We have an amazing line-up of events for you in the coming months. I am grateful to our speakers, our fabulous committee members, and extraordinary marketing director for their efforts in putting these events together. We look forward to seeing you at one or more soon!
Many of you are old enough to remember when, then-president of Harvard, Larry Summers noted the lack of female professors in math and related fields was due to biological differences. Author Eugenia Cheng, whose new book, x+y: A Mathmetician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender, uses math to “iron out ambiguities to provide clear definitions for comparisons.” It turns out that men and women are not homogenous groups of people that behave the same way, and it turns out the differences within each gender are greater than the differences between genders, so gender is not a good predictor of anything, much less telling 51% of the population that they are bad at math! The full article can be found here.
With the election season in full swing, so are the sexist double standards. Ask yourself, do you think Regan or Kennedy were ever labeled as too ambitious? And how does one get into a position of power if they aren’t ambitious? A Harvard study from 2013 noted that successful women are also seen as unlikeable, and that women “face distinct social penalties for doing the very things that lead to success.” And this list goes on. Men are rewarded for ambition, boasting, aggression and there is not a lot of commentary about their smiles or their outfits. So this season, I would ask each of you to watch the process with this in mind and call out these gender stereotypes for what they are because they hurt all women, not just the ones running for office. The full article can be found here.
On the subject of discrimination, while the pandemic has been hard on everyone, the majority of jobs lost have been held by women it has been especially hard of working moms who are losing their jobs at an alarming rate, and the patchwork of rules protecting working moms is not working. Considering women head 40% of all US households, this will likely lead to a greater number of children living below the poverty line. The full article can be found here.
You will note below that we have scheduled both our State of the Markets and C-Suite events virtually this year. We are thrilled that Danielle DiMartino Booth and our fabulous CIOs will all be participating. We have broken the event into 2 separate sessions on different days, and you are welcome to attend one or both events. We also have some great speakers coming your way for C-Suite at a time when we all need insightful mentors. More information on the events may be found here.
I would ask each of you to consider corporate sponsorship of TXWSW. Benefits include attendance at our flagship events and recognition for your firm. And most importantly, you help us support the life-changing work of the Young Women’s Preparatory Network. To learn more about YWPN, you can find a short video here. To learn more and sponsorship, you may find our sponsor information here. Additionally, we would be happy to create a custom sponsorship for you. Please contact Bianca King atdevelopmentdirector@txwsw.com
Kind regards
Christine
