Big companies’ diversity numbers show women hold around 15% of tech roles. But what do these female techies really do? Are women techies more prevalent and accepted in a male dominated community. Read about what three women tech leads at Shopify described their experiences.
http://www.fastcolabs.com/3033463/the-anatomy-of-womens-tech-roles-at-shopify
Journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, the authors of a new book on self-assurance, on how we can all boost our confidence.
Check out this helpful article from LeanIn.org:
http://leanin.org/news-inspiration/8-ways-to-boost-your-confidence-what-no-one-ever-tells-you/
Ask up the ladder. Research indicates that men are more willing to exchange favors than women are, and we believe that puts them in a better position to line up promotions. Women hesitate to trade on their relationships because that feels crass and unseemly. We coach women to network in a much more purposeful way and establish a quid pro quo of career favors with colleagues. In addition, women shouldn’t be reticent to network with their boss’s boss. Yes, you need to proceed with caution in terms of protocol, but courageously hob-knobbing above your level can earn you respect and get you noticed.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/even-when-women-ask-for-a-raise-they-dont-ask-for-enough/
Though more women are making it to the higher rungs of the corporate ladder, only recently are companies recognising the benefits these appointments bring. For the first time, figures are available that can quantify the extent women contribute. Globally, women are responsible for over $20bn in spending, and that is likely to rise to $28bn by the end of the year.
Continue to read here: http://www.europeanceo.com/business-and-management/2014/04/female-entrepreneurship-pays-how-women-are-spurring-the-economy/
Manijeh Goldberg came to the US from Iran at 17 to pursue nuclear engineering but quickly found that it might be hard to get a job in this field, and she changed her major to civil engineering. At the time, civil engineering was a rather male-dominated occupation, Manijeh thought that switching her major to computer science would be a great idea. She graduated with a Masters in Computer Science and Math at UMass Lowell. After working in the medical devices industry for HP Medical and Siemen. She also started 5 start-up companies including one that was acquired for $275 million. She eventually graduated with an MBA from MIT Sloan Fellow’s Program and a MS in Biology at Harvard University.
Manijeh is founder of Privo Technologies, which develops nanoparticle based delivery systems. Before starting Privo Technologies, she received the prestigious Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation Award and the MIT’s 100K award for Best Product.
At her talk, Manijeh said not be shy about asking for help. On the contrary, most people are very nice and they are likely to help if we ask. See below for some of the highlights:
Finally, remember “The harder I network, the luckier I get.”
Come join us on December 4, 2013 on “How to effectively network for better opportunities.”
It has been recorded at various universities that less than 20% of students got their first job from a direct application to an employer. The other 80% received employment through networking. This remains true throughout one’s professional career. It is easy enough to show up to a networking event, but talking to random people is simply not enough.
Learn how to effectively network with our dynamic speaker, Manijeh Goldberg, CEO and Founder of Privo Technologies. Manijeh will discuss the How To guide to networking, as well as its importance, and how it has helped her in her career.
Cost: $15
Date: Wednesday December 4, 2013 at 6 PM
Location: The Broad Institute (Olympus Room), Kendall Sq, Cambridge, MA
Dinner and drinks will be provided. Registration at EventBrite is required, (http://www.eventbrite.com/event/9003428497/eorg)Check-in at front desk.
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About Manijeh Goldberg
Privo was founded by Manijeh Goldberg, M.S., MBA, who is a seasoned executive with over 20 years experience in the medical industry as an executive leader and a scientist in large and start-up companies, one of which (Epicon) was acquired for $275M.
Her 12 years of large company experience includes working for HP medical and Siemens Medical Systems. Manijeh’s MBA from MIT and MS from Harvard Medical School led to her working with Professor Robert Langer who is now an advisor to Privo.
Privo is focused on dramatically improving human health through its novel and proprietary Mucosal Delivery Particle (MDP) platform. The technologies used in Privo’s platform have previously received MIT’s prestigious Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation Award and an award from MIT’s 100k (Best Product) for work surrounding buccal delivery of insulin.
Manijeh holds an MBA from MIT (Sloan) and MS in Health Sciences and Technology from Harvard Medical School.
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I just read the Globe Magazine on Women and Power, which listed the top 100 women-led businesses in Massachusetts. Here are some of the comments from the interviewees on why women still face the glass ceiling.
WILLIAMS: “I see men in the workforce bonding better than women. Men will reach back, they’ll go out together, they’ll do things together. Women, for a variety of reasons, either have to go home to our families, or this, that, and the other.”
