Forbes just came out with their list of the highest paid women CEOs in the United States.

While these women saw their paychecks jump 13 percent last year, it made me sick to read there are still only 13 women among the 500 CEOs at this nation’s biggest companies.

13! That’s less than twenty.

13 women.

487 men.

That’s 2.6 percent.

This is pathetic!

Something is terribly wrong if women, after all these years, have barely been able to break the highest glass ceiling of them all.

Maybe we need to take a page from Norway. The government there told corporate bigwigs they had to include women on their boards or face being shut down.

I wrote about this last year:

The 500 companies listed on Norway’s stock exchange face being shut down unless they install women on their boards over the next two years in a radical initiative imposed by a government determined to help women break through the “glass ceiling”.

Norwegian companies face a two-year deadline to ensure that women hold 40% of the seats of each company listed on the Oslo bourse. New companies have to comply now with the rules and the government is considering extending the law to family-owned companies as well.

The requirement came into effect at the start of this year after companies were given two years to embrace the demands voluntarily following the passing of the law in 2003. State-owned companies are already obliged to comply and now have 45% female representation on their boards.

This makes sense. Corporations throughout the world have been run by men for years, and the Good Old Boys network that has developed will not be broken up without a fight. Yes, they’ll let a few token women — 13 in the U.S. it turns out — in to their little group, but why would they hand over power if they’re not forced to?

Look, it’s great to hear that Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, made $12.7 million last year, but most of the corporate riches for top dogs poured into the pockets of men.

While these bloated CEO paychecks also make me sick at a time when the average working stiff is struggling to make ends meet, I can’t help but think we may all benefit if there a few more of the so-called nurturing gender sitting on gold and running the corporate show in the corner office.