The Trouble with Working Women

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womenladder.jpgBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Based on the BBC2 documentary “The Trouble with Working Women,” which ran last week in the UK, it appears that the trouble with working women is, well, men.

“Think manager, think male,” says Professor Ryan from Exeter University, as she stands in front of a board covers in statistics showing that women get a raw deal in the workplace. Only 19.3% of MPs are women. Women earn an average of 17% less than men. Thirty thousand women each year lose their jobs because they are pregnant.

Newsreader Sophie Raworth, who herself has three children under the age of five, visits a boxing club where the trainers tell her that a woman’s place is in the home. She smiles politely while looking like she wants to clock the guy. Later, a roving video both gives members of the public the chance to spill their private thoughts about women at work and I’m surprised at how easy it was for the BBC to find people willing to confess that men should be the breadwinners and women should stick to the kitchen.

Thirty years ago the feminist movement had it cracked – by now we were all supposed to be equal. Another statistic comes through the voiceover: at the rate we’re going it will take another 50 to 60 years to get near equal. The BBC is nothing if not fair, so the presenters visit a woman who runs her own small business and won’t recruit women of child-bearing age. “It’s not illegal,” she says. She doesn’t want to risk everything she’s put into the business by having to bail a woman out during maternity leave.

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Returning to the Practice of Law via New Directions

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iStock_000004428195XSmall_1_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Carol, an employment law attorney, stopped working for about 7 years after her third child was born, instead leading a life filled with childrearing and community involvement. When her youngest child started going to school, Carol decided to explore ways to use her law degree but realized that it might not be that easy to return to the practice of law. “[During my time at home], I really broke from the law…I did not feel like a lawyer.”

Virginia had a similar story. “I had worked at a big Wall Street firm and in-house at a large company. I had my first child and kept working. And then I just couldn’t keep it up anymore. I retired and stayed at home for 14 or 15 years. Then came a time when I felt I should get myself back to doing something. [I] had been great at raising funds for my children’s school [among other things]…but there is a certain confidence that you don’t always have. You may have lost touch with all those professional contacts you had before. I found myself feeling a little isolated and out of touch.”

Jeanette also started with a Wall Street practice but realized that that practice didn’t really “match” with [her] family so she became a stay-at-home mom. “I did always think I’d go back to the law eventually. I did a variety of pro bono matters while raising the kids. I even set up my own small practice doing small commercial matters but I wanted to be back in a more organized office setting.”

Jim had been working in labor relations since the 1970s, when he decided to go to law school. Upon graduation and the passing of the New York Bar, Jim continued to work in labor relations and human resources, using some of the legal skills he acquired in law school but never actually practicing law. When the management team at the company he worked for was changed, he decided to seize the opportunity and become a full-fledged practicing attorney 24 years after earning his law degree.

Carol, Virginia, Jeanette and Jim were among the panelists who spoke at a recent open house for the New Directions program offered by Pace University Law School. The program, on which we’ve reported before, assists admitted attorneys who’ve stepped away from the practice of law to develop the skills and connections they need to return to the profession.

The program begins with a “boot camp” at which the attorney participants learn (or re-learn) the necessary practical skills to enable them to jumpstart their legal careers, including how to navigate the computer based legal programs like Westlaw and Lexis, hone their legal writing skills and effective management their time and stress.

Said Virginia of the process, “One of the very first things we did in boot camp was create our elevator speech. We had to stand up and say ‘I am X and I am an attorney.’ It was very hard for a lot of us because we spent so many years saying, ‘I’m so-and-so’s mom.’”

The week-long “boot camp” is followed by 2 to 3 sessions per week for three months, at which participants are introduced to various practice areas and career paths. Attorneys are also given hands-on assistance with their résumés, cover letters, and interview skills.

Carol said, “It also taught me things that I never really needed to know before, like how to find a mentor, how to take all the things I’d been doing as a stay-at-home mom and figure out what the transferrable skills of those things were (and there were many) and put them on a résumé to make myself marketable. I also learned how to network – something I never had to do before because I went right from law school into a firm. So it taught me all these valuable things.”

Arguably the most valuable component, however, is the externship through which participant attorneys can gain recent work experience in the practice area of his/her choice. Amy Gerwitz, the director of the program, and her team work with each attorney participant to find a suitable externship, whether it is a government, law firm or in-house position the participant attorney desires. “When we first started this,” explained Amy, “we only contemplated one externship per person. As the program went on, however, there have actually been people doing externships concurrently. They’re trying different practice areas; some are doing complementary ones.”