GERTNER: “The workplace is not family-friendly. We see this as an individual woman’s choice, how to combine work and family, rather than a societal choice.”
ZECHER: “Women don’t promote themselves enough. We tend not to network as much as men do. We tend not to leverage our networks.”
Here are some of the suggestions from the women executives:
1) Get more women participate on company boards
2) Make the workplace a family-friendly environment by offering flextimes and opportunities to come back from family leave
3) Make networking an essential part of your career growth
4) Reaching back and helping to pull women up the ladder
We hope you can join us for an informal networking night on Tuesday, August 21st at a bar in Cambridge.
We’ll be posting more details as the date approaches.
In the meantime, sign up for our email list and be the first to hear about events.
Last week, we had our first pod event, combining networking, a special guest presentation and small group discussions. Join our email list to hear about future events and upcoming news!
Women have come so far in lowering the glass ceiling in industry and finance, we’ve still got a long way to go. For example, Carla Roney, co-founder of the XO Group mentioned that women search for investments to start a new company, venture capitalists will vehemently deny that motherhood and pregnancy are deciding factors for investments. “I can pretty much guarantee you, behind closed doors it is a factor,” she tells Seligson. So much so that she kept her baby a secret when she started her new business! (To be fair, my first thought was ‘How can you even keep an entire tiny individual a secret for such a long time’, but that is beside the point.) However, investors do not seem to care if a male founder of a company has multiple children because many assume “that his wife will take care of them”, says Paige Craig in Seligson’s article.
Unfortunately, this story is similar to one many women have experienced, even myself. I am a Harvard-educated woman who knows what she wants out of her life — a family and a career. So during the first few years of my PhD career, I decided to speak with a female professor that I absolutely admired. To me, she had it all — a loving husband, a wonderful family and a thriving scientific career. So I was hoping she would provide me with some good advice. But all told me was to hire a good nanny because “the amount of quality time with your kids is important, not the quantity of time.” This honest answer really shocked me, and for the longest time, I was upset to have been given such advice. But as the shock died down, reality set in; women still deal with gender discrimination on a daily basis, whether it is covering up the fact that they are pregnant or that they make less money than men do for the same job.
And Ms. Roney’s tale is one of many that Seligson writes about in her article. This double standard undermines the intelligence and creativity of many women around the country and even the world. Hopefully, articles like Seligson’s will open our eyes to the gender discrimination still prevalent in our nation. And armed with this knowledge, we can help change the social stigma surrounding women and business.
To read Hannah Seligson’s article in full: “Nurturing a baby and a start-up business”. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a-baby-and-a-start-up-business.html?pagewanted=all
Shared by Sze Ng, PhD, de la Femme co-founder.
The following article really made me think about the difficulties and stigma that face mothers in the workplace. We, as a society, have a lot of work to do if a high power women like Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg only recently felt comfortable in vocalizing the stigma attached to working mothers. Here is a glimpse of the article:
That Dolly Parton song in which she warbles about toiling from 9 to 5? As if. With the rise of the Internet, the ubiquity of the smartphone and the need to prove your worth as lay-offs ebb and flow throughout every industry, jobs no longer keep banker’s hours. It can be hard to waltz out of the office while the sun’s still shining, but take a cue from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg: she leaves work at 5:30 every day to have dinner with her kids. And she’s past making apologies.
Because Sandberg is both a powerful executive and a woman, her decision to publicize her early evening routine has resonated far beyond Makers.com, which has compiled video clips of “trailblazing” women; Sandberg’s clips reveal what heretofore had been her shady workplace secret:
“I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I’m home for dinner with my kids at 6:00, and interestingly, I’ve been doing that since I had kids,” Sandberg says. ”I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it’s not until the last year, two years that I’m brave enough to talk about it publicly. Now I certainly wouldn’t lie, but I wasn’t running around giving speeches on it.”
(MORE: Simple Fix: Family Dinners Help Teens Avoid Drinking and Using Drugs)
With her simultaneous admission that she’s been doing this for years and trying to keep it on the down-low, Sandberg is launching a conversation about why we feel compelled to put job before family. Are we worried about job security? Are we trying to prove ourselves? Are we sticking around because, well, everyone else is? On the other hand, do we truly want nannies to feed our kids dinner every night, then burst through the door only in time to plant a kiss on a sleepy cheek?
