Happy Monday:
To further debunk the myth that women are just not suited for math, I wanted to share with you a new book (and soon to be a movie) about the black women who were a critical and integral part of the NASA team that put the first man on the moon. Their stories have been largely untold until now and make for inspirational reading. The full article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/books/on-being-black-female-math-whizzes-during-the-space-race.html
A reader shared the next article with me. Rachel Thomas has worked in technology her whole career and writes a blog on what it is like to be a woman in a very male dominated industry. Her latest post has some concrete steps companies can take if they are serious about improving the diversity of their workforce. Read on:https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/donations-and-women-in-tech-panels-are-not-a-diversity-strategy-do-better-c3c51022a916#.2logcmdoy
A new poll from Pew research noted that more than half of men think sexism is a thing of the past and only a third of women agree with that statement. Their research further went on to demonstrate that bias can take both obvious and not-so-obvious forms. Case in point, parents protecting little girls from risk taking. It seems that similar behavior extends to the workplace when it comes to challenging assignments. Often managers steered those assignments to men in an effort to ‘protect’ women. While there are good intentions behind the behavior, it actually has a detrimental effect on women’s’ careers making it harder for them to advance. The full article can be found here: https://hbr.org/2016/09/stop-protecting-women-from-challenging-work
And finally on the whole burkini controversy going on in Europe, the headline from a Washington Post Op-ed gives a clear solution to the problem: “Men: Stop telling women what to wear.” The full article can be found here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2016/08/24/men-stop-telling-women-what-to-wear/?utm_term=.e042dad9adf4
We have some fabulous events lined up for the Fall so please check out the schedule and register soon! We thank you all for your continued support as we continue to grow and look forward to seeing you all soon! Also, don’t forget to join our Facebook page and private LinkedIn Group both of which give you the opportunity to engage with your fellow members online! Please visit www.txwsw.com to learn more and register for events.
Very kind regards
Christine