Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Stanford Law Review
Publication Date
2022
Abstract
At the start of the twentieth century, women made up a small proportion of shareholders in American publicly traded companies. By 1956, women were the majority of individual shareholders. Although this change in shareholder gender demographics happened gradually, it was evident early in the century: Before the 1929 stock market crash, women shareholders had come to outnumber men at some of America’s largest and most influential corporations, including AT&T, General Electric, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. This Article synthesizes information from a range of historical sources to reveal an overlooked narrative of corporate history—the feminization of capital, or the transformation of American public-company shareholders from majority male to majority female. It charts the growing proportion of women shareholders over the first half of the twentieth century, describes the business community’s response to this trend, and explores the impact of the rise of intermediation on the gender politics of corporate control.
Corporate law scholarship has never before acknowledged that the early decades of the twentieth century, a transformational era in corporate law and theory, coincided with a change in the gender composition of the shareholder class. Scholars have not considered the possibility that shareholders’ gender—which was being tracked internally at companies, disclosed in annual reports, and publicly reported in the press—might have influenced business leaders’ views about corporate organization and governance. This Article considers the implications of this history for some of the most important ideas in corporate law theory, including the separation of ownership and control, shareholder “passivity,” stakeholderism, and board representation. It argues that early-twentieth century gender politics helped shape foundational ideas of corporate-governance theory, especially ideas concerning the role of shareholders. Outlining a research agenda where history intersects with corporate law’s most vital present-day problems, this Article lays out evidence showing that the feminization of capital shaped changing ideas about the role of shareholders in corporate governance. In so doing, it invites scholars to begin a conversation about gender, power, and the evolution of corporate law.
Recommended Citation
Sarah C. Haan, Corporate Governance and the Feminization of Capital, 74 Stan. L. Rev. 515 (2022).
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons, Business Organizations Law Commons, Law and Gender Commons