Reams of research have highlighted the virtues of the family dinner. It’s not the meat and three that’s special — though with nearly one in five kids obese, it can’t hurt to dish up whole grains, fruits and veggies — but the talk time. Teens who infrequently eat dinner with their families are more than twice as likely as teens who dine with their parents at least five times a week to say they intend to try drugs, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
The dinner hour is also a time to catch up on everyone’s day before the chaos of bath/book/bed — for younger kids — ensues. I work from home, but even I don’t always make it. Instead, I power through, hoping to turn in my articles so I don’t have to return to work after the kids are asleep.
Women are not just being neurotic about burning the candle at both ends. “We know that working moms are often stigmatized for their child care and family commitments,” says Katrina Leupp, a University of Washington sociology graduate student who has conducted research about the myth of the “Supermom” (tip: moms who try to do it all have higher levels of depression). “If publicity about this removes the stigma, that’s a good thing.”
(MORE: Why Working Mothers Are Happier and Healthier Than Stay-at-Home Moms)
Of course, it’s unlikely that Sandberg’s admission alone will revolutionize attitudes, but it’s a starting point. Indeed, Sandberg’s “secret” has served as a wake-up call for me. These days, most white-collar employees don’t finish by 5:30 — do any of us ever really finish? — but we can put our families first and take a break by using our digitally connected world to our advantage. Being perpetually plugged in can be a curse in that we never really leave work behind. On the other hand, it can double as a blessing because it allows flexibility. Why not wrap up work around 5ish and head home to our families before logging on again? Sandberg alludes to this pattern, admitting she’d dash off emails at crazy hours to show colleagues she was hard-charging and a devoted mom of two.
She says:
I was getting up earlier to make sure they saw my emails at 5:30, staying up later to make sure they saw my emails late. But now I think I’m much more confident in where I am and so I’m able to say, ‘Hey! I am leaving work at 5:30.’ And I say it very publicly, both internally and externally.”
** Continue reading here: http://techland.time.com/2012/04/13/facebooks-sheryl-sandberg-leaves-work-at-530-should-you/
Written by Sze Ng, PhD, de la Femme co-founder.
With the many demands of life, we all feel overwhelmed at times. Therefore, it is always important to make sure that you make time for yourself, to relax and allow yourself time to rejuvenate. It can be something as simple as reading the morning newspaper, enjoying a cup of tea, or going for a walk. Whatever it is, make sure you give yourself this time. Find something that you can incorporate into your routine that gives you tranquility, and make sure to never skip this part of your day.
Written by Susu Wong, MBA, de la Femme COO.
My company recently posted an entry-level administrative position, and I have been surprised to find that over 90% of the applicants are women with bachelor’s degrees who were predominately majoring in liberal arts, journalism, sociology, and business administration, etc. One can argue that this is attributed to the weak economy and there is a lack of job openings, but if this is the case, why aren’t men applying? Perhaps one of the reasons is because men tend to shy away from liberal arts type courses and pursue science and engineering degrees.
Between 2000 and 2008, the total number of 4-year engineering degrees awarded in the US increased from 59,497 to 69,895. Of the over 10,000 additional degrees, nearly all of them went to male students. While the number of degrees awarded to females remained constant at around 12,500, those awarded to males increased by about 1,200 per year; from 47,281 in 2000 to 57,977 in 2008. This increase in turn reduced the percentage of women receiving engineering degrees by about 2 percent, from 20.5% to 18.5%. [1]
According to the statistics from the National Science Foundation, half of the workers in science and engineering occupations earned $70,600 or more in 2007, more than double the median earnings ($31,400) of the total U.S. workforce. Workers with science and engineering degrees, regardless of their occupations, earn more than workers with comparable-level degrees in other fields. [2]
There seems to be a direct correlation in wage gap because women are starting their early careers in lower-level administrative positions while their male counterparts are pursuing science and engineering fields, hence men are advancing their careers at a much faster pace. This is one of the reasons why women are generally making less money than men and can’t seem to get ahead.
In science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), women’s progress has been slower, especially in engineering, computer science, and physics. According to a study conducted by AAUW, the findings are organized into three areas: social and environmental factors shaping girls’ achievements and interest in math and science; the college environment; and the continuing importance of bias, often operating at an unconscious level, as an obstacle to women’s success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Middle school and High school teachers have to proactively cultivate girls’ achievements, interest, and persistence in science and engineering. Many girls show aptitude and interest in math and science through middle school. Whether driven by social pressures or other factors, a large percentage of these girls do not persist through high school in taking the necessary courses needed to major in science and engineering in college.
