Women & Work
5 Things You Can Do Today for Equal Pay
This was in my Twitter feed today to remind me it’s Equal Pay Day: This is funny, + sadly, true. On average, ♀ r working 22% of the time 4 free. We need 2 fix this. https://t.co/c76v6hqeXC @GloriaFeldt — Sheryl L. Axelrod (@sher_lawyer) April 14, 2015 I don’t know about you, but I’m sooo tired…
Read MoreTake The Lead Presented and Connected in 2014—and Wants Your Suggestions for 2015
Understanding the Role Confidence Plays Would workplaces become more balanced and society more equitable if women exhibited more confidence? Katty Kay and Claire Shipman created a stir with their book The Confidence Code and their article, “The Confidence Gap” in The Atlantic. To continue this important conversation, we were honored to have Shipman speak to the…
Read MoreWhy Flex Time Is the #2 Most Important Employee Benefit
A big barrier to women’s leadership parity was overlooked in the recent brouhaha about Facebook and Apple covering employees’ insurance for egg freezing. These companies are not, as headlines screamed “paying women to freeze eggs.” And I see nothing wrong with covering fertility treatments that though still far from fully effective, can give women childbearing…
Read MoreWomen and the 3 C-Words (Not What You think)
Journalist Sheila Weller triggered the gossip machine with her new book The News Sorority: Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour—and the (ongoing, Imperfect, Complicated) Triumph of Women in TV News, when she reported on C-word #1: competition between the three female newsmedia icons. Couric’s flippant comment that Sawyer must have traded sexual favors to land…
Read MoreIt’s not the mountain that trips you, it’s the pebble.
My husband Alex and I just returned from a perfect vacation in the renowned Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. If you haven’t made this trip, put it on your bucket list. We swam with the giant sea turtles and iguanas, cavorted with playful sea lions, and snapped photos of the famous blue-footed boobies—it was pure heaven.…
Read MoreAre Leadership Messes Women’s Opportunity?
Female leadership firsts are trending. Especially when an organization is in big trouble, it seems. Often the choice of a woman appears to be an act of desperation. Fix us, clean up the mess and make it all work. Call mommy to doctor a skinned knee, soothe the troubled waters.
Jill Abramson and Gender Bilingual Communication
With hindsight, this 2013 article all but predicted Jill Abramson’s unceremonious fall. Though according to the New Yorker rendition, her demise was precipitated when Abramson, the New York Times’ first female executive editor, confronted her boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., after learning her pay was significantly less than her predecessor, I point the finger of firing fate much toward implicit cultural biases that influence behavior much more than any of us want to believe.
Thank You, Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman, 1928-2014
I remember the first time I read Maya Angelou’s book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It was the most searing yet beautiful prose I had ever encountered. And later, the phenomenon of her poem “Phenomenal Woman” invaded my consciousness and became a kind of anthem for women everywhere. Nothing will ever dim the words of this phenomenal woman. Thank you, Maya Angelou. May you rest in the peace of one whose words and deeds have made the world phenomenally better.
“Born Leader” Betsy Rafael Is GoDaddy’s First Female Board Member
When GM’s new, and first female, CEO Mary Barra moved quickly and publicly to recall cars with the company’s potentially lethal ignition switch problems her predecessors had known but failed to address for a decade, you could feel the fresh air. It would be foolhardy to say her gender made her act in this ethical manner, or to assume a man would not. Still, you can’t help but notice that Barra straight-up owned the problem in a way startlingly distant from the public relations posturing typical of Fortune 500’s protecting their fortunes.
Mary Barra, First Female GM CEO, Takes The Lead
Does it seem odd for Mary Barra, the newly appointed CEO of General Motors—the first woman to hold that top position in the male-dominated automobile industry–to be profiled as a “woman like you” by the nonprofit organization Take The Lead I cofounded in late 2012?