How many woman CEOs do you know?

The recent best seller on Amazon in the Business Management and Leadership section addressed this issue and it is "Lean in," by the successful COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. It discusses how women are are underrepresented in the top positions of their careers and Sandberg encourages woman to do their best top break through the barriers that they put up or may just be naturally there in society holding them back from reaching their full potential.

Her book has been very successful, however, it has received a lot of criticism because of the fact that she comes from a positions of power and money and may not be representing all woman in America and also because she "puts the burden on women to change," instead of, "challenging the institutional and cultural factors that present extra challenges for women."
One example the cultural factors that cause extra challenges for women is the fact that there is not a reliable form of day care set up for women in the work place. This can hold them back because you cannot be as productive as you would like to be if you are constantly worrying if your child is receiving the proper amount of care. This also sheds some light on how much our American culture values child care, because some other countries around the world, for example some in Europe, have a much more reliable system of day care in place for working mothers.

 Just like how Sandberg talks about how women are underrepresented in management of their professions, right now on the 2013 Fortune 1000 list of companies only 4.5% of the CEO positions are held by woman. For American women like me striving to have a future in the business world this number could use some major improvement.

I think that she is right about putting some burden on women to change because there are some social barriers that we woman put up ourselves like not going into fields that men usually dominate or not striving for the highest position in our field because of the fact that men have normally held them in the past. However, the burden cannot fall only on women to make a change, it also has to fall on those "institutional and cultural factors" that the article above mentions.
These extra challenges that women face are the fine print in women's rights that need to be scrutinized under a magnifying glass and corrected if women are going to have complete equal opportunity as men in American society.

What is one extra challenge you can think of that women face in American society today?

Feel free to leave your thoughts :)