Possible solutions:
We need to have more female role models and mentors who have demonstrated success in science and technology. We have to break the stereotype that women engineers are geeky and unpopular.
Ultimately, the decision rests on the individual’s preferences and interest, but at least she is choosing her field with eyes wide open.
Written by Sze Ng, PhD, de la Femme co-founder.
I’m amazed by how many young professionals my age postpone thinking about and planning for retirement. Let’s face it; we all have bills, lots of bills, whether living expenses, student loans, car payments, etc. We think to ourselves that we just don’t have the extra cash flow. We’ll definitely contribute to a retirement plan in the future when we’re making more money. However, let me just state that there are many advantages to STARTING EARLY! (Obviously, if you have lots of loans or debt that you’re paying high interest rates for, you should pay those off first, but that’s another story.) Ladies, set aside a few moments to take those first steps to preparing for a financially independent future!
I’m going to focus on my favorite retirement tool, the Roth Individual Retirement Account (IRA). I think that a Roth IRA is a must for young professionals like myself to consider because we have lots of time to allow our contributions to grow, making tax-free withdrawals a major perk of the Roth IRA. There are many other perks, but I’ll discuss some of the ones I think are the best incentives for opening a Roth today, if you haven’t already done so!
You’ll most likely pay fewer taxes. A Roth IRA is different from a Traditional IRA in that for a Roth IRA the tax advantage is deferred until the future. Contributions to a Traditional IRA are tax deductible now and distributions are taxed in the future. Thus, a Traditional IRA would be a good investment vehicle if you expect to be in a lower tax bracket upon retirement. However, I think that most people will (hopefully) be earning higher salaries as they advance in their careers, and as we get older, we’ll probably be accustomed to a higher standard of living… no more of that poor college student lifestyle where ramen noodles were a perfectly nutritious and satisfying dinner. Therefore, a tax deduction now would not be as advantageous as TAX-FREE WITHDRAWALS OF ALL THAT INTEREST YOU’VE ACCUMULATED over 20, 30, 40, or 50 years of retirement savings! I also want to note that with tax season around the corner, the Savers Credit is another incentive for why young people should start saving for retirement. THE SAVERS CREDIT ALLOWS UP TO AS MUCH AS $1,000 OFF YOUR TAXES. The amount of the credit depends on income, filing status, and how much is contributed to retirement that year, but the possibility of an extra $1,000 in your pockets for doing something that is financially responsible is a win-win scenario in my book.
You can take your contributions out AT ANY TIME TAX- AND PENALTY-FREE. The concept of a Roth IRA is that you are saving for retirement, and so you should try to save that money until retirement. However, what if you’re strapped for cash and need the emergency funds? While other retirement vehicles will charge you an early withdrawal penalty, the Roth IRA allows you to take your contributions out tax- and penalty-free. ONLY CONTRIBUTIONS ARE ALLOWED THOUGH, the interest earnings made from those contributions need to wait until the retirement age of 59.5 for withdrawal or you will have to pay penalties on that portion. A major consideration is that the Roth needs to be OPEN FOR AT LEAST FIVE YEARS before you can withdraw your contributions tax- and penalty-free, thus another reason to START EARLY. Note that each yearly contribution doesn’t have to be in the account for five years, rather the five-year clock starts with your first contribution. For instance, let’s say I contribute $500 to a Roth for the first time in 2006 and then add $500 to it every year (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011), and have earned $300 worth of interest; well, I can take out all $3,000 of contributions tax- and penalty-free for any reason because my five year clock started in 2006. However, I will not be able to use the $300 from interest earnings without taxes and penalties, unless it is for a qualified reason such as eligible medical expenses. In addition, the IRS allows individuals to withdraw up to $10,000 tax- and penalty-free, which include earnings, to help with a first-time home purchase.
Lastly, I want to spend some time on the power of compound interest. You have heard my reasons for why I have chosen to contribute to a Roth, but if you decide this is not the retirement tool for you, it is still advantageous to start saving for retirement as soon as you can because the sooner you start saving, the greater the benefit of compound interest. Compound interest is the interest earned on reinvested interest, as well as the original amount invested. Thus, time will help you generate higher returns on your money. Even if you contribute just $500 today to a Roth and don’t do anything with it ever again, that $500 and its future interest will both be helping you make money for retirement!
Thus, it is never too early to start thinking about retirement, and to stay financially independent. Stay tuned for my next article, where I discuss some of my favorite Roth IRA companies and accounts.
