We all know that a record number of women today are pursuing bachelors and advanced degrees. And we know that women are (slowly but surely) gaining traction in the startup world.

There’s some good news on International Women’s Day: a worldwide study shows that for the first time, women make up more than 10 percent of board director seats. Hooray!

There’s a whole lot of drama in Europe (well, in this country too) over the fact that not enough women are represented on corporate boards — and there’s discussion that the EU may begin mandating that females take up a certain percentage of board seats. Important a topic as it may be, a lot of the discourse revolves around much complaining without much action. But at last! European business schools have taken very deliberate action — in the simplest way possible. By naming the thousands of women that companies should put on their boards.

This just in: there aren’t many women on corporate boards! We’ve braced to hear depressing statistic after depressing statistic. And we’ve heard many convincing arguments as to why women should be represented on boards. But none of this explicitly answers the question: why aren’t more women on boards?

We could ramble on endlessly about the reasons it’s good to have some ladies on the board of your company. Researchers have yet another reason: companies with women on their boards are way, way more charitable.

It should be surprise to no one to hear that women are hugely underrepresented on corporate boards. A group of British lobbyists are trying to fix that — and not just with the hopes of providing some artificial semblance of equality. They say women can actually combat the “macho culture” that they’re blaming for the financial crisis.

That’s a pretty big statement. What should we make of it?