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June 18, 2010

Today’s Feminist: A Different Breed?

Posted by twhpadmin under Benchmarks, Marie Wilson, Women's Leadership
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The New York Times: Letters to the Editor
Marie C. Wilson
June 18, 2010

Ross Douthat ends his June 14 column, “No Mystique About Feminism,” with the assertion that the emergence of the most recent round of conservative victories is a happy consequence of the victories of the women’s movement. He is right: the women who won this month have the feminist movement, and especially the ’70s liberal wave of feminism, to thank for opening the public world of politics to women.

What gets lost in Mr. Douthat’s analysis is the slippery slope that we may find ourselves on if the policies that made it possible for Carly Fiorina et al. are not supported going forward. Women must have choices about how many children they can support, affordable child care options and the ability to earn a living that will allow more of them to run for office and lead in other sectors as well.

Women make up only 17 percent of political leaders today, and the White House Project’s most recent research, “Benchmarking Women’s Leadership,” shows that across 10 sectors of American culture, women on average are only 18 percent of its leaders. If the full range of health, economic and safety options is not supported by the women who advance, then they will pull the ladder up behind them.

Marie C. Wilson
President and Founder
The White House Project
New York, June 14, 2010

Want to read more of the original article? Click here.

 

April 26, 2010

The Tea Party Comes Out

Posted by twhpadmin under Benchmarks, Marie Wilson | Tags: |
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A fear of diversity is at the center of Tea Party anger, argues The White House Project’s Marie Wilson—the very quality that produces good decision-making and the innovation that is likely to pull us out of the Great Recession.

For several months Americans have watched the Tea Party movement grow and have asked, “What do these groups really want?”  When they purported to be against healthcare reform (what they called, “Obamacare”) but carried signs that read  “Get your government out of my Medicare” and “Take our country back,”  it didn’t make sense.  And the Tea Party protesters we’ve seen on the news aren’t talking about the traditional firebrand issues of abortion and gay rights either.  Actually, during the healthcare debates, they didn’t seem to have any solid policy issues at all, just anger.  But when the racial and homophobic epithets started to fly, the plot thinned.

Frank Rich nailed it in his March 28 New York Times piece, “The Rage Is Not About Health Care.”  As he said, it’s about the “real changes in America that can’t be repealed,” and he made a clear, historically based case about just what the ethnically homogeneous Tea Party members are afraid of losing: the dominance of white people in the United States.   It’s the same fear that the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights bill evoked.

Citing the folks who so visibly and recently represent this change (President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Justice Sotomayor),  Rich also argues that the issue didn’t have to be healthcare,  but that any inaugural piece of legislation would have elicited these “fears of disenfranchisement among a … dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play.”  It is no surprise that those legislators who were singled out first with slurs and spit, like Representatives John Cleaver and Barney Frank and, the lion of the House, Representative John Lewis, are well-known African-American and gay leaders in Congress.  I agree with Rich in his assessment that when the Tea Party folks signal whom they “want to take the country back from,” it is representatives like Cleaver, Frank and Lewis, and their prime target, Nancy Pelosi, whom they are talking about.

Graphic by Vanessa Dennis & Cris Amico; source: Patchwork NationGraphic by Vanessa Dennis & Cris Amico; source: Patchwork Nation

As someone who grew up in Georgia in the forties and fifties and worked in the civil rights movement in the sixties, I recognized in Sarah Palin’s terse rhetoric during the presidential campaign, as Rich did, language that served as bait and evoked cries of Obama as a “traitor” and actual calls to take Obama’s life.  This rhetoric ostensibly paved the way for the post-election Tea Party movement.  Palin’s actions then and now show that beyond her lack of knowledge about politics and policy, her lack of understanding of history and culture is more dangerous.  I truly doubt she grasps the fire she is playing with, and I pray that powerful people in her party will not follow McCain’s lead in joining her in these references, and will instead advise her to cut out her language about “reload” and the gun-related images on her website.

While I disagree with the Tea Partiers actions, I don’t want to diminish the real anger and fears that Americans who aren’t taking tea, but are suffering and need some way to participate in our democracy.   I also understand that they see very few open avenues that will permit them to constructively vent their frustrations.

Those of us who are still employed have a responsibility and a mandate to help make the needed changes.   We also have the duty to keep the intensity down by talking about the real promise this growing diversity in our country, and across every branch of our government, holds for a more prosperous union.  New research actually shows that a diverse group of people will make a better decision than a group of experts, because as one of the leading researchers, Scott Page says, “we are all stuck at different places.”  It is this variety of orientation and perspective that breeds innovation.

The paradox here is that the rich diversity of people the Tea Party fears could be the key to pulling us out of this economic slump, which was created by in large by groups of wealthy white men from very similar