Discrimination

Has Title IX, now 40 years old, harmed male athletics?

Teaser:

Valerie Strauss addresses the myths around Title IX and men's athletics.

Editorial:

Critics of Title IX often say that it has harmed male athletics in its insistence on increasing opportunities for females in school sports. Here, from the report (with footnotes removed), are some myths about how the law has affected school athletics:

What the Law Says

Title IX requires that schools treat both sexes equally with regard to three distinct aspects of athletics: participation opportunities, athleticscholarships, and treatment of male and female teams.

Myth 1: Title IX requires quotas.

Title IX does not require quotas; it simply requires that schools allocate participation opportunities in a nondiscriminatory way. The three-part test is lenient and flexible, allowing schools to comply even if they do not satisfy the first part. The federal courts have consistently rejected arguments that Title IX imposes quotas.

[...]

Source:

The Washington Post

URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/has-title-ix-now-40-years-old-harmed-male-athletics/2012/06/14/gJQArSCqdV_blog.html

Date:

June 15, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women in Finance: Focus on board diversity is the tip of the iceberg

Teaser:

The findings of the fifth annual Financial News Women in Finance survey are sobering: Of the 650 female respondents to the survey, all of whom work in the financial services industry, two thirds said their gender made it harder for them to succeed and a similar proportion said they felt they needed to work harder than male counterparts in order to be viewed at the same level of achievement by managers.

Editorial:

From Financial News:

Ruth Grant, a litigation partner and co-chair of the diversity committee at law firm Hogan Lovells, said: “There is a mismatch between what’s being done and outcomes. There is a difference between management having projects and structures that they put in place and actually embedding those ideas into the corporate culture and how the business makes them part of the daily life and DNA of an organisation.”

The survey results are a timely reminder that, while top-level management of financial firms is largely convinced that change is necessary and has begun to implement programmes, there is still more that needs to be done. The challenge, particularly in depressed market conditions, is keeping gender diversity on the priority list.

Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management and founder of the 30% Club, which has had notable successes encouraging chairmen to bring more women into board roles, said: “There has been a very long, slow burn over the understanding of gender imbalance, but a sharp pick-up and growing momentum for change over the past 18 months. The financial services sector, and especially bigger companies, are trying very hard, partly in an attempt to rehabilitate their reputation. It is a paradigm shift for many people.”

Financial firms do appear to be making more of an effort. This year, 38% of survey respondents said their company had no diversity programme or women’s networking forum, less than the 46% who responded similarly last year. Whether the shift is due to more companies launching programmes is arguable but, certainly, there is increased awareness and communication within firms to promote uptake of such initiatives.

[...]

Source:

Financial News

URL:

http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2012-06-11/focus-on-board-diversity-is-tip-of-the-iceberg?mod=sectionheadlines-PE-AM

Date:

June 12, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Why There Are So Few Women In Congress

Teaser:

According to political scientists Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon, there are five main reasons women still hold less than 17% of the seats in Congress.

Editorial:

From U.S. News and World Report:

You'd think that since 1916—the year a woman was first elected to U.S. Congress—there would have been some serious progress.

Women in the workforce, after all, have been on a steady rise.

Not so in Congress, where women hold less than 17 percent of seats to this day, according to the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics. In 2010, the number of women elected to the House actually declined.

[See: Latest political cartoons.]

"Politics is lagging behind society," says Barbara Palmer, associate professor of political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and co-author of the upcoming book Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change.

Palmer and Southern Methodist University professor Dennis Simon have been studying the political glass ceiling for over a decade. Voters, they said, mostly aren't to blame for the lack of progress. But they shared five other very real reasons more women aren't in Washington:

[...]

Source:

U.S. News and World Report

URL:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/06/08/why-there-are-so-few-women-in-congress

Date:

June 12, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Name It. Change It.

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 06/12/2012 - 10:12am

Name It. Change It. is a non-partisan project of WCF Foundation, Women’s Media Center, and Political Parity.

Together, we will work to end sexist and misogynistic coverage of women candidates by all members of the press—from bloggers to radio hosts to television pundits.

Why?

Widespread sexism in the media is one of the top problems facing women. A highly toxic media environment persists for women candidates, often negatively affecting their campaigns. The ever-changing media landscape creates an unmonitored echo chamber, often allowing damaging comments to exist without accountability.

