Introduction

In August 2006, Forbes magazine published its annual list of the world’s 100 most powerful women. The top three positions are taken up by politicians: the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the Chinese vice premier, Wu Yi. The following seven places are occupied by businesswomen in leading positions at transnational corporations, including: the chief executives of PepsiCo, Xerox, Archer Daniels Midland and Sara Lee; the chairwoman of Areva; the chief financial officer of Citigroup; and the co-president of Morgan Stanley. Thus, according to Forbes, the majority of the ten most powerful women are in business, with only a minority being politicians. The picture looks much the same as one scrolls further down the list of top 100 (MacDonald and Schoenberger 2006). This distribution is not the result of the gender bias in public and commercial life. Although the higher echelons of politics are notoriously wanting of female members, this is even more so the case for the commanding heights of private enterprise.