“The externship is valuable for several reasons,” said Carol, “It is for an extended period of time (i.e., 10 weeks) during which you are developing knowledge, gaining a mentor perhaps and then you have current work experience and recent referrals. Without that externship piece, it is hard to move on.”

And while Amy and her team make no guarantees of employment upon the completion of the program, they will do what they can to help the participants get back to work in the legal world. “We view our mission as preparing [returning attorneys] to have the skills to get back into the legal workforce. Given uncertain economic times and the resultant effect on the legal profession, there is an understandable concern [about the lack of opportunities]. But while it is not our ‘mission’, we are happy that over half of the former participants in the New Directions program are now in permanent paid fulltime positions and many others are staying with their externships while they are looking for permanent positions.”

Virginia added, “Nobody gets to where they are on a straight shot. Maybe we’ve all taken a detour but there is a way to get back into the workplace and [Amy and the team at Pace] are there to help.”

Pace Law School will be offering its New Directions program in NYC this summer. Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis through June 15, 2009. Please visit the New Directions website for more details.

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Factors that Sustain Successful Women Leaders

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iStock_000006050792XSmall_1_.jpgBy Nicki Gilmour, CEO Evolved People Media (New York City)

Women seek meaning in work while men seek status and pay and that gives women an advantage over men in the workplace.

So declared Joanna Barsh, a director at McKinsey and co-author of the McKinsey report “Centered leadership: How talented women thrive” in a lively keynote speech at the Forté Foundation’s annual corporate best practices conference hosted by Ernst and Young in NY on Tuesday, April 30th.

According to the report, the McKinsey leadership project – “an initiative to help professional women at McKinsey and elsewhere – set out four years ago to learn what drives and sustains successful women leaders….It’s about having a well of physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual strength that drives personal achievement and, in turn, inspires others to follow,” says Joanna and her co-authors in the report. More than 85 women where interviewed worldwide. From those interviews a model was created with 5 broad and interrelated dimensions of leadership – Meaning (finding your strengths and putting them to work in the service of an inspiring purpose); Managing Energy (knowing where your energy comes from, where it goes, and what you can do to manage it); Positive Framing (adopting a more constructive way to view your world, expand your horizons, and gain the resilience to move ahead even when bad things happen); Connecting (who can help you grow, building stronger relationships, and increasing your sense of belonging) and Engaging (finding your voice, becoming self-reliant and confident by accepting opportunities and the inherent risks they bring, and collaborating with others).

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The “Mommy Penalty” in the Legal Profession

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mombaby.jpgby Anna T. Collins, Esquire (Portland, Maine)

Laura Allen* had been working at a law firm in the U.S. for three years. She had always gotten excellent reviews, regular bonuses and raises, and was respected by her peers. Then, her entire legal career was stopped short. “When I had my daughter,” Laura explains “my employer began treating me differently—reassigning the bigger cases to other attorneys, cutting my raises and bonuses short and scrutinizing my absences from work.”

A new study by Neil H. Buchanan at George Washington University Law School may offer insight to Laura, as well as other women experiencing what Buchanan calls the “mommy penalty”. Using survey responses from University of Michigan Law School graduates, Buchanan found that mothers earn less than non-mothers. In fact, the study showed that fathers tend to receive a “daddy bonus” in the form of higher salaries when they have a child.

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Embracing Femininity at Work: A Matter of Opinion

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heel.jpgby Anna T. Collins, Esq. (Portland, Maine)

On December 23, 2008, the Daily Mail reported that image consultants hired by the British law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer had allegedly advised women at the firm to wear high heels with skirts rather than trousers to “embrace their femininity.” Read more

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Thriving in the Downturn

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financialdecline.JPGby Sima Matthes (New York City)

Gender matters. It matters to all of us, no matter what we believe we think. It matters when we react to the associate at the bank, or the customer service representative on the phone. It matters when we mentally note that our child’s teacher is (atypically) male, or that our construction engineer is (atypically) female. It shouldn’t matter but it does.

This issue is at the core of a recent article on the news page of the UK-based Management Issues site discussed the “thickening” of the glass ceiling in response to the global economic downturn. The article highlights the findings of a 2008 study by the UK management consulting firm Hudson, which concluded that many women may be held back from the top of companies because of their tendency to be “altruistic, people-oriented, co-operative and open” even as it acknowledges that these traits are helpful in leading modern corporations. In troubled economic times, the report states, corporations tend to fall back on the “traditionally ‘male” traits of decisiveness, persuasiveness and leadership in order to survive” leaving women struggling to reach the highest levels yet again.

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Nine Balancing Acts – Part I

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wroklifebalancescale.JPGby Paige Churchman (New York City)

How many times have you and friends, equally frazzled, fantasized about a three-day (or shorter) workweek? Something’s wrong with this picture because maybe like me, you actually love to work. Maybe throwing yourself into a project invigorates you, makes you feel important, connected to the world and happy.

