Crashing the Boards : A Comparative Analysis of the Boxing Out of Women on Boards in the United States and Canada

Women are still severely under-represented on public corporations' boards of directors in both the US and Canada, despite both jurisdictions implementing diversity disclosure regimes years ago. This paper first discusses and compares the history of corporate governance in the US and Canada leading up to the implementation of each jurisdiction's diversity policy. Secondly, the debate surrounding the under-representation of women on boards and solutions to this issue are presented. The solutions to under-representation, normally expressed in business case and normative case rationales, and their respective pitfalls are examined. This paper advances the argument that securities regulators in both the US and Canada, while purporting to have implemented the diversity policies to better business and protect investors, were really advancing social justice goals. But because neither policy has had an impact on board gender diversity, neither policy is effective in advancing either business goals or normative goals. Finally, this work will be among the first to analyze California's recent Senate Bill mandating gender quotas and what this may mean for the US and Canada going forward