Wednesday Greetings:
As you may be aware, our Houston Chapter is hosting its annual Boots & Blackjack event on Wednesday, October 11th. Given the devastation Harvey has wrought on Houston, we have updated the use of proceeds raised at the event to include disaster recovery for the students and staff of the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy of Houston. Please join us in supporting both the Houston and Austin Boots & Blackjack this Fall!
The power of the YWPN network was in full force last week. Several of the Houston students were evacuated to San Antonio due to the storm, and YWPN was able to work with both the Houston ISD and San Antonio ISD to get the girls enrolled in the San Antonio school last week to minimize disruption to at least their education.
A recent NY Times article noted that the late 1990’s was the best era for women in the workplace when labor force participation peaked at 60.3%. Part of the issue can be blamed on the fact that the US is the only developed economy without paid family leave, subsidized child care and flexible work arrangements. And why does this matter? If women keep getting pushed out of the workforce, the economy will suffer. To put this in perspective, in 2012, if women’s labor force participation was at the levels of the late 1970’s, it would have shrunk the economy by 11%. If the US is worried about economic growth, this is low hanging fruit. The full article can be found here. In Texas, the income of a typical single mom in Texas is $23,870 and care for just one child can cost up to 21% of her income.
Last week was a rough week for the fight to close the gender pay gap. The Trump administration reversed a rule requiring companies to report how much they paid people along with their race and sex. Without this transparency, it will make the fight to achieve pay equality much harder. The full article can be found here.
In another setback, according to Jacki Zehner of Women Moving Millions, it took 8 years of work and championing by former Treasurer Rosie Rios to put Harriet Tubman on the redesigned $20 bill and now the Trump administration’s Steve Mnuchin are stepping back from this. The full article can be found here.
On the good news front, federal judge Jack B. Weinstein read the report on the lack of women given the opportunity to speak in courtrooms. His response to the study was to institute a rule in his courtroom urging a more visible and substantive role for women on the cases he is hearing. The simplest solutions are often the most effective ones. The full article may be found here.
Finally, the recent Silicon Valley scandals have opened up a dialogue in the male-dominated VC industry causing people (men) to examine their behavior. To quote Will Quist from the article “We are taking a lot of time to look deeper at how our unconscious behaviors contribute to our own role in all of this, and how to improve.” It sounds like a step in the right direction to me. The full article can be found here.
We have some terrific events lined up for you this Fall and look forward to seeing you all at an event in 2017! To learn more about our 2017 events, please visit www.txwsw.com Please also scroll to the end of this newsletter to check out some interesting jobs from our network.
Kind regards
Christine