As an opportunity to highlight women's contributions, International Women's Day has always served to commemorate (纪念) the cutting edge of the global women's movement, from demanding better working conditions in US sweatshop factories of the early 1900s, to voting rights, pay equality and, more recently, promoting women's leadership in politics and business. Recent years have featured women's economic contributions, ranging from women producing nearly 90% of the food in Africa, to 7.8 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. with $1.2 trillion in total receipts. Yet qualified women are continually held back in their efforts to contribute at the highest levels of economic and financial leadership, while global policies and companies abandon the benefits. The disappointing numbers of women participating at the World Economic Forum in January was one highly visible and public demonstration of the challenge: While we are well into the 21st century, many participants and observers at Davos this year expressed astonishment, and even anger, at the extremely low representation of women. In this era, there are many outstanding examples of women's representation at the highest levels of political and corporate leadership, including Christine Lagarde, Sheryl Sandberg, and President Park Geun Hye. Yet even after the absence of women had been duly noted at the Forum last year, women's representation at Davos this year actually dropped, from 17% to 16%. Likewise, despite numerous studies that show the financial and governance benefits of mixed gender boards, global corporate boardrooms remain male-dominated, with women accounting for less than 15% of public company corporate board positions. For years, the explanation given for minimal board diversity has been a lack of qualified and experienced candidates. The solution offered was patience: Improvement was promised because of the rapidly growing number of women with middle and upper management experience. In fact, since the 1970s women's graduation rates from the most famous universities around the world have climbed to equal those of their male counterparts. Since then, many have gained equivalent skills and experience in the private and public sectors.

单选题 The International Women's Day acts as an occasion for _______.

单选题 What does the number of women participants at the World Economic Forum show?

单选题 The President Park Geun Hye is mentioned to show that_______.

单选题 What is the long-existing reason for minimal board diversity?

单选题 Why does the author think the current situation of minimal board diversity will be improved?