“Our research shows that women directors are doing their jobs very well. But a tough board, with more monitoring, may not always be a good thing.”

Hm. Let's think about this. Perhaps if AIG had more women on the board, they would have been more closely "monitoring" all the exposure the company had in its insurance of mortgage-backed securities. So maybe AIG would not have made so much money in that line of business prior to the collapse of those assets, but perhaps they also would not have needed a huge government bail-out either. Just speculating here...

The study claims that women on boards tend to monitor more closely and perhaps that's because they are more risk-averse. I can't see that as always being a bad thing. Could be taken too far, but surely it's been lacking in recent times.