URL:

http://www.nameitchangeit.com/

Desiring Change

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 06/12/2012 - 9:32am

Desire and gender are brought alive through the ways lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and intersexed people use their bodies; desire and gender are made poignant and meaningful by the ways we construct or deny our erotic passions and gendered identities in the course of daily life. People will take risks—facing marginalization, isolation, and even violence—to identify and act upon their desires. And they will live out their unique understanding of gender—no matter how dangerous or costly the results. This report represents the integration of joint efforts by the Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) and Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ), beginning with activist and academic convenings that took place from 2005-07 under the name “Desiring Change,” and culminating in a daylong gathering in 2007 with 21 social justice organizations.

URL:

http://bcrw.barnard.edu/publications/nfs7/report/

Member Organization:

Barnard Center for Research on Women

The Women and People of Color Who Invented the Internet

Teaser:

Ms. examines the whitewashing that accompanies NYT's David Streitfeld's declaration that men invented the internet.

Editorial:

From the Ms. Blog:

A Sunday New York Times article by David Streitfeld has the feminist and tech worlds up in arms. Reporting on a sexual harassment suit filed by a junior partner in a venture capital firm, Streitfeld begins by proclaiming that “MEN invented the Internet” (those CAPS are his). I came across Streitfeld’s article after a friend suggested I check out tech journalist Xeni Jardin’s Twitter feed. Jardin’sresponse to Streitfeld:

WTF: “MEN invented the internet.” I’m sorry, did NYT just breeze past half a century of women in computer technology?

Herein lies the issue: Though Streitfeld primarily covers Ellen Pao’s lawsuit, he undermines his piece by leading with an emphatic and incorrect statement about men as sole inventors of the Internet. I’m not certain if Streitfeld was being tongue-in-cheek or if he simply has a narrow view of Internet history. But his article does incite, albeit unintentionally, necessary dialogue about the roles women–and racial and ethnic minorities–have played in Internet innovation. While some apparently assume that men alone developed the Internet, a quick glance at the Internet Hall of Fame’s 2012 inaugural inductees and the Early Internet Leaders list prove otherwise. (I also recommend reading History of the Internet).

In reality, the genesis of the Internet was a collaborative effort. It took decades of developments in computer programming and network technology. We can’t let the current cult of tech fandom around “white” men–such as Steve Jobs, whom Streitfeld name checks–obscure the women and the racial and ethnic minorities from around the world who contributed to the birth of the Internet.

Source:

Ms. Magazine

URL:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/06/04/the-women-and-people-of-color-who-invented-the-internet/

Date:

June 7, 2012

Affiliate:

The Depressing Gender Gap at the Nation’s Top 71 Venture Capital Firms [SLIDESHOW]

Teaser:

Betabeat calculates the FEM, or Female Equality Metric, for the nation's largest venture capital firms.

Editorial:

From Betabeat:

Click through the slideshow for a firm-by-firm breakdown of the numbers.

[...]

The FEM Study: METHODOLOGY

All the data for assets under management comes from the National Venture Capital Association, which sent us their latest list from Thomson Reuters, current as of Q1 2012. The list included private equity firms that also do venture capital investing, which we attempted to identify and omit. However, some may still be included in the final list of 71 firms.*

Next, we went to each firm’s website and tallied up the number of partners and managing directors, noting how many were women. Obviously, the structure is different at different firms. For consistency, and to give firms the greatest benefit of the doubt, we counted anyone as a partner who had “partner” in his or her title, including venture partners, founding partners, administrative partners and other variations. We also included managing directors, who are senior partners. We did not include vice presidents, principals or associates. When partner titles were unlisted or ambiguous, we called and asked for the numbers.

We then calculated, for each firm on the list, the percentage of partners who are female. Rather than call it POPWAF, we decided to call this number the Female Equality Metric, or FEM. (At first we called it the Kleiner number, but decided to reserve that term for “number of discrimination lawsuits filed.”)

A firm with all male partners has a FEM of zero. A firm with all female partners (LOL, JK) would have a FEM of 100. If you think gender diversity is important, a low FEM is bad and a high FEM is good. If you think women should stay at the receptionist’s desk and out of the corner offices, a low FEM is good and a high FEM is bad. And if you think Silicon Valley is a meritocracy, as does Greg McAdoo of Sequoia Capital, which coincidentally has zero women partners, then you’ll probably dismiss these numbers as meaningless.

But page through this list of venture capital’s heavyweights, and it’s striking to see how few women have made it to the upper ranks. Also striking was the perfect 100 POFR, or percentage of female receptionists, at the 26 VC firms we called. We paged through team page after team page—the staff at a venture capital firm is almost universally called the “team”—where men’s faces lined the top rows and women’s faces appeared further down, if anywhere. “We have female administrative assistants,” explained one woman who picked up the phone, when asked whether any of the partners and managing directors were women.