Written by Hilary Bowden, de la Fember.
We all know about stress. Some of us perform well under it and some of us collapse. Some people are more prone to take more risks and some become hesitant. When it comes to our work we all have to make decisions and take risks, no matter how small or big they are. What is the effect of stress on our decision-making capabilities?
Our body likes to be in a homeostasis, it likes to maintain a stable, controlled environment. When we experience stress, this homeostasis is threatened, various neurotransmitters are released and the normal signaling between our body and brain goes out of whack. Our sympathetic nervous system releases cortisol in our bodies, and this, among other things, affects the decision-making regions of the brain.
How does this reaction to stress differ between men and women? Several studies have shown that men, in general, take more risks than women (Endres, 2006). Lighthall and colleagues found that acute stress amplifies these sex differences: men become more risk seeking and women become more risk avoidant. These leads us into the basic “fight-or-flight” paradigm – our body’s response to a stressful stimulus – however, Taylor et al. demonstrated that females appear to have a different stress response than males. They coined the term “tend-and-befriend” arguing that while “flight-or-flight” may work for males, it is not so adaptive for females given their sex-specific parental roles. It makes sense, if you think about it: we women carry around a baby for 9 months, give birth, feed it, love it, and protect it with our life! If we were to just leave our offspring their unguarded to either fight a battle or run from a lion, we’d be leaving it unprotected. So, it makes sense that women would be more adapted to inhibiting risky responses to predators/stressors.
In corroboration with the above findings, Wang et al. found that there was greater hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (e.g cortisol) response and autonomic responses in men than in women. A hormone that is expressed at high levels in women, oxytocin, may be the reason for the decreased response. Basically, the cortisol might not be “properly” communicating with other regions of the brain. Their study also suggests that the combination of increased limbic activity (read: emotion control center) and inadequate cortisol feedback may mediate the high propensity of women to depression.
Scientific jibber jabber aside, we get stressed, it’s not evolutionarily beneficial for us to run or fight but to stay and protect. We play it safe. In our work lives this may result in us not taking the same risks as men or cause us to interact differently when a threatening situation comes along (i.e competition for a promotion, proposing a more daring project idea, etc.). Aside from these initial results of stress, the consequences of it can be emotionally taxing and, in some cases, can lead to depression.
I would like to end by saying that I do not think this means that we are stuck in these roles or that women can’t/don’t/won’t take risks. I am also not saying that women are sensitive little flowers that need to be handled delicately. I just think it’s important to take note of these differences and use this knowledge to our advantage.
Citations:
Lighthall, N.*, Mather,M., Gorlick M. (2009) Acute Stress Increases Sex Differences in Risk Seeking in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. Plos One Volume 4: Issue 7
Taylor SE; Klein LC; Lewis BP; Gruenewald TL; Gurung RA; Updegraff JA (2000) Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological Review 107: 411-429
Wang J, Rao H, Wetmore GS, Furlan PM, Korczykowski M, et al. (2005) Perfusion functional MRI reveals cerebral blood flow pattern under psychological stress. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102: 17804–17809.
Endres ML (2006) The effectiveness of assigned goals in complex financial decision making and the importance of gender. Theory and Decision 61: 129–157
Written by Brandy Houser, PhD, de la Femme co-founder.
Thanks to Betty Friedan, the voice of the 1950’s housewife was finally heard. “There has to be more than this, more than cleaning after a husband and the children.” Women, and society, have come a long way from this – but are we there yet? The second wave feminist movement women fought to grant us reproductive rights (Roe vs. Wade, 1973), advanced educational and extracurricular opportunities (Title IX, 1972), and equal places in the workforce (affirmative action, expansion in 1967 to include gender). Yet, have we really reached true gender equality?
Today, girls are outpacing their male peers throughout their education. But we have yet to see a female president or even a board comprised of at least 50% women in a fortune 1000 company. Strong women leaders who challenge their male opponents are often ostracized (since women are supposed to sweet and compliant) leaving only derogatory names to suffice as adjectives. Beyond demeanor, women are still noted for clothing style (The Male Factor). Women not only have to work harder than their male counterparts for the same job (Gorman and Kmec, 2007), the same wage (CNN, 2010), but they have to look good (but not too good) while doing so. Not even Jackie Kennedy could have pulled off what Sheryl Sandberg does on a daily basis – and in such nice attire! Even beyond career, clothing, and dealing with men who cannot handle emotion – women still manage nearly 70% of the childcare responsibilities at home (Sheryl Sandberg, TEDwomen). How can workplace equality exist when it doesn’t even exist at home?
