Where are the women?

Ever since I've been in the advertising industry there have been questions asked about where all the female creative directors are.

It's a fair question too.

Although having said that the CD who gave me my first opportunity was a woman.

As was the CD who interviewed me for my first job in London.

However the question still remains unanswered.

Today I saw stats from Facebook about their male to female employee ratio and it's not good.

Which is very surprising given the high profile of Sheryl Sandberg. Especially in the media.

Anyway almost 70% of Facebook employees are male.

Apparently the numbers for Google are pretty similar.

So why is this?

These are new companies. Started by young people.

Yet their hiring policies seem to be distinctly old school.