Inspiration
He's Doing It: Is Fatherhood Bonus a Motherhood Penalty?
Last week, @UN_Women queried twitter followers, “What is your wish for women around the world in 2012?” I replied, “My wish for women around the world is economic and reproductive justice. Just a small thing…”
One oft-cited variable distinguishing women’s and men’s economic advancement is parenthood. But how accurate are our assumptions? Via twitter also, Curt Rice (@curtrice), Vice President for Research and Development at the University of Tromso in Norway, offered me the opportunity to cross-post his recent pieces on gender parity in academia. The previous week, he had posted on why the so-called motherhood penalty for women. That one won’t surprise you. But the post below tells the other side of the story: fatherhood benefits men’s careers substantially.
Read on and let’s talk about why (and also share your wish for women in 2012):
The fatherhood bonus: Have a child and advance your career
The careers of different men progress at different rates. That’s just as we would expect. Higher performers are rewarded; lower performers slow down. Our accomplishments guide our careers. Good workplaces are meritocracies — do your job well, and you’ll get ahead. That’s what we believe.
Or, at least that’s what we want to believe. But after a few years on the job, we start to wonder. Other factors seem to play a role…
Read MoreWhat Leadership Lesson Are You Most Thankful For? Bonus Gift Edition
Wow! Thanks, for sharing so many fabulous, and fabulously helpful, leadership lessons that you are thankful for! With the season of giving in full swing, here are more great gifts of wisdom shared by women leaders.
Want to give a gift to others? Post your leadership lesson in the comments section below.
And while you’re at it, post YOUR most burning leadership question for the New Year too…
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Candidate Elizabeth Warren Gears Up for Rove Attacks
Her voice raspy from the rigors of perpetual fundraising events that characterize running for U.S. Senate in America today, Harvard law professor and controversial—in a good way—creator of the Consumer Protection Agency Elizabeth Warren addressed an Emily’s List coffee gathering in New York City December 14.
She’s seeking to take the seat back for the Democrats from Republican Scott Brown, who ran as a moderate but has held the party line on most votes since he’s been representing Massachusetts. Symbolically, this would be a big deal, since the woman some have called “a red hot poker in the Republicans’ eyes” would be reclaiming the office held by the late great liberal lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, before he died of a brain cancer in 2009…
Read MoreShe's Doing It: Women's Media Center Honorees in the Spotlight
Honoree and CBS News Chief Foreign Corespondent Lara Logan talks courageously about being assaulted in Tehrir Square with WMC’s founding president Carol Jenkins.
Read More“Employ very medium” is No Excuses Power Tool #8, and the honorees of the Women’s Media Center first ever Media Awards gala fundraising event November 30 lead the way. I’ll post the video that event chair and filmmaker extraordinaire Donna Deitch created for the event when it’s available, so please check back for it. Meanwhile, here is Marianne Schnall’s first hand report about the evening, originally posted here on the WMC blog.
I’m proud to serve on the board of an organization that is tackling one of the most important issues of the day with the big vision of making women visible and powerful in the media.
Check out the WMC’s Facebook album if you’d like to see more pictures from the Media Awards, including Arianna Huffington, Sheryl Sandberg, Business Media Award Recipient Maggie Wilderotter, Carol Jenkins Young Journalist Award Recipient Yanique Richards, and many others!
They're Doing It: Jaclyn Friedman Knows What You Really Really Want (Jenn Pozner Interview and Excerpts)
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I am thrilled to share with 9 Ways readers this post generously contributed by Jenn Pozner and posted originally on her WIMN Blog. In it, she interviews Jaclyn Friedman, author of an important new book, What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety. The title gives you a great intro, so I won’t embellish except to say that Jenn did a great interview, embellished with her own media critique expertise, and you should read her book Reality Bites Back too!
What power tool is being used here? Oh so many–Define your own terms (about sex) for one and Create a Movement (these two are a powerhouse media justice movement), for sure. See what you think–and read all the way to the latter half of the post for an excerpt from Jaclyn’s book that will make you want to buy it right away.
