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"As the world&amp;#8217;s most formidable leaders prepare to gather at the World Economic Forum&amp;#8217;s annual meeting, the event&amp;#8217;s glaring lack of gender diversity has once again been brought to the public&amp;#8217;s attention. Of the 2,500 participants, only 17% of Davos&amp;#8217; participants will be women.\nLearn more about what to expect in Davos from Fortune&amp;#8217;s video team:\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\nThat number may seem low\u2014but it&amp;#8217;s up from last year\u2019s 15%.\nDespite the criticism, Davos gender breakdown is merely a reflection of a global reality. CEOs like Yahoo&amp;#8217;s \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYHOO\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t Marissa Mayer and General Motors \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tGM\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t Mary Barra get a lot of press, but they&amp;#8217;re outliers. The vast majority of the world&amp;#8217;s largest companies are led by men: In Fortune&amp;#8216;s Global 500, only 3.4% of companies have female chief executives.\nIt\u2019s slightly\u2014only slightly\u2014better in politics. Women make up 6% of all heads of state and 8% of all heads of government.\nAnd, of course, women are famously underrepresented in the boardroom. Only 11% of board seats at the world\u2019s largest and best-known companies are occupied by women.\nBut targeting Davos misses the point. Yes, the fact that the organization (which bills itself as &amp;#8220;committed to improving the state of the world through public-private cooperation&amp;#8221;) doesn&amp;#8217;t go above and beyond to engage more women is an issue. But it\u2019s not the crux of the problem.\nConsider this: In 2011, the World Economic Forum did make a concerted effort to recruit more women to its annual meeting. It created a gender quota system, requiring large corporations to bring one woman for every four men who attend Davos. The quota won&amp;#8217;t do much, though, if women aren\u2019t crowding companies&amp;#8217; corner offices. As Barri Rafferty, CEO of Ketchum North America, pointed out in an interview with Fortune\u2019s Caroline Fairchild, \u201CIf your company is going to send five people, they are going to look at their C-Suite people, which likely has fewer women.\u201D\nSo really, who&amp;#8217;s to blame for the lack of women at Davos: The World Economic Forum or the corporations themselves?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2015/01/21/this-is-why-there-arent-more-women-at-davos/>