Women in the World of Accounting

Did you know that as of 1972 only 2,000 women had CPA's, where today there is over 108,000. Another fascinating fact is that since 1986 over 50 % of accounting graduates are women and currenlty 60 % of students enrolled in accounting programs are women.

That is along way to come, from only 2,000 women to over 100,000 in 36 years. It goes to show that women can do the same things that men can. It may seem like a long time but sometimes the length of time is not as important as the how or the why.

Here is a sad fact, women are not moving up the ladder as fast as their male colleagues. Why is that? One study is saying that it is due to the fact that women are uncertain about their career aspirations. Any thoughts on that?

I have one. Could it possible have anything to do with the way that companies see their women empolyees? How in the dark age is the company most women work for? I work for a large company that employees a large amount of women, but if you dig deep you will see that the majority of the high executive level jobs are held by men. The opportunities, if any, are very hard to even be considered for.

One article states that some of it is due to the fact that women are waiting for several years to have families and when they do, it is around the time that they are up for partnership. In the same article it stated that when a women comes in reach of their goal, discrimination comes to rear its ugly head. So, finally someone is admitting that discrimination does happen.

Companies do make it harder on women to have a career and families. I have worked for a company that gave you sick time but that was suppose to be used for yourself and if you had children and they were sick, you either had to use your personel time (which wasn't as much as sick) or find someone else to watch your child. I don't know how many times I have taken my children, sick, to a family member because I didn't have the personel time but I did have a lot of sick time. I spent a lot of time upset because I wasn't able to take care of my kids when they are sick, all because of my job.

If that is how women are treated, how are we suppose to choose between family and career?