New California law requires corporate boards include women

Gov. Jerry Brown.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

A new bill signed into law Sunday in California requires that all publicly traded corporations with headquarters in the state must have at least one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019.

California is the first state to enact such a law, which aims to close the gender gap in business, and a quarter of the companies meeting the law's criteria do not currently have women on their boards. "Given all the special privileges that corporations have enjoyed for so long, it's high time corporate boards include the people who constitute more than half the 'persons' in America," Gov. Jerry Brown (D) wrote.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.