For nearly more than two millenniums, Male Psyche with its arid intellect, competitive individualism and aggressive ambitions to subjugate the world has ruled over human life with not very desirable results. Many of the problems we are facing today may be due to this lopsided dominance of the masculine values. But the evolutionary force in Nature is moving decisively to correct this imbalance through a rapid and widespread flowering of the woman-power and feminine values in every activity of life. This will be an irresistible mega-trend of the future. The external manifestation of this trend is the Feminist movement which is a soft but powerful social revolution. Unlike the male dominated social movements in France and Russia, the feminist movement achieved much without bloodletting and violence.

Interestingly, in our contemporary world, business seems to be more open to this evolutionary trend than other social organs. Though number of women in top management positions is still small, there is a great upsurge of woman-power in the middle and junior management level. And almost all the latest research indicate that woman perform much better than man in every aspect of management. This means the glass ceiling erected at the top by male prejudice cannot remain safe for long. If the flowering of the feminine force is an evolutionary imperative and performance is the main criterion for top leadership, then the glass tower of male domination at the top will be repeatedly shattered, for the good of the world.

However, shattering the glass ceiling is not the most important achievement of woman in business. They have achieved much greater things than climbing on to the top of the corporate ladder. As Anita Roddick, the founder of Body Shop sums up the contribution of woman to the work-place “we have introduced flexitime, we have humanized work-place, we have brought in a notion of humanity, a notion of love. We have made it legitimate to talk about love in the work place. And we have brought in the notion of creativity. Yet it is still not remarked because to man business is about finance.” In a deeper and inner perspective these are much greater achievements than sitting on corporate thrones and wielding the scepter of power.

This issue welcomes and celebrates the dawn of woman-power in the world and in business.

The future of the Planet depends on Women.

Kofi A. Annan,
Former Secretary General of United Nations.