What Leadership Lesson Are You Most Thankful For?
This is an advice column where I’m supposed to answer your questions. But this Thanksgiving, I’m shaking things up in my life, so I turned the tables and asked some fabulous women leaders this question:
What leadership lesson are you most thankful for?
The outpouring of responses made me exceedingly grateful. Not a turkey among them.
Here with a Thanksgiving feast of delicious wisdom you can savor calorie-free—and use all year.
Saying grace (and listening to it)
Anita Sands last year at age 34 became COO of UBS Wealth Management Americas, and is one of the smartest and best grounded leaders I know. She credits her father with her most important leadership lesson: “common sense is not the common.” Not surprisingly, she then resonated with this advice:
My first boss when I was a young academic really trained me in how to “think”. The first thing he told me was that people who can find the answers are a dime a dozen but people who know what are the right questions to ask are really valuable. So I’ve always tried to employ that skill as a leader – am I asking the right questions, what question is not being asked in the room.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=372kTyy3ELs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Read MoreThanksgiving Shake Up?
For the first year in over a decade, my husband Alex and I won’t be with our large blended and extended family in Arizona. We’ll miss them, sure. And we’ll miss family traditions, like debating whether Alex’s white bread stuffing or my cornbread dressing is better. Then there’s my daughter’s insistence that we serve the green jello mold my mother used to make, the one that packs more calories and cholesterol into anything else you’ve ever called “salad.”
This just seemed like a good year to shake things up. Perhaps it’s the influence of unpredicted social changes like Tahrir Square and Occupy Wall Street that are shaking up the political world. (Read my recent post on what OWS has accomplished.) Or maybe it’s simply that we felt we were getting into a rut…
Read MoreFriday Round Up: On 40th Anniversary of Women’s Rights Decision, Reed v Reed, Justice Ginsburg Defines Her Legacy
Forty years ago, for the first time in the Fourteenth Amendment’s 103-year history, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that its Equal Protection Clause protected women’s rights in the case of Reed v. Reed.
In honor of this anniversary and to assess where constitutional protections for women stand today, the National Women’s Law Center co-hosted a panel, entitled “Reed v. Reed at 40: Equal Protection and Women’s Rights.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was the principal author of the brief (while working for the ACLU) on behalf of the plaintiff in Reed v. Reed led off, followed by this panel moderated by NPR’s legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg…
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Ellen Snortland – Renaissance Woman Writes, Performs, Bakes, Growls
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxaLyMV8Vko[/youtube]
At eight years old, Ellen Snortland heard her father describe Winston Churchill as a “Renaissance man” and decided then and there that she would become a “Renaissance woman.”
Ellen more than fulfilled her vision for herself- she’s an author, journalist, women’s safety and human rights activist, actor, producer, and writing/media coach, and (full disclosure) an all round generous and wonderful friend. Oh, and she’s also an accomplished Norwegian Kransekake baker !
Ellen personifies many of the No Excuses Power Tools, but her voluminous talents all seem to emanate from her extraordinary ability to use Power Tool #9: Tell Your story. And telling the world her story has been a focus for Ellen in recent years…
Read MoreShe's Doing It: Tiffany Dufu Leads the White House Project Forward
This week’s “She’s Doing It” features a first person account of how a woman I very much admire came into leadership and stepped into her power as naturally as rivers flow from their source, despite some negative messages she received as a girl. Tiffany Dufu is a role model and example of how younger women are moving the leadership needle forward for themselves and others. Read on. And if you’re one of the over 13,000 who has had an experience with The White House Project thus far, won’t you share it here?
It all started when I got the Girl of the Year Award.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest as the daughter of a homemaker and minister, I remember adults around me insisting: “little girls can’t lead.” Yet taking the award into my hands that day, I realized how eager I was to make a profound impact. I had a deep desire to not only affect change, but also be public about it so that other girls would see that they could be leaders, too…
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