[chlodwig]

'A women-in-business non-profit found that Fortune 500 companies with most women board members consistently outperformed those with fewest...Market forces should therefore cause the numbers of women board members to increase accordingly, however, "change has occurred at a sluggish pace"'

Correlation!=causation.

From my observation, the correlation most likely runs the opposite direction. Board members of any type have quite limited impact on the management of a company. They fire the CEO if the numbers are bad, but otherwise, they are pretty much just along for the ride. They certainly are not involved in the kind of product decisions where having a female opinion could plausibly make a difference (and any company that has made it to the Fortune 500 status certainly knows how to solicit the opinion of women and customize their products accordingly).

However, I have personally seen "hot" companies, who are getting a lot of media attention, deliberately add female board members in order to avoid the negative press of having an all male board. One CEO of such a company described how the prospective board member put them through the ringer - she had a lot of demand to on boards, so she could be quite choosy about which company she joined.