Much Ado About Women
Feb 27 2013

teach-to-fish-400x478There have been some interesting articles floating around about women and our roles in business and leadership lately.  I’ve posted a few on facebook and wanted to share here:

Richard Branson on Why We Need More Women in the Boardroom (a.k.a. 12 Angry Men) – Entrepreneur

Sheryl Sandberg’s Radically Realistic ‘And’ Solution for Working Mothers – The Atlantic

Are our colleges equipping women to be leaders? – Washington Post

Why I Was Never a “Feminist” – Stealthmode

Why Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s work from home ban is the wrong approach – The American CEO

4 Reasons Marissa Mayer’s No-At-Home-Work Policy Is an Epic Fail – Forbes

Yahoo Orders Home Workers Back to the Office – New York Times

The Most Powerful Women in Tech – 2012 – Forbes

There are have been many advancements to support women in the workplace and yet women still don’t have equal representation in many areas of senior leadership.  For the first time ever, women are earning more college degrees than men.  Yet at the senior level of most organizations, women are not very visible (i.e., “heard”) and sometimes their actions are deeply scrutinized by both men and women.  It seems to be the ongoing price of progress, and I’m glad I’m living in the year 2013 versus 50 to 100 years ago.  I think women have clearly demonstrated their value in the market place…now if they could earn equal pay for equal work across all job functions, that would be another step in the right direction…

To those men and women who take the time to teach women and young girls how to be leaders and provide them support as well as access to your networks to help them grow and learn from their failures & mistakes, thank you for your foresight, interest, and encouragement!  “Give a man/woman a fish, he/she eats for a day. Teach them how to fish, they can eat for a lifetime.”

Author: | Filed under: entrepreneurship, FYI, working mom, working mother | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

2 Comments on “Much Ado About Women”

  1. 1 Anna said at 5:59 AM on March 11th, 2013:

    Great article, really.

    I think that there are many reasons for why fewer woman are in the leadership positions than men.

    I am myself a woman with a master of arts degree. And I must say that unfortunately it is hard to reach a top position due to biology: Sometime, I will have a child. Then I’ll be pregant for 9 moths and I will be forced to stay at home with the child for at least a year after its born! For good parenting – which I will be striving for – a longer period of time has to be spent with the child.

    Then, maybe – hopefully – a second child can be planned and recieved, making me go through the cycle again.

    You get the ide…

    How in the world am I supposed to become a CEO when having to take off at least 4 years? And someone in the family has to earn some money during those critical years. That’s usually the husband.

    He’s got time for his career, for further education, he can advance in the hierarchy…

    What to do?? 🙁

    Anna

  2. 2 Aruni said at 3:32 PM on March 11th, 2013:

    @Anna – thanks for sharing. Hopefully, you won’t be forced to stay at home and you can find some other support, but its very hard to achieve the things that show up in the news in the business world when you are juggling the most important ventures of your life: your kids. Times are changing and if companies allow flexibility and change the path to success, I am sure we will see more women CEOs!