The lack of women serving as directors on the boards of U.S. corporations has been a topic of concern for many years. Although progress has been made, women still occupy less than 25% of the board seats of S&P 500 companies. One reason given for the slow pace of change is that women serving on boards do not exercise real influence over corporate policy because they are not a part of the truly important committees of the board of directors. This study examines the extent to which women serve on, and chair, the audit, compensation, nominating, and executive committees of the board – the so-called “power” committees. Analysis reveals that, particularly among smaller firms, women directors do not have influence because they do not exist. Almost half of the smaller firms in the sample had no independent women directors on their boards. Where women directors do exist, there is a greater than even chance that they do serve on one of the influential committees, although the chance of them being chair is generally less than 30%. A comparison with boards of 10 years ago reveal a slight increase in the influence of women directors. However, these results should be interpreted with care. For example, the finding that over 70% of firms with at least one woman director on their board named that woman to their nominating committee may give the impression of significant strides toward influence and power. That impression is lessened when the 100% of nominating committees with more than one male member is considered. When the still significant percentage of firms with entirely male boards is factored in, in far too many cases even a seat at the table would be a considerable improvement for women.