Advancing Women's Leadership

Women currently make up 15 percent of corporate management, 16 percent of law partners, and less than 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. NCRW and its partners are working to improve these numbers as they work toward a critical mass, often viewed as 30 percent representation, across sectors to benefit the economy and society through women’s talents and perspectives. Without sufficient numbers, women’s ideas, views and analyses risk being marginalized or perceived as representing a narrow minority. With greater access to opportunities and positions of influence, the likelihood of acceptance and professional success for women and people of color increases.

Protest Outside Facebook HQ Challenges Pale, Male And Stale Board

Teaser:

The women's rights group UltraViolet organized a demonstration outside of Facebook's New York office to protest the social media company's appointment of an all-white, all-male board ahead of its IPO.

Editorial:

From Forbes:

There was a demonstration outside of Facebook’s New York office on Wednesday, organized by the women’s rights group UltraViolet, to protest the social media giant’s decision to appoint an all-white, all-male board ahead of its IPO. The group attempted to deliver a petition, signed by over 53,000 people, demanding that women be added to the board.

“Facebook is going to launch one of the largest IPO’s in history this summer, a success built largely on the participation of women – 58% of their users are women and the vast majority of sharing on the site is done by women – and yet zero people on the board are women.” said UltraViolet co-founder Shaunna Thomas.

Protesters argued that the decision to appoint an all-male board, was bad for the company and for users. Marie Wilson of the White House Project, an non-profit working to advance women in business, stressed the positive effects of women on boards, “We know the difference women make on boards in terms of long-term thinking that’s needed for the future and the value they bring in terms of what they want when they get on boards.” With the involvement of women, the board would better understand and serve its mostly female users, she argued.

[...]

Source:

Forbes

URL:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/evapereira/2012/04/26/protest-outside-facebook-hq-challenges-pale-male-and-stale-board-video/

Date:

April 27, 2012

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Studying how much powerful men and women talk

Teaser:

Yale School of Management Assistant Professor Victoria Brescoll finds that even women in power purposely curtail how much they speak in a group because they’re aware, whether they like it or not, that being too outspoken can be off-putting.

Editorial:

From The Washington Post:

Now an assistant professor at the Yale School of Management, Brescoll has recently published a paper in the Administrative Science Quarterly that looks at how much men and women who hold powerful positions talk in group settings. Her study found that while men who have high-power positions tend to talk much more than men without very powerful jobs, the difference in how much women in high- and low-power roles talk in group settings, on average, turns out to be insignificant. While that may not be surprising to many, Brescoll wanted to find out both why it happens and illustrate its actual occurrence in the real world.

Her hypothesis? Women — even those in power — purposely curtail how much they speak in a group because they’re aware, whether they like it or not, that being too outspoken can be off-putting. “When men talk a lot and they have power, people are like ‘oh, that’s fantastic, I’d vote for him.’ But when women do it, they are seen as being too domineering, too presumptuous. Women perceive this, and that’s why they temper how much they talk.” Or as Stanford professor Bob Sutton put it in a blog post about Brescoll’s work, “The blabber mouth approach works for guys, but backfires on women.”

To examine this question, Brescoll designed three studies.

[...]

Source:

The Washington Post

URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-leadership/post/studying-how-much-powerful-men-and-women-talk/2011/04/01/gIQAXHGFlT_blog.html

Date:

April 27, 2012

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The Next Generation: A Handbook for Mentoring Future Union Leaders

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 04/27/2012 - 10:23am

This handbook provides an overview of how to mentor union members or staff. It draws on literature on mentoring in unions and other settings as well as interviews with ten individuals who have mentored or been mentored in unions. The handbook is intended primarily for union leaders and for those who want to develop union members and staff to keep unions strong. Much of the information the handbook contains, however, is applicable to any not-for-profit organization.

by Institute for Women's Policy Research, The Berger-Marks Foundation (April 2012)

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/the-next-generation-a-handbook-for-mentoring-future-union-leaders

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Secret Service Needs More Women, Lawmakers Say

Teaser:

Two female lawmakers, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said Sunday that the dearth of women Secret Service agents might have contributed to the scandal linking agency personnel to prostitutes in Colombia. And they credited a female Secret Service supervisor, Paula Reid, for bringing it to light.

Editorial:

From The New York Times:

Two female lawmakers, both of them members of oversight committees, said Sunday that the dearth of women Secret Serviceagents might have contributed to the scandal linking agency personnel to prostitutes in Colombia. And they credited a female supervisor in the agency for bringing it to light.

The lawmakers, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, were asked on the ABC program “This Week” about a report describing a female Secret Service supervisor, Paula Reid, who ordered the crackdown on agents working in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of a visit by President Obama last weekend.

“She acted decisively, appropriately, and I can’t help but wonder if there’d been more women as part of that detail if this ever would have happened,” said Ms. Collins, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

[...]

Source:

The New York Times

URL:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/secret-service-needs-more-women-lawmakers-say/

Date:

April 23, 2012

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Women’s Presses Tweak Their Business Models

Teaser:

Publishers Weekly roundup of the status of feminish publishers.

Editorial:

From Publishers Weekly:

Approximately a dozen women’s presses are actively publishing in the U.S. today, down from about 30 during the 1990s, when feminist publishing and bookselling were at their peak. There are, additionally, several women’s presses sporadically publishing, and a few others putting out regional titles with limited distribution.

While fewer presses specialize in feminist books, those doing so are holding their own in the marketplace, and a few are thriving. Most of the presses contacted by PW reported that sales are steady, while Aunt Lute Books reported a 20% increase in sales this past year, and Seal Press reported a 23% increase.

