Women's History Month 2007

From release by the U.S. Census:

National Women’s History Month’s roots go back to March 8, 1857, when women from New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. International Women’s Day was first observed in 1909, but it wasn’t until 1981 that Congress established National Women’s History Week during the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month. Every year since, Congress has passed a resolution for Women’s History Month, and the president has issued a proclamation...

Women's History Month: March 2007
Census release paints a statistical portrait of women in the U.S. today at work, school, home, business and beyond

Old school feminist to head our oldest university, like it or not

If “fellow” Harvard University academic Dan Kindlon’s surveys are accurate (he goes out of his way in his latest book, Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She is Changing the World—more than an overstatement-- to promote the thoroughness of his research), Drew Gilpin Faust, just-named president of the country’s oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning, is an irrelevant anachronism, with both a CV and personal history his next-generationers of women disown as an embarrassment to their sex.

Dr. Faust is a historian, having devoted much of her academic life to teaching and chronicling women’s history as well as her own struggles for equality, not just for women, but for African Americans as well. Her biographies note that she grew up as a white southerner with priviledge, but who, early on and much to the consternation of her mother, began to question women’s role in southern society and who, when 9 years old, wrote a letter to President Eisenhower, asking him to end segregation.

The alpha girls of Dr. Kindlon’s book, aged 13 to 22, will be unimpressed, grousing that the struggle for equality of women, in the home, at school, in the workplace, is old hat; they’re tired of hearing their mothers’ “You don’t know what it was like out there when I was coming up,” and boast that their equality with, even superiority to, males is a no-brainer.

In an early Times news story, Dr. Faust’s “collaborative style and considerable people skills” were praised. At the same time, some male faculty members grumbled that this more feminine, if we may, management style was too feeble for the tough job of managing tough issues involving tough contenders. Kindlon’s alpha girls would agree. Their role models tend more to Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher, advocating for a pro-active, tough-guy, take-no-prisoners approach to getting on in the world.

Stay tuned to the Women’s Village pages for a frontal lobotomy (wasn’t too difficult, as there wasn’t much grey matter to excise) on Coach Kindlon’s Warriors. Meanwhile, my hat’s (without the veil) off to Drew Gilpin Faust. You go, girl!

PepsiCo Elects CEO Indra K. Nooyi as Chairman

Move Effective May 2, 2007 Upon Steven S Reinemund's Retirement

From Feb. 5 Media Release by Pepsico:

PepsiCo's board of directors announced today that it has elected Indra K. Nooyi,
51, Chairman of the Board, effective when Executive Chairman Steven S
Reinemund, 58, retires on May 2, as he announced last August. Mrs. Nooyi is
currently Chief Executive Officer of the more than $32 billion global convenient
food and beverage company, a role she assumed on October 1, 2006.

Catalyst announces 2007 awards

A release by Catalyst.org has announced the winners of the organization's 2007 award "recognizing corporate initiatives that advance women and business".

The year's winners Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Scotiabank will make presentations at a ceremony at the Grand Hyatt in New York City on March 21, 2007.

"PCAST" Study: Worry about Kids a Drag on Productivity

A recent study by Catalyst, released Dec. 6, 2006, has put focus on what many working parents already intuitive know: "Millions of working fathers and mothers are less productive at work due to concerns about what their children are doing in the after-school hours."

The study, "After-School Worries: Tough on Parents, Bad for Business," was conducted in cooperation with the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.

In reporting the findings, the researchers have devised a handy little acronym,
“PCAST,” standing for Parental Concern about After-School Time, to sum up those little minutes of distraction and commiseration with co-workers and worried phone calls that add up to hours of anxiety and afternoon-killers on the job.

"With over 52 million working parents in the United States," the study projects, "PCAST contributes to worker stress that costs businesses between $50 billion and $300 billion annually in lost job productivity."

Among the remedies this productivity-killer, the study suggests, is building real flexibility into the workplace: "Developing “The Agile Workplace,” placing emphasis on more job control enabling employees to “work smart” and perform better, focusing on goals and results, and granting all employees access to flexible work programs, including flex-time, telecommuting, and flex-space."

For more, see the release at Catalyst -- it's in Adobe PDF, so you need to install the free Adobe Reader software first.

Calling all "Geek Girls"

The latest in what's become an increasingly fretful series of articles about the lack of women entering the nation's (quickly depleting) pool of engineers suggests is examining models of university recruitment programs targeting women students.

A standout, it seems, has been the effort by MIT, where "targeted programs have yielded 36 percent female enrollment in undergraduate engineering," according to the article by the AP's Dorie Turner.

This still seems the exception rather than the rule, however. The articles focuses on other unversities' initiatives that have not reaped the same benefits. Women are still not entering the field in the needed numbers, in large part because of social and cultural obstacles -- such as stereotypes of the nerdy engineer, or the perception that engineering isn't a field "that allows you to help people" -- rather than industry or workplace obstacles.

Clearly, the path to success in the field is a tough one for women, and perhaps moreso for minority women in particular, as recounted in the profile, "How I Got Where I Am: An Engineering Manager," by College Journal's Adelle Waldman on the Village.

However, as a range of engineering-related industries are growing ever more hysterical over a looming labor crisis, a combination of university and industry intiatives designed to walk women engineers through the many stages of their career development seems to be reaping some results. As the Waldman profile shows, there were many times that Tonya Love, a young Black woman who worked her way into a gratifying position as a project leader at Xerox, doubted that the field was or could be a good one for her. Support in grad school, good advice, and a series of strong internships were crucial stepping stones that kept her going.

In another piece, young Sophie Theis, writing for YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia, sees a subtle cultural change going on, however, that might be good news for engineering schools. In Who Asked Us -- The New (Female) Nerd and the 'Gender Gap,' Theis argues that "the new gender gap is all about attitude":

The new nerd is a hard-working girl, while boys try hard to not try too
hard. That's why so many girls are achieving more than boys in high school and
college.

The development of a "geek-chic for girls" could bode well for companies looking to keep up their supply of skilled engineers, such as our many, many clients of who are specifically looking to fire engineers of all types and levels at IMDiversity.com. The editors are interested in keeping up with stories on this theme in the future, and would also be interested in hearing from some proud "geeks" out there to hear your views on what led to your interests in engineering, computing and similar fields. If you have a story to share with us, please drop us a line.

Happy New Year from the Women's Village!

After some time off for family and travel, the editors wish everyone a happy, healthy and productive new year.

We hope you had a chance to stop by over the holidays for some the features in our Women's Village Headline News section, which supplemented the usual news with some engaging and thought-provoking special series readings from the Associated Press about the stressors that come with holiday seasons, especially on working women.

For this week, we'll be running a new profile of business consultant Anna Duran, founder of the successful Duran Group. A Latina entrepreneur, Duran describes her life's path from her rough upbringing in East Oakland to New York and Wall Street, and her work on the way as a psychotherapist, a teacher at Columbia University, an author and business researcher, and a business diversity advocate. The feature is co-posted with our sister site, Hispanic American Village.

With the ascendancy of Nancy Pelosi, we'll probably also be following up with additional news from the Beltway this week, and we will definitely be updating our featured jobs again, so we hope you'll stop back again soon.