Further to the question of "Where Are the Women at Davos 2009?" , well
according to the below "There was no shortage of women at the
gathering of the global elite in Davos this year. It's just that most
of them were either delegates' wives, there to enjoy the skiing at the
Swiss mountain resort while their menfolk got on with the serious
business of mending the world economy, or upmarket usherettes dressed
in smart, air-hostess-style blue uniforms, helping people find their seats"!

Outrageous, YES INDEED, but as author Ruth Sunderland, the London
Observer's business editor, concludes "We can't undo the crisis, but
we can change the terms of the analysis so we think and talk about it
in a more rounded way; so that we listen to the voices of women; and
so that we bring some humanity into economic discourse. The harsh
truth is that this clean-up is too important to be left to the men who
made the mess".

But perhaps these greed-besotted males prefer bail outs with tax
payer's dollars to solutions from the mere second sex?!? Lynette
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Formatted version of "This mess was made by men. Now let the women
have their say" at:
http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/2263/59/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/01/davos-global-recession-gende\
r
The Observer ~~ London ~~ Sunday February 1 2009, page 29
This mess was made by men. Now let the women have their say
It's ludicrous that men dominated the debate in Davos. The single
biggest force for economic growth is being ignored
By Ruth Sunderland

There was no shortage of women at the gathering of the global elite in
Davos this year. It's just that most of them were either delegates'
wives, there to enjoy the skiing at the Swiss mountain resort while
their menfolk got on with the serious business of mending the world
economy, or upmarket usherettes dressed in smart, air-hostess-style
blue uniforms, helping people find their seats.

The heavy-hitting women present? There was a handful, including Angela
Merkel, the German leader, and Valerie Jarrett, who came as Barack
Obama's representative. Skim the handbook containing the names of the
invitees and you had to pass 20 men before coming to the first woman,
who just happened to be Princess Inaara, Her Highness the Begum Aga
Khan. On the abridged list of about 170 business leaders, I counted
five women. As a delegate put it: "Men in well-cut suits still come
first at Davos."

Does it matter that women are not getting on to the guest list of the
biggest male ego-thon on the planet? After all, most females of sound
mind would far rather be anywhere else. But the truth is that it does.
It sure does.

The big theme at this year's World Economic Forum (WEF) was "Shaping
the Post-Crisis World". The idea that that can be achieved while
excluding half the population is breathtaking in its arrogance and
shows that the male Davos elite remains mired in its own preening
self-regard and complacency. They have wrecked the world economy, but
seem oblivious to the idea they may not be the best people to rebuild
it. Ignoring the contribution women can make is ridiculous at any
time, but how much more so when there is a clear need to reflect on
the macho, tooth- and-claw brand of capitalism that caused the crunch
in the first place.

It's not just Davos, of course. Scant attention is being paid to the
devastating effects the banking crisis will have on women and children
or to the ways in which a female contribution to economic policy may
help the recovery. Can women help but feel alienated? As the disaster
has developed our televisions and radios have broadcast a steady
stream of masculine voices, to the extent that it is remarkable to see
or hear a woman. Rogues' galleries of senior bankers are universally
male, although it has been a woman - the British Bankers'
Association's Angela Knight - sent out to defend them.

To be fair, the organisers of Davos have at least acknowledged that
more attention needs to be paid to the female dimension. Klaus Schwab,
the founder of the WEF, has said it is vital to get more women into
senior leadership positions in companies and governments, both to find
solutions to the crunch and to prevent future disasters. Ernst &
Young, the accountancy firm, published a paper putting the case for
advancing women in order to promote economic growth, while World Bank
Group managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala drew attention to the
plight of women in developing countries, who are likely to suffer
disproportionately in the downturn.

But so far it is talk and receives far less attention than the boy's
own behaviour. Okonjo-Iweala was overshadowed by the Turkish prime
minister, who barged out of a panel discussion during a debate about
the Israeli assault on Gaza.

Of course, Davos merely reflects the outside world: the dearth of
high-powered women at the talk-fest is not down to deliberate sexism,
but the fact there are so few of them. Yet it is absurd that the WEF,
which for several years has been issuing reports on the Global Gender
Gap, should allow such a chasm to continue at its own annual jamboree.
Women such as Oxfam director Barbara Stocking, who has been lobbying
the WEF for several years to bring in more women, believes its
definition of leadership is too narrow and should be broadened to
include, say, female community leaders from Africa.

She is right. A rethink of who qualifies as a member of the Davos
elite is long overdue. If it doesn't happen, it will become
increasingly irrelevant as its biased delegate list will reflect such
a narrow set of views that cannot hope to tackle the very real
problems facing the planet. There is also a need for more women in
global financial institutions. The Bank for International Settlements
has no female directors; the IMF has one woman executive and the World
Bank has two out of 10 executive directors. It's disgraceful.

It is essential that women play a full role in rebuilding the world's
shattered financial systems. That is not an argument I am putting
forward solely on notions of fairness and equality, but on pragmatic
grounds; it will be much harder to mend the damage if we fail to
harness women's economic potential.

Women are the single biggest - and least acknowledged - force for
economic growth on the planet. This is not a claim made by rampant
feminists, but by the Economist, which suggests that over the past few
decades women have contributed more to the expansion of the world
economy than either new technology or the emerging markets of China
and India. But surprise, surprise: technology and emerging markets
have gleaned acres of coverage in the business press; the potential of
women, seen as a "soft" issue, has not.

Gordon Brown wants to put the UK back on the path to growth. One way
he might do that is to pay more attention to women. There is a proven
correlation between equality of the sexes and economic achievement, in
both developed and developing economies. So it is an uncomfortable
situation for Britain when women in some areas are losing their jobs
at twice the rate of men, sometimes as a result of discrimination by
employers. The PM needs not only to defend Labour's record on equal
rights, but also to protect the economy, which cannot afford to lose
talented women.

If the plight of women here is worrying, then spare a thought for
those in the developing world. As Okonjo-Iweala points out, families
are more likely to pull their daughters out of school than their sons
when they need to boost the household income; that can have a knock-on
effect down the generations when these under-educated girls become
mothers themselves. Adult women in the developing world also risk
suffering disproportionately, because they account for up to four out
of five workers in export manufacturing, so when their richer sisters
in the West stop shopping for cheap clothes, they lose their jobs.

Investing in women in emerging markets pays dividends for the wider
community; they reinvest 90% of their incomes in their families and
communities, compared with men, who reinvest only 30 to 40%. The
flipside of that is that if you deprive a woman of an income, you are
not only hurting her, but her children and husband as well.

There is a school of thought that the crisis was the product of
overwrought masculinity on trading floors and in bank boardrooms. The
mostly male commentary is in a similar vein, couched in language that
is dehumanising, aggressive and militaristic.

We can't undo the crisis, but we can change the terms of the analysis
so we think and talk about it in a more rounded way; so that we listen
to the voices of women; and so that we bring some humanity into
economic discourse. The harsh truth is that this clean-up is too
important to be left to the men who made the mess.

• Ruth Sunderland is the Observer's business editor