Posts Tagged ‘Gloria Feldt’
Friday Round Up: What Kind of Education = Girl and Woman Power?
Autumn has officially arrived, and with it back-to-school education talk has been a big topic this week. Today’s Friday Round Up explores the power of education in general, and its power to foster gender parity specifically…
5 Tips to Thrive in Chaos (or What Good Is Vision When You’re up to Your A** in Alligators?)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWHpTQc-nhM[/youtube]
I knew there’d be pushback the minute I dubbed vision the #1 leadership characteristic.
“Get real,” several readers e-mailed. It reminded me of the cartoon a colleague once gave me, bearing the caption: “When you’re up to your a** in alligators, it’s hard to remember your goal was to drain the swamp.”
In a time of economic chaos, when many people are desperately trying to keep those writhing reptiles from nipping off their knees, lofty vision talk sounds unrealistic.
It’s difficult to keep your eyes on the prize, your focus on the vision, your hand steady to the wheel when the assumptions you thought were well grounded turn out to be quicksand. But a counterintuitive skill that can help you thrive in times of change and disruption is to embrace chaos as opportunity…
Read MoreFriday Round Up: DADT Away Yay! Edition
About 40 years ago, someone close to me told me she was involved with another woman and asked me how I felt about that. “I don’t know,” I replied. That was my honest answer at the time. You see, this “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) business has been around for a long time. Nobody asked, nobody told, nobody really talked at all about sexual orientation with me as a heterosexual woman, and certainly not in the social justice and human rights context as I now understand them to be.
But change can happen. This week I joined many other Americans, gay and straight, to celebrate the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” an event that culminates decades of LGBTQ movement building and educating people like me about the fundamental fairness and justice of ending discrimination based on sexual orientation. It’s not the end of the battle, but certainly a great milestone. This Friday Round Up is a tribute to the end of an unjust and unworkable policy on gays in the military, with particular emphasis on its impact on women…
Read MoreShe's Doing It: Jane Roberts – 34 Million Friends Still Going Strong
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2wr6WONEBU[/youtube]
In today’s fast-paced world of social media, having a lot of friends has become a status symbol but what if you were looking for 34 Million Friends? In this week’s She’s Doing It, activist & author Jane Roberts, co-founder of the 34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is doing just that and their efforts are still going strong.
Roberts has dedicated her life to women’s access to education, health and human rights. Her work includes teaching about reproductive health and family planning, surviving childbirth, the prevention of STDs, avoiding HIV/AIDS as well as the prevention of gender-based violence. The fund, co-founded by Roberts and activist Lois Abraham, is a grassroots movement that has supported health initiatives since 2002…
Suskind Flap: Is the Obama administration sexist?
You might look at my headline and reply, “Is the Pope Catholic?” because you agree with my contention that institutional sexism is bound to exist in a structure so traditionally male-dominated. Read on and let me know what you think about Arena’s question of whether the new Suskind book’s revelations about the treatment of women in the White House will damage Obama.
Arena Asks: Tuesday’s release of a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind is causing heartache at the White House. “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President” describes a difficult work environment for women in the Obama administration’s early months, among other revelations. How much, if at all, will the book damage the Obama White House? And did staffers err in giving access to the author, who previously wrote books often critical of the George W. Bush administration?
My Answer:It should come as no surprise to anyone that institutional sexism exists in the White House, as it does in virtually all leadership structures traditionally run by men, progressive or conservative. Suskind’s findings were hardly new or unique to the Obama administration…
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Obama’s Leadership: Will “Buffett tax” fly?
I didn’t get around to answering Politico’s question “Will ‘Buffett tax’ fly?” In time for them to publish it. But after a day of hearing the President argue his case, I’m sharing my thoughts with you. Let me know what you think.
Arena Asks: President Barack Obama will release a plan today to cut the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade, drawing half the savings from new tax revenue and sparing Medicare recipients from having to wait longer to collect benefits. Invoking calls by investor Warren Buffett, Obama’s plan would also would prohibit millionaires from paying a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans. Will this populist-sounding proposal win broad backing? Or is it repackaged class warfare that won’t play well in an aspirational society?
My Answer: If Obama had launched this bold Buffet Rule initiative in January 2009, it would have been a slam dunk…
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Friday Round Up: Inspiring Women and Taking Leadership NOW
Greetings from Tucson, I couldn’t be more excited to be here today to keynote the 2011 Annual YWCA’s Women’s Leadership Conference on my favorite topic, No Excuses and doing a brief workshop on the 9 Ways Power tools with about 400 women.
I’m honored to be tag-teaming with the inspiring Shoshana Johnson, the first African American female prisoner of war (POW) of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Plus, we were Glamour Women of the Year honorees together in 2003! I can’t wait to hear what she has to say.
Thursday was a big day as I was getting ready for Tucson…
Read MoreHeartfeldt Leadership: What’s the #1 Leadership Attribute?
I know I said this column would explore what we can learn about leadership from the presidential candidates’ endless mud-wrestling on our television screens these days. That’s a fascinating analysis I’ll get to eventually—we’ll have plenty of time since the election is still fourteen months away!
But when I realized I’d be writing this column on September 14, the birthday of a significant mentor in my life, I chose instead to focus on the most important leadership lesson I learned from her…
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Manisha Thakor & “MONEYZEN”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxQvK9BxoCc[/youtube]
This isn’t the first time you’ve seen Manisha Thakor on my website. But when I happened to catch her recent Emmy-worthy appearance on the NBC Today Show, I knew it was clearly time to touch base with her again. She has new and wonderful things on the horizon…
Read MorePump Up the Passion: Why Dems Need a Bachmann!
Passion! What a relief to see President Obama express some in his jobs speech Thursday. And for the first time that I can remember, a presidential proposal specifically addressed women’s essential role in driving the economic engine.
But the political narrative shifts awfully quickly these days. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s presidential candidacy, a hot ticket just a couple of weeks ago, is suddenly melting. And Sarah Palin is in her bus, hurtling full-speed toward self-parody as an attention-seeking political used-to-be. While women’s importance in the political landscape can no longer be overlooked, some might say that the much-hyped “year of the conservative women” is over…
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