Game on, gentlemen. There is a battle for power at all levels within corporations throughout the world. This battle is between you, “the suits,” and women, “the skirts.” Unlike the Sharks and Jets, who battled for neighborhood territory in West Side Story, the Suits and the Skirts are battling for power in the workplace. For a chance to move up the corporate ladder. For a chance at the boardroom table. For the same opportunities and positions of power that you already have—and are determined to keep for yourselves. Women make up nearly half of the workforce yet hold a small fraction of the positions of power and leadership. We’ve spent decades fighting for equality in the workplace, and the needle hasn’t moved in any significant way. We tried playing nice and that didn’t work; now, we’re not going to be playing so nice anymore. We are demanding what we are due and parity is long overdue.

I’m about to establish unequivocally that there is a corporate problem of inequality, even if you don’t think so. I’m going to show you how you consciously or unconsciously hold women back. And, more importantly, how to change this corporate culture. I will tell you many times throughout this book that having women in the C-suites and at boardroom tables increases profits. That is a fact.

Although company leaders, mostly suits, are generally reluctant to stick their necks out in support of or in opposition to anything controversial, the tide is turning. Research that I will discuss in greater detail later establishes that your customer base wants to see that you are keeping pace with the way they experience the world, not the way you might wish it were. They want to know that, on issues of gender, race, pay equity, and sustainability, you are on their side, that you can proactively co-exist in a changed world.