What Changes, When Women Lead? While the next Congress includes more women than ever before, the sexual ratio remains way below 50-50. And that applies not just to electoral politics, but to the ranks of government officials. Yes, we've seen three women as secretary of State, but what about the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies? Important, argues Jane Harman, the president of our host today - the Woodrow Wilson Center - not just as demographic justice, but because women lead differently.
So give us an example from your life on the battlefield, or the boardroom. How do women lead differently - 800-989-8255; email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. Prior to her job here, Jane Harman served nine terms in Congress - from California's 36th District - and served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. JANE HARMAN: Thank you, Neal. CONAN: And thanks very much for being our host today. HARMAN: We're delighted to host this. HARMAN: I'm very happy here. CONAN: Why is it important?
Cari E. Guittard: For Women Aspiring to Lead...Take a Second Look at Public Service. We need more women in the higher echelons of public service. This last election cycle in the U.S. was historic in that women for the first time now represent 20% of the U.S. Senate. There was also a record number of women running for public office and I hope we will continue to see more and more women in the political sphere as well as the higher levels of public service at the federal, state and local levels. And while there have been significant gains for women in public office and in the public sector, there remain too few women at the top leadership levels of public service across the board. Many MBAs report their difficulty post-graduation with securing positions in the private sector that truly challenge them as well as provide opportunities for real leadership experience. Some of this is due in part to the current job climate and lack of leadership opportunities at the mid-career levels.
The Three P's of Public Service - Power, Persuasion and Politics Cari E. Further reading: Winning the War for Girls. Nancy Peeples, Selamawet, Mark Peeples, Eyerus, Lauren Peeples and Anna Cate Peeples. (photos courtesy of Caroline White and Anna Cate Peeples) By Lanier Scott Isom“Every year, at least another 2 million girls worldwide disappear because of gender discrimination. In the wealthy countries of the West, discrimination is usually a matter of unequal pay or underfunded sports teams or unwanted touching from a boss. In contrast, in much of the world discrimination is lethal. Gender Pay Gap Is Unacceptable, Monkeys Demonstrate. What do monkeys have to do with the gender pay gap? More than you might think. Women don't always ask for raises or take credit for their work. For capuchin monkeys, this evidently isn't a problem. Making its way around the Internet is a video clip from psychologist and primatologist Frans de Waal's April 2012 TED talk on moral behavior in animals shows that these primates understand payment inequality -- and have no qualms in demanding what's rightfully theirs.
De Waal and psychologist Sarah Brosnan discovered this through a study they designed to test how monkeys respond to concepts of unfairness and justice. They gave two monkeys in adjoining cages the simple task of handing a pebble to a research assistant. Female bloggers noted the implications the second monkey's behavior may have for human pay inequality, specifically how to remedy the fact that the average woman still earns 18 percent less than the average man worldwide. The question then is what women are doing about it. Mothering Your Mom: This Mother's Day, many women will find themselves between caring for two generations.
I was in a work meeting the day my 78-year-old mother-in-law called, desperately lost in Tarrant City. It should have been a sign. None of us, as it turned out, knew where we were going. As far as directions go, my husband thought we could help Mom with an easy-to-use GPS system. He bought it and smiled as she named it Gary. Victory! Until she called to say she was lost in southwest Birmingham, and again at UAB and at a gas station two blocks from our house. What I don’t know is why they call us the sandwich generation. Experts assure me that plenty of families find themselves living together. “It can work out,” Wadley says of multiple generations living in the same home. On paper, moving my husband’s parents in with us should have been the “rewarding experience” that Wadley told me some families enjoy. And then cohabitation began. Rather than dropping to two for meals, we found ourselves cooking for six or seven.
Here’s what I’ve learned about teenagers and elderly people. Wow. Transformation And Transcendence: The Power Of Female Friendship. In 1997 I arrived in Geneva to work for a year at the headquarters of a relief organization. Feeling overwhelmed by my job and lonely in a city of overworked expats passing through for two to three year stints at the United Nations or other organizations with the rather nebulous goal of “changing the world,” I made friends with a group of women. I was 22, and all three women — one American, one German, and one Argentinian – were 30 years older than I and had worked for the same organization in various administrative capacities for the length of time I’d been alive.
After one lengthy, boozy dinner of fondue and buckets of white wine, they quickly took me into their friendship fold and jokingly referred to themselves as “the Wrinklies.” We met once a week for dinner, and saw one another every day at the espresso machine in the hallway, in the fabulously lush cantina, on the expertly-tended grounds of our superluxe office building outside the city limits. And so am I. Hugely so. Women change the dynamics of the workplace for the better. Women's 'Retirement Gap' Is A Pay Gap. A new report from the Employment Benefits Research Institute about participation in employer-based pensions notes that women are less likely to take advantage of employer-offered retirement plans.
This is in keeping with past studies. But EBRI lists several social factors, besides being female, that are associated with lower levels of participation: being "nonwhite," uneducated, unhealthy, underemployed will do it, as will working in certain occupations, like farming, fishing, forestry or service jobs. Youth will also inhibit workers from stashing cashing away for old age, even when those young people make as much money as their high-earning elders—less than half of workers 21 to 24 years old who were making $75,000 or more took part in a retirement plan, according to EBRI; 72 percent of 45-54 year old making that much did. (Read more: Women Are Breadwinners? It's Complicated) There are other factors than salaries to consider, of course.