Monday, April 9, 2012

Gender Debate Simmers With Virginia M. Rometty at Masters

Bubba Watson won his first green jacket in a thrilling overtime finish at the Masters tournament, but the question of whether the all-male Augusta National Golf Club would invite IBM's new CEO, Virginia M. Rometty, to become its first female member remained unsettled.

International Business Machines Corp. is one of three corporate sponsors of the Masters. Augusta National, which hosts the event in Augusta, Ga., has offered membership to the past four IBM CEOs. But because of the club's all-male policy, it is unclear whether an invitation has been extended to Ms. Rometty, who took over the CEO job at the beginning of the year. IBM and the club declined to say whether she had been invited to join.

That conflict set the stage for a drama over the past week in which an historic golf tournament and an iconic company became entangled in a heated debate about the status of women.

Read more in the WSJ. (Thanks, Lucy)

Why Women Aren’t C.E.O.s, According to Women Who Almost Were

"It’s not a pipeline problem. It’s about loneliness, competition and deeply rooted barriers." Read more in the NYT .