Happy Halloween!

photo credit: Dreamy Soul

It's Halloween Time. Do something that scares you!

At the start of this past summer, I was given a book as a gift for participating on a women's panel organized by the Women's Network for a Sustainable Future here in Seattle.

I didn't think much of it from first glance except, "excellent, I'm glad *someone* has written this book." But as I started reading it, I began to feel uncomfortable, even worried about being seen reading it in public. I noticed myself hiding the cover while in a busy airport terminal. I didn't want anyone to see what I was reading.

That struck a chord with me. What was I afraid of?

To me, that fear revealed the existence of something much deeper at work. Reading this book in public meant that I was unapologetically supporting and standing for a somewhat rebellious idea;  that women are hands-down valuable and extraordinary, especially at work. (seems like a duh, but normally I would qualify a statement like this if I were speaking in conversation)

It has been well-documented that retaining and promoting female talent into top-level executive management has been a real challenge for American companies and corporations. Women comprise about 50% of the American workforce and yet, of all the chief executives in the top 500 us companies (in 2009), only 3% were women.

This gender imbalance has been explained primarily by "blaming the victim." Explanations for the disparity include things like:

• women leave the workforce to raise children (this myth has been debunked) 
• women work shorter hours (usually forced into neo-traditional work roles)
• women don't want to be in positions of leadership (maybe true if we lived in a vacum) 
• there aren't any qualified women (this was true in the 80s because women had not been in the workforce for very long)

The common message threading through this list is, "women, it's your fault there isn't gender parity." Companies openly recognize the importance of retaining female talent and express a commitment to do so, yet shockingly, 70% of businesses don't have a plan or strategy to follow through with their intentions! And when companies do implement a strategy, they usually focus on narrow solutions like flexible work schedules without addressing the broader system at play within their organizations.  

"The Female Vision," persuasively illustrates how a system that repeatedly underutilizes the unique talents of women is alienating more and more women as they reach the top. Helgesen & Johnson have written a well-researched book that offers a new perspective on why women leave when they break through the glass ceiling and reach the glass cliff. One phrase that came up over and over in their independent research was, "It just wasn't worth it." This sentence alone speaks to a much larger systemic culture issue that is not adequately captured by the current understanding of the lack of female executive leadership. In a brief summary, they discovered women often find it difficult to act on their unique skills and talents because companies are not structured in a way that values or allows for the expression of these traits. With frustration and personal defeat, women quietly exit the pathway to corporate leadership.  

Personally, I found this book to be affirming and energizing. Many of the stories are eerily recognizable and the research is clear. Yet, The Female Vision constructively offers compelling systemic solutions for organizations and businesses that want a refreshing approach to capitalizing on and developing their female talent.

Check it out, if you want to make waves in public! The first chapter is free for the Kindle!

A few things you need to know about the paygap

What is it about the gender pay gap that get's everyone all riled up? The U.S. is the barrer of freedom and equality...or so we've been taught in school. But as I look around me, I see so many of us in all different groups struggling to obtain and retain that freedom and equality we've been supposedly granted on paper.

All you ever wanted to know about the U.S. gender pay gap.

The impact of the pay gap on families. 

What you can DO about the pay gap. 

How to get better talent for cheap!

In a recent Economist article, it was reported that educated South Korean women are the most underemployed women in OECD countries. Working S. Korean women make 63% of what working S. Korean men do. Luckily, the article reported, wise employers can take advantage of this situation and poach/hire the slew of female talent that is coming out of the heavily meritocratic Korean school system.

"The workplace may be sexist, but the education system is extremely meritocratic. Lots of brainy female graduates enter the job market each year. In time their careers are eclipsed by those of men of no greater ability. This makes them poachable. Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank, has more women than men in its office in Seoul."

But what does this really mean for women in business? Employers who take advantage of systemic oppression, like wide-spread gender discrimination, are not considering the "social" side of the triple bottom line. Just because you can pay someone less doesn't mean you should. 


I've heard the argument (argued to my face by one student at BGI who shall remain nameless) that the gender pay-gap is a "good" thing for women because it makes women "more hirable" if employers can get away with paying them less. Great, so I've got a job but I'm locked into a lower salary history, I can barely feed my family, and my retirement fund will be lower (which really sucks because I'm likely going to outlive all the men in my life). See, the pay gap is actually a bad bad baaaad thing when you look at the whole system (aside from focusing on the self-esteem issues that come out of being made to feel as if you don't count, are a second class citizen and exploited labor).


Stepping back and looking at the entire system, when women are paid less than men, so too are their families which becomes critical if their families are single-mother single-income households. This of course, impacts the children who will grow up and inherit our society (and businesses).

The Economist frames gender discrimination in S. Korea as a good thing for non-discriminatory competitors who know good talent when they see it and don't care if the candidate is a woman. There was no mention that these women were getting paid more at these foreign companies. I took the assumption that they weren't.  But in earnest, the whole practice reminded me a lot of outsourcing to cheaper sweatshop labor because you can get a better margin!

"If female talent is undervalued, it should be plentiful and relatively cheap. Firms that hire more women should reap a competitive advantage."

Now how is this point of view bettering our world? Just because you're hiring women, doesn't mean you're not discriminating against them.

On Blog Action Day 2010: I'm thinking of Water

Today is Blog Action Day 2010 and participating bloggers across the world are thinking, discussing, and pontificating about global water issues:

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

As the topic is a little far from this blog's main focus, barriers to women in business, I'm going to set that focus aside for a moment to talk about the relationship between global water conflicts and the impact of these "water wars" (and all wars) on women.

If you've been paying attention to the ongoing conflict in Sudan then you may be aware of the scores of women and children that have been brutally violated and raped. I think it's pretty accepted common knowledge that these are the atrocities that happen in war. But what many people may not realize is the connection between water and conflicts like the war in Sudan. Much news that covers the war in Sudan, often neglects to dig into the history of resource scarcity that surrounds the conflict. As water becomes increasingly scarce, the world will see (and is witnessing this right now) increasing conflicts over water. These conflicts will be ugly horrific battles against women and children that will deeply impact the psyche of our world.

Check out this amazing talk about women and war by Zainab Salbi, founder and CEO of Women for Women International:

Secretariain't: What This Is and Why It Is

Today is the first day of my 9 week journey into the depths of the deep questions I've been asking myself for the past few years:

• If women have achieved equality, why hasn't the Equal Rights Amendment passed? 
• If women have rights, why do I get emailed every (what seems like) week telling me the rights to make decisions about my body are being threatened?
• If women outnumber and outperform men in higher education, then why is the pay gap still being blamed on the victim?
• If women are respected for their intelligence and learning, why are there so few in the sciences and techworld?
• If women are capable and creative leaders, then why are so few CEOs of major companies?
• If liberal-minded men care about women's issues or believe women should be treated as equals, why do my posts about gender inequality on Facebook get so much derailment and dismissal from men that I love and truly respect in my personal network? 

This blog is intended as an exploration into these burning questions I have. As a youthful gen-y woman, I was promised by teachers and curriculum that I could do anything, be anything, and achieve anything. In fact, I used to believe that if I wanted something bad enough or if I were competitive enough, I could achieve it all. But over time, I began to realize that many of the games in life are fixed, that injustice is real and that it is all around us. 

As a woman in business (pursuing her green MBA), I want to engage and learn more about the systemic barriers that exist for women starting their own companies or striving to do well within existing companies. 

As the title of this blog suggests, not all of us dream of our names in lights with "admin. assistant" just below it.