30 gentlemen and no woman
Munich men’s lunch causes ridicule
2/19/2022, 9:41 p.m
War and peace in Ukraine are being argued in Munich, while 30 men are not doing too well at a business lunch: A photo of this lunchtime banquet causes an uproar on Twitter. Above all, users comment on what is missing in the picture: women and masks.
A photo that is said to have been taken at a luncheon hosted by business leaders on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference caused a stir on the internet. You can see a large, laid, U-shaped table at which around 30 middle-aged men are having a business lunch – not a single woman among them.
The editor-in-chief of “The Pioneer”, Michael Bröcker, took the photo and shared it on Twitter in the morning. SPD politician Sawsan Chebli tweeted: “This picture is like it’s from another world. But it’s not another world. It’s reality in 2022. This is what the CEO lunch at #MSC2022 looks like. Here is power and here is lack Women. We still have a lot to do.”
According to the Munich Security Conference, the final proportion of women speakers in the main program of this year’s conference is 45 percent. In the group of top managers represented at the conference, the relationship is obviously different. “Perhaps the German economy is more the issue,” Bröcker wrote in his tweet.
Joe Kaeser promises improvement
Joe Kaeser, former CEO of Siemens, who can also be seen in the photo, tweeted: “Next year we will do better. I will raise this at the feedback meeting of the MSC Advisory Committee tomorrow.” Twitter users also criticized the fact that the men in the photo were sitting close together despite the corona pandemic. Kaeser made it clear: “There is 2G+ and a PCR test every morning BEFORE the sessions begin. Otherwise it would actually be irresponsible.”
However, the mono-sex Munich lunch group does not reflect the already quantifiable efforts of many DAX companies to make their boards more female. Last year, 42 percent of the newly appointed Dax board members were women, which means that the proportion of women rose from 15 to 19 percent, as the HR consultancy Russell Reynolds announced in early February. It was said that the proportion of women would rise to over 20 percent in April due to new appointments that were already known. Of course, the photo doesn’t say anything regarding whether women were even invited and maybe just didn’t feel like going to the meeting.