So what’s wrong? A flame needs tending. It needs fuel to keep it going and it needs to be kept in check so you don’t burn out. First on my list of fuels is the work itself. I have to believe in it. My other fuels all start with P -pride, prestige, power and, yes, the paycheck. What keeps the flame from burning me up are the things that ground me and keep me human: good fresh food, sleep, nature, movement, music, meditation, family, friends, new ideas to bend my mind and lots of creativity. But when I’m burning too high, I often don’t know it.

How wide is the gap between how you live and your ideal? Does your work feed or drain you? How do you give your career everything it needs and still know who you are? The Glass Hammer took these questions out into the corporate world to see how some top women find their balance or, if they haven’t found it, what they dream of. We talked to someone in a company known for its quality of life (Cisco Systems, number six on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For ), someone in an industry known for its long hours (law), and seven women in an industry that’s hurting (finance).

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Handling Sexual Harassment

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sexhara.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

A female vice president was attending a leadership retreat for her company’s top executives. During the retreat, coworkers carpooled to and from a team building dinner; the VP was the only woman in her carpool. On the way home from the restaurant, one of her coworkers made a sexually explicit suggestion about how she could please him.

A female director at a large mutual fund company was meeting with her male superior, a senior vice president. When the meeting ended, he hugged the director and grabbed her breasts.

A well-respected female employee at a non-profit was paired up on a project with a man from the organization’s board of trustees. The trustee continually made comments about the woman’s appearance and body and compared her favorably to his wife. He also hugged her frequently.

On its website, The Sexual Harassment Prevention Institute, a corporate training company in Texas, describes sexual harassment in the workplace as a “behavior that is bothersome, irritating, demeaning, and annoying.”

But the three women mentioned above would disagree. Listening to voicemail on speakerphone is annoying. Sexually harassing a coworker can be devastating. All three of the women said their performance suffered as a result of the harassment. They were distracted at work and uncomfortable participating in group meetings and projects. One of them received her first negative performance review just months after the experience. Yet none of the women reported the incidents.

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The Global Gender Gap Report

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globalgendargap.jpgBy Paige Churchman (New York City)

On November 12, the World Economic Forum released its 2008 Global Gender Gap Report. This ambitious 181-page study covers an astounding 92% of the world’s population. There’s been some real progress. Eighty-seven countries (more than two thirds of the 130 studied) have narrowed their gaps since 2007.

Norway ranks at the top of the list (i.e., the smallest gap), with the rest of the Scandinavian countries close at its heels. The US sits in twenty-seventh place, just behind Barbados. That’s twenty-seventh out of 130 countries. At the very bottom was Yemen, where women receive only 45% of the resources that Yemeni men do.

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The Glass Hammer Wins “Blog of the Year” Award!

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nickispeaking.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Outstanding businesswomen and women-run companies were honored at the 2008 Stevie Awards for Women in Business awards dinner, which took place at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square on November 14th.

The 2008 Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition recognizing the accomplishments of outstanding women executives, business owners, and the organizations they run. The awards are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards. From the more than 1,200 entries from organizations large and small across in a diversity of industries, awards were handed out to outstanding women in 50 categories including Best Company, Best Product, Best Mentor, Best Executive, and “Women Helping Women”.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are governed by a Board of Distinguished Judges and Advisors that features many leading women entrepreneurs and luminaries in business. Members of the Awards’ Board selected Stevie winners from among the finalists. Finalists were chosen by business professionals worldwide during the preliminary judging period.

We are proud to announce that The Glass Hammer took home the “Blog of the Year” title (and the very hefty statue that came with it). Nicki Gilmour, founder and CEO of TGH, who accepted the award on behalf of The Glass Hammer team, said later of the honor:

“We are very proud of theglasshammer.com as we truly believe that we can help women navigate the obstacles to get to the corner office and have a great work-life balance. We aim to inform, empower and inspire women and our readership grows every week so we are happy to be formally recognized as a ‘must read’ blog on the internet.

Winning the Stevie Women in Business Award for Blog of the Year is an achievement for all involved in theglasshammer.com. This is a reflection of teamwork and the sharing of experiences of all the women in the financial markets, law firms, and big business.

The Glass Hammer would like to take this opportunity to thank PricewaterhouseCoopers and Goldman Sachs for being founding sponsors as without progressive firms like these actually making changes in the workplace we would be writing about some mythical universe – an imagined utopia – instead of the reality of equality in the workplace which thankfully exists in some companies.”

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