentuated this phenomenon, as stereotypes of women as more risk-averse prompt legislatures to attempt to ensure more economic stability.

A decade of thinking about quotas has left me with no easy answers. Sticky questions beset any attempt to understand the egalitarian redistribution of elite corporate positions. Archaic scripts dominate public debate, whether those scripts rely on sex difference, diversity’s value, or the corporation’s place in society. Scholars, too, fall into this trap, as some allow disciplines to cabin their understandings in ways that undermine fuller assessments of quotas. Strong scholarship may foreground one discipline only to lose sight of others’ contributions. Corporate scholars may gloss over identity’s complexity, both the subject of the quota (sex) and those affected by it (race, class, sexuality, nationality, etc.). Critical theorists may understand identity processes, but may misconstrue the process of how corporate power exerts itself. Non-corporate scholars may not fully apprehend how boards function in corporate governance. Data observed by social scientists may provide answers, but leave broad questions unanswered.

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Available at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pilr/vol26/iss1/1/