Several of these publishers are maintaining their viability by redefining what it means to be a feminist press or expanding their operations. All are focusing on publishing books that do well in backlist, such as Seal’s fall 2012 release of Lynn Fairweather’s Stop Signs, a title about domestic violence that the press hopes will generate the same kind of sales as a related 1982 release, Getting Free (100,000 copies), did.

[...]

Source:

Publishers Weekly

URL:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/51622-women--s-presses-tweak-their-business-models.html

Date:

April 23, 2012

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With two strong women in the Alberta premier’s race, gender’s a non-starter

Teaser:

Shari Graydon ofr Informed Opinions, a Canadian initiative to build women’s leadership through media engagement, discusses the Alberta election between two female candidates for Premier, Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith and the Conservatives’ Alison Redford.

Editorial:

From The Globe and Mail:

North of the 49th parallel, we’re experiencing our own gender-inspired game-changing political election, albeit in a less dramatic, more Canadian kind of way.

Women have led parties into elections here since 1988 and Canada now boasts four female premiers. But never before has the race to watch been between two women. Since the start of the Alberta election, polls have been putting Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith and the Conservatives’ Alison Redford neck and neck.

Suddenly, “the best man” has double the odds of being a woman. How might this change the political conversation?

[...]

Source:

The Globe and Mail

URL:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/with-two-strong-women-in-the-alberta-premiers-race-genders-a-non-starter/article2409611/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Opinions&utm_content=2409611

Date:

April 23, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Expert Profile

Location:

United States

40° 42' 51.6708" N, 74° 0' 21.5028" W

See map: Google Maps

As Member Center Relations Liaison, Kadija Ferryman coordinates the activities pertaining to NCRW’s over 100 Member Centers. At the Council she builds relationships with existing members, conducts outreach with potential centers, connects Member Centers to research opportunities within the Council and beyond, and works on special projects such as the annual Member Center Awards and Annual Conference. She worked for six years as a public policy researcher at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. where she conducted in-depth research on public housing transformation in cities across the country. She is a graduate of Yale University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at the New School where she completed her Master’s degree.

Location

New York, NY

United States

40° 42' 51.6708" N, 74° 0' 21.5028" W

See map: Google Maps

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Black Women Leaders are Expected to be Assertive

Teaser:

A new study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that black women are expected to act assertively in the workplace.

Editorial:

From PsychCentral:

Researchers say this behavior is also condoned for white men, while black men and white women are often penalized for being too forceful.

The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Researchers determined that rather than being viewed as a combination of black men and white women, aggressive black women are accepted in work settings.

“Traditionally, women have been assigned to a more subordinate role,” said Robert W. Livingston of Northwestern University, who co-wrote the new study with Ashleigh Shelby Rosette of Duke University and Ella F. Washington of Northwestern.

Rosette explained that according to prevailing cultural norms, men are expected to occupy dominant roles, while women are typically prescribed to more communal roles.

Historical research has shown that when people think about a prototypical leader, they tend to think about a white man. If women behave in a way that is at odds with these prototypical roles – more dominant and less communal, for example – they will be perceived in a negative light.

[...]

Source:

PsychCentral

URL:

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/04/20/black-women-leaders-are-expected-to-be-assertive/37625.html

Date:

April 20, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

A Gender Reversal On Career Aspirations: Young Women Now Top Young Men in Valuing a High-Paying Career

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 04/20/2012 - 10:57am

In a reversal of traditional gender roles, young women now surpass young men in the importance they place on having a high-paying career or profession, according to survey findings from the Pew Research Center. Two-thirds (66%) of young women ages 18 to 34 rate career high on their list of life priorities, compared with 59% of young men. In 1997, 56% of young women and 58% of young men felt the same way.

Pew Research Center Report, April 2012
by Eileen Patten and Kim Parker

URL:

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/04/19/a-gender-reversal-on-career-aspirations/?src=prc-headline

Cannes' Female Director Problem Highlighted By 2012 Selections

Teaser:

An Huffington Post analysis of the films competing at the 2012 Cannes festival finds that none of the 23 movies eligible for awards like the prestigious Palme D'Or were directed by women. And just two of the films chosen for the "Un Certain Regard" category, reserved for movies by young filmmakers, had female directors.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

With the international media assembled in Paris Thursday to find out which movies made the cut for this year's prestigious Festival du Cannes, festival president Gilles Jacob began with a heartfelt ode to the glorious history of Cannes and the film industry.

Near the climax of the speech, he asked, then answered, a rhetorical question: "What has a changed in cinema? Everything."

But an analysis of the films competing at the Cannes festival, which starts May 17, this year shows that at least one thing remains the same: the gender of its most prominent directors.

None of the 23 movies eligible for awards like the prestigious Palme D'Or was directed by women. And just two of the films chosen for the "Un Certain Regard" category, reserved for movies by young filmmakers, had female directors.

The lack of female representation is especially disappointing on the heels of last year's Cannes, which was heralded as a high-water mark for gender parity in the history of the festival. Four of the movies in competition last year were directed by women.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/19/cannes-film-festival-female-director_n_1438632.html

Date:

April 20, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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What We Do

NCRW is a network of leading university and community based research, policy, and advocacy centers with a growing global reach dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls. We also have a Corporate Circle comprised of senior diversity professionals from leading U.S. and global member companies and a Presidents Circle of college and university leaders who share our commitment. NCRW harnesses the collective power of its network to provide knowledge, analysis, and thought leadership on issues ranging from reducing women’s poverty to building a critical mass of women’s leadership across sectors.

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