[...]

Source:

Betabeat

URL:

http://betabeat.com/2012/05/female-partners-venture-capital-firms-fem-kleiner-perkins/

Date:

June 7, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women Kill the Buzz for Guys Who Hire, Fire Them

Teaser:

Susan Antila looks at several decades of sexual harassment in the financial industry.

Editorial:

From Bloomberg:

We’ve seen this movie before and the ending still stinks.

The sex-discrimination lawsuit by Ellen Pao against the Silicon Valley venture-capital firmKleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers may be the gender and workplace story of the moment. But let’s get one thing straight: This doesn’t describe anything that’s new. It seems to happen routinely. Just yesterday, at a hearing in London, a lawyer for Latifa Bouabdillah, a former Deutsche Bank AG director, said the woman’s male colleagues were paid bonuses “double or triple that of the claimant” for the same work.

Swap out Pao for Pamela Martens, who led the class-action “Boom-Boom Room” lawsuit against Smith Barney in the 1990s, or Allison Schieffelin, who sued Morgan Stanley in 2001, or Carla Ingraham, who sued UBS AG in 2009, and you wind up with some combination of the same old complaints: coworker come-ons, power meetings for guys only, higher pay for men and retaliation against the uppity women who have the nerve to complain.

In the venture-capital world, where you get more than the usual share of people who are prone to thinking their every experience is novel, there is shock over news that a highly qualified woman has filed a suit against a celebrity firm. But sex discrimination isn’t the iPad, folks. It’s more like the electric typewriter.

[...]

Source:

Bloomberg

URL:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/women-kill-the-buzz-for-guys-who-hire-fire-them.html

Date:

June 7, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

In 'new Egypt', mobs sexually assault women with impunity

Teaser:

The Associated Press reports on that reports of assaults on women in Tahrir Square have been on the rise.

Editorial:

From MSNBC / AP:

The late Tuesday assault was the last straw for many. Protesters and activists met Wednesday to organize a campaign to prevent sexual harassment in the square. They recognize it is part of a bigger social problem that has largely gone unpunished in Egypt. But the phenomenon is trampling on their dream of creating in Tahrir a micro-model of a state that respects civil liberties and civic responsibility, which they had hoped would emerge after Mubarak's ouster.

'It shouldn't be happening'
"Enough is enough," said Abdel-Fatah Mahmoud, a 22-year-old engineering student, who met Wednesday with friends to organize patrols of the square in an effort to deter attacks against women. "It has gone overboard. No matter what is behind this, it is unacceptable. It shouldn't be happening on our streets let alone Tahrir."

No official numbers exist for attacks on women in the square because police do not go near the area, and women rarely report such incidents. But activists and protesters have reported a number of particularly violent assaults on women in the past week. Many suspect such assaults are organized by opponents of the protests to weaken the spirit of the protesters and drive people away.

[...]

Source:

MSNBC

URL:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47717050/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/#.T9C4DLBfGeA

Date:

June 7, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

NYT-“MEN invented the internet”

Teaser:

Xeni Jardin critique's The New York Times' piece on the Ellen Pao/Kleiner Perkins sexual harassment lawsuit, and gender discrimination in Silicon Valley.

Editorial:

From BoingBoing:

What a steaming turd of an opening line in David Streitfeld's otherwise serviceable New York Times piece about the Ellen Pao/Kleiner Perkins sexual harassment lawsuit, and gender discrimination in Silicon Valley.

Here's the opening graf (bold-ing, mine):

MEN invented the Internet. And not just any men. Men with pocket protectors. Men who idolized Mr. Spock and cried when Steve Jobs died. Nerds. Geeks. Give them their due. Without men, we would never know what our friends were doing five minutes ago.

You guys, ladies suck at technology and the New York Times is ON IT.

Radia "Mother of the Internet" Perlman and the ghosts of RADM Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace and every woman who worked in technology for the past 150 years frown upon you, sir. Women may have been invisible, but the work we did laid the groundwork for more visible advancements now credited to more famous men.

"Men are credited with inventing the internet." There. Fixed it for you.

[...]

Source:

BoingBoing

URL:

http://boingboing.net/2012/06/03/nyt-men-invented-the-inter.html

Date:

June 5, 2012

Affiliate:

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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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