Happy Friday!
The women’s march has been all over the news this week and the turnout was nothing short of historic. The New York Times profiled women on Wall Street who turned out for the march – this is significant because it is not a demographic given to street protests. The full article can be found here.
A new survey noted that 82% of women believed that sexism was a problem in society today and 41% of women reported feeling unequal because of their gender. The survey went on to note that men underestimated the impact women felt sexism had in their lives which indicates the need for more discussions on the subject. No problem goes away if you keep it to yourself so this is an opportunity to improve the dialogue around the issue. The full article can be found here.
From the good news file, Philadelphia became the first city to take concrete steps towards narrowing the pay gap by barring employers from asking applicants for their salary history. The idea is that folks should be paid for the skills they bring to the table and not be paid based on their past earnings. The full article can be found here.
The next article details the experiences of Iris Bohnet at Davos this year. Women make up only 20% of attendees and are often confused for significant others rather than attendees. Ms. Bohnet is a behavioral economist at Harvard who studies the impact of gender inequality. The article makes for interesting reading.
With unemployment at post-recession lows, attention is now turning to people who have dropped out of the workforce and figuring out how to get them to re-engage. Male workforce participation has been on the decline for some time, however, the decline was offset by the increase in the number of women working. Seven years into the recovery, women’s participation rates have still lagged which is an issue for our economy. The next article notes that the reason women drop out is much different than men – because women are still the primary caregivers, they are often forced to the sidelines by family obligations. The full article can be found here.
Lastly, one woman started a rebellion against sexist work place dress codes in Britain after being sent home for refusing to wear high heels. 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