Stereotypes come in all forms- from cultural to religious and certainly including gender. Women leaders are seen as supportive while male leaders are seen as influencing upward movement (Catalyst). Why? And, how does this cultural perspective affect women (and men) in the workplace today? In Shaunti Feldhan’s The Male Factor, male colleagues who see a female colleague become even marginally emotional, automatically distrust their ability to think clearly. However, it has been shown that women can process emotions at the same time that they need to be clearly thinking.
How will we move past these stereotypes? Work. Men and women today need to recognize the power that all women harness in the workplace and how leveraging these untapped skill sets will lead to more successful business operations, better work-life balance overall, and economic prosperity for our world.
Shared by Brandy Houser, PhD, de la Femme co-founder.
I thought that this was a great article to share:
Virginia Gewin
Published online 25 May 2011
An international survey comparing the career experiences of 15,000 physicists from 130 developed and developing nations finds that women around the world experience a tilted playing field. Across the board, the study finds, men have greater access than women to opportunities and resources, and their careers suffer less when they have children.
The survey is the third global poll in a decade to address the experiences of female physicists, but is the first to include men. Global Survey of Physicists: A Collaborative Effort Illuminates the Situation of Women in Physics was produced by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in College Park, Maryland, with funding from the Henry Luce Foundation in New York. Rachel Ivie, assistant director of the AIP’s Statistical Research Center and a report co-author, says that the data on men allowed her to compare experiences. “We knew things were unequal, but not this unequal,” she says.
J. ENDICOTT/CORBISThe survey reveals few differences in the degree of gender inequality between developed and developing countries. Women consistently describe getting fewer international offers than men, less access to lab space and travel funds, and fewer invitations to speak and calls to serve on important committees. They also report that having children slows their careers to a greater degree.
Ivie says that two factors contribute to these problems. First, physics remains a male-dominated field, operating through an old boy network. “It’s not that senior people actively exclude women; they just don’t think of recommending them for key posts or inviting them to speak at conferences,” says Ivie.
Elizabeth Freeland, a physics postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, agrees. “This is an unconscious bias — which makes it harder but not impossible to get past,” she says.
**Continue reading here: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7348-547a
Written by Michael Hoffman, MBA, de la Femme CFO.
I’d like to expand on why I’m taking special (professional) time out for women and why I chose de la Femme. With many years of experience interacting with women from different vantage points – as colleagues, classmates, subordinates and bosses – I am struck by a strange situation. I actually find women in general to be more competent, more effective and more enjoyable to work with than men, again in general. Yet it’s men who almost always are entrusted positions of leadership. Men enjoy the hunt, are good launching things and with our healthy (?) egos like to lead with authority. Yet it’s women, again in general, who can lead for the long-term, as stewards who can nurture and lead organizations with compassionate intelligence. It is this large divide, the gender gap, that keeps the upcoming competent woman from rising the ranks quickly and from getting her deserved opportunities, that needs to be addressed. The wiser organizations understand that when both men and women have ample opportunities for leadership and responsibilities, the best things happen. I view de la Femme as one healthy initiative to get us there.
Shared by Brandy Houser, PhD, de la Femme co-founder.
In my usual way of perusing any literature that has to do with gender gap, I came across this article:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/a_study_in_leadership_women_do.html.
Interestingly, it discusses the difference between men and women and their leadership styles. Honestly, I have had both positive and negative experiences from each gender. However, I must admit that my most positive and my most negative was always a man – whereas the ladies landed somewhere in between. With all of this being said, I only recently began working in the Boston area with leadership and guidance from an amazing woman. Perhaps this experience will fall in line with the results from the article. Check it out!
We are in the very early stages of building our startup. Please email [email protected] if you are a web developer interested in helping to set-up our online networking platform or if you are interested to be a writer or blogger of an article pertinent to women.
About us:
de la Femme (DLF) is a Massachusetts organization passionate about bridging the gender gap. This can be seen in the wage gap and under-representation of women in high power positions. Our mission is to provide a centralized network and community where career-focused women can access resources tailored towards their career goals. Our objectives are to provide resources and information to help women efficiently navigate work opportunities and to provide a supportive environment that will nurture female leaders. Our vision is to generate a community of like-minded, high-achieving women, whom help each other to succeed in the workplace.
Women Accelerators is a component fund of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. We are passionate about promoting the advancement of women and bridging the gender gap.
