By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
According to a recent article in The Glass Hammer, and numerous recent studies, women make, on average, about 76 – 80 cents on the dollar compared to men. But what does this mean over the course of a lifetime?
Luckily, Women are Getting Even (WAGE), a nonprofit organization based in the United States and led by Evelyn F. Murphy, author of Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men and What To Do About It and Annie Houle, National Director of Campus and Community Initiatives, has done the math for us. According to WAGE, over the course of a lifetime, a female high school graduate will lose about $700,000. A female college graduate will lose $1.2 million. And a female professional school graduate will lose $2 million dollars, because of underlying assumptions and outright discrimination based on gender.
These dollar amounts certainly help us conceptualize the cost of gender discrimination in the workplace. But wouldn’t more concrete examples better illustrate the cost of today’s wage gap? Or better yet, what could you purchase with those lost dollars?
Yes, of course. The best things in life are free: a loving family, a fulfilling life, having the last laugh, etc. But let us indulge our materialistic sides, though, for just a bit.
Ada Lovelace Day: Our Top Five Women in Technology and Science
Industry Leaders, LeadershipAda Lovelace
By Elisabeth Grant (Washington, D.C.)
Why so few? Why so few women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics? This is the question the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) sought to answer in a joint report they recently conducted and released. The report addressed a myriad of factors that contribute to the low numbers of women in technology and science, from “beliefs about intelligence” to “workplace bias” (see the New York Times’ excellent analysis of the report in the article, “Bias Called Persistent Hurdle for Women in Sciences“).
In the Forward of the report, the AAUW explains that the study “focuses on practical ways that families, schools, and communities can create an environment of encouragement that can disrupt negative stereotypes about women’s capacity in these demanding fields.”
In an effort to support this, we present five extraordinary women in technology and science to encourage and promote the inclusion of women in these fields. There are, of course, so many more women that could be have been mentioned in this post, and please feel free to add their names to the comment section below.
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New FWA Report: Optimistic Outlook Despite Discouraging Numbers
News“I think that the numbers pretty much speak for themselves,” said Ziporah Janowski, co-chair of the Financial Women’s Association of New York’s Corporate Governance Committee. “They’re discouraging.”
The 2009 FWA100 Study:The Time Has Come, released last week, analyzes the presence of women at the highest levels of major corporations in New York. According to this year’s report:
“On an aggregate basis, the percentage of board seats held by women in the overall population remained virtually unchanged at 17.8% (17.6% in the 2008 study). Women gained a net total of one board seat. The number of companies in the sample with no women on their boards actually increased from 9 to 11 this year, a 22% increase.”
But rather than dwell on the negative aspects of the report, Janowski said, “we want to focus on positive signs of change.”
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Women at the Top of Tech: Two New Reports Released by the Anita Borg Institute
Breaking the Glass Ceiling, FeaturedTwo new reports published yesterday detail the challenges faced by women at the top of the tech industry, as well as practical steps to keep them there. The Anita Borg Institute, a non-profit organization working within the technology industry and academia to make the tech field more welcoming to women, has released Senior Technical Women: A Profile of Success and the 2009 Technical Executive Forum report on the Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of Technical Women: Barriers to Cultural Change in Corporations.
Senior Technical Women details the challenges faced by women who have climbed to the top of their companies – and discusses how they managed to succeed despite these challenges. According to the report, “women hold 24% of technology jobs, yet represent half the total workforce. This underrepresentation persists even though the demand for technical talent remains high…” The report, based on a 2008 “survey of 1,795 technical men and women at seven high-technology companies in Silicon Valley,” focuses on the responses given by senior technical women – 4% of the individuals who participated in the study.
“This report asks ‘what about the women who beat the odds and made it to the senior levels?’” explained Dr. Caroline Simard, Vice President of Research and Executive Programs. Dr. Simard went on to explain that the report should be useful to companies looking to retain senior technical women as well as for young and mid-career women looking for advice as they work to advance into leadership roles.
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Voice of Experience: Heike Eckert, Executive Director, Eurex
Voices of ExperienceImage via MarketsWiki
In the mid 1990s, Heike Eckert launched DTB’s US office in Chicago (DTB is a predecessor of Eurex) and after successfully establishing Eurex’s electronic trading business in the US moved back to Frankfurt in 2000 to head up global marketing and sales for Eurex. She moved back to Chicago in 2006 to further expand Eurex’s North American offices in Chicago and New York, and in late 2009, headed back to Frankfurt where she currently resides.
Throughout her career, Eckert has worked with people from many different cultures and expressed the need to differ her management style in the U.S. and Germany.
“We always think that Western culture is the same wherever you go but it is very different. The U.S. has a hierarchical structure and is very goal orientated,” she said. “In Germany, everything is much more of a discussion. We are a society of debate historically.”
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Where’s My Yacht? Conceptualizing the Wage Gap
Money TalksAccording to a recent article in The Glass Hammer, and numerous recent studies, women make, on average, about 76 – 80 cents on the dollar compared to men. But what does this mean over the course of a lifetime?
Luckily, Women are Getting Even (WAGE), a nonprofit organization based in the United States and led by Evelyn F. Murphy, author of Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men and What To Do About It and Annie Houle, National Director of Campus and Community Initiatives, has done the math for us. According to WAGE, over the course of a lifetime, a female high school graduate will lose about $700,000. A female college graduate will lose $1.2 million. And a female professional school graduate will lose $2 million dollars, because of underlying assumptions and outright discrimination based on gender.
