TXWSW Newsletter / Gender and Race Equality in Pay / Google Sexism? / Female CEOs Dropping / Hire Older Women

Happy Monday:
To begin, a new poll from Survey Monkey asked the question “would you say obstacles to gender equality are gone or that significant obstacles still exist?” Of the 13,331 respondents from across the nation aged 18 and up, 58% of US male workers said all obstacles had been eliminated. The responses from women were the polar opposite – 60% of the women surveyed believed barriers remained in place. It is hard to solve a problem when the majority of people in charge don’t believe there is a problem in the first place. The full article can be found here.
Serena Williams would certainly agree that obstacles still exist. We all know the statistics behind the gender pay gap – women are paid 80 cents on the dollar for every dollar men make, but the statistic is even worse for women of color. For every dollar a man makes, black women make just 60 cents. I encourage you to read Ms. Williams powerful editorial which can be found here.
Google made the news again last week – it seems one of their (white male) engineers published a 3,300-word manifesto arguing that women are unsuited for tech jobs for biological reasons. This argument harkens back to Paul Tudor Jones 2013 comments that women will never make it to the ranks of great investors or traders because motherhood and specifically breastfeeding will derail their careers. The full article on the Google manifesto can be found here.
Speaking of obstacles, of the 19 female CEOs that have stepped down from their posts at Fortune 500 companies, only 3 have been replaced with another woman, which means that women are losing ground. Headhunters note that board members tend to rely on their personal networks when choosing candidates versus the wider selection of (diverse) candidates that recruiters bring. When 80% of S&P 500 directors are male, it is easy to see how the status quo is perpetuated. The full article can be found here.
According to the Bureau of Labor & Statistics, 48.4% of women aged 55 to 64 are unemployed. While some of these women are happily retired and golfing, others either need or want the income and engagement that goes along with employment. The author suggests that female managers start taking a harder look at older candidates – if today’s 30 and 40 somethings don’t address embedded ageism women face, they will blink, pass 50 and be part of the unemployed. The full article can be found here.
We have some terrific events lined up for you this year and look forward to seeing you all at an event in 2017! To learn more about our 2017 events, please visit www.txwsw.com
Kind regards
Christine
 

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