These dollar amounts certainly help us conceptualize the cost of gender discrimination in the workplace. But wouldn’t more concrete examples better illustrate the cost of today’s wage gap? Or better yet, what could you purchase with those lost dollars?
Yes, of course. The best things in life are free: a loving family, a fulfilling life, having the last laugh, etc. But let us indulge our materialistic sides, though, for just a bit.
Read more
It’s Not Too Late to Set Career Goals for 2010!
Office PoliticsNew Year’s Eve has come and gone, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to set career goals for 2010. Even if you have found yourself higher up the corporate ladder than you ever thought possible, it’s important to reflect on what success means to you. Does it simply mean attaining a specific title or earning a large paycheck? Setting career goals for yourself, no matter how much you’ve achieved or how idealistic they seem, is a good way to stay on top of your game and motivate yourself to not only do more, but do better.
Women need to take a more aggressive stance with their careers and the goals outlined below will help them do just that. It should be pointed out that though it’s great to have major career goals like become partner or CEO of a company, these five goals can actually be accomplished over the course of the remaining year so that by New Year’s Eve 2011, you’re on your way to bigger and better things. Here then, are five career goals that women at any level in corporate America should consider taking on over the remainder of the year:
It’s a given that most of your colleagues in corporate America have impressive accomplishments and a wide range of skills, but what gets certain people – men in particular – the promotion you’ve been hoping for? It’s a proven fact that networking leads to jobs and with so many qualified candidates in the job pool, sometimes it really does come down to who you know. Networking can mean schmoozing at a company event, attending an industry dinner, or maybe even hitting the golf course, but it’s got to be done. Read more
Enduring Myths and Broken Promises
NewsOn day 4 of this year’s World Economic Forum‘s Davos Conference, members of a panel heading a discussion entitled The Gender Agenda asserted that gender parity is “not just a worthy goal — but also an excellent business proposition.” The panelists, three male chief executives and three professional women, said all the right things. They said what we would expect them to say. And they probably said what we all have been thinking.
Last month, the New York Times published an article on The Gender Agenda; readers posted comments that were manifestly concordant with contemporary thinking about gender-based dynamics in the workforce. To summarize: If you work hard enough—and deliver—you’ll move up the corporate ladder. But expect the “mommy track” to impact your career trajectory. Gender issues don’t really warrant all the attention they garner; if women come into the workforce prepared, companies will hire and promote them.
There’s not much here that would take the Davos debate to a new level, or even rekindle argument. Or is there? In fact, if a report by Catalyst, Pipeline’s Broken Promise, had been released in time for the Davos panelists to prepare for their debate, the discussion may well have taken a different tack.
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Ask-A-Career-Coach: When Networking Doesn’t Lead To The Hidden Job Market
Ask A Career CoachI often hear from people who think that networking means spending lots of time discussing their job search with family and friends. Then when they have exhausted their contacts’ patience and still don’t have a job, they wonder why they haven’t been able to crack this hidden job market everybody alludes to.
The hidden job market does exist and is significant since 80% or more of jobs are filled outside of job postings and recruiters. But the hidden job market is not about employers hiring friends and family. Your BFFs won’t get you a job. The reality is that the winning leads are more likely to be 3 or 4 connections removed. So when you network, in order to tap that hidden market, you need to move out from your comfort zone. If your friends could help you, they would have already. For career changers, friends are especially dangerous b/c they probably have a set way of seeing who you are and what you do and therefore wouldn’t be able to help, however well-intentioned.
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Advice for Managers: Top 5 Ways to Make Gen Y Women More Visible in the Leadership Pipeline
Expert AnswersWhile women are making collective strides in the workplace, their youngest members still have a ways to go. In the words of Kelly Picket, one of the women executives I interviewed for my book, “It doesn’t take much for people to look at a woman in her twenties and say ‘that girl has a lot of growing up to do.’”
On one hand, generation Y women have a high degree of confidence, earn the majority of bachelors and advanced degrees, and as evidenced in a recent Families and Work Institute survey, have a tremendous hunger for jobs with responsibility. On the other hand, this group is the least likely to fit the typical CEO mold, especially compared to the look and leadership style of the most common executive: a Caucasian male in his late 50s.
Here are my top five tips for businesses looking to leverage the talent of Gen Y women, the most ignored leadership pipeline.
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The Unexpected Stay-at-Home Mom
Work-LifeMany working mothers agonize over their decision to spend long hours at the office while their children are being taken care of by full-time nannies. Under these circumstances, there are often feelings of guilt as well as self-doubt. While walking out the door, many women are left wondering if they’re going to miss a pivotal moment in their baby’s life while making their commute, attending a meeting, or working overtime for the third day that week. It’s more than understandable that these feelings exist, but what happens when being a stay-at-home mom isn’t your decision, but rather thrust upon you… after being laid off?
According to Dr. Gillian Paull, a research associate for the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the current recession is having a more far-reaching impact on working mothers; more so than previous economic downturns because there are now more mothers in the workforce and because their sectors have been hard hit.
The discord of the guilt-ridden working mother has been well documented, but with this crop of laid off moms brings a multitude of new and unfamiliar problems to the table. After years of tormenting themselves over whether or not they should give up their job in order to raise their children full-time, the one-time fantasy has become a reality and for many women, it’s not how they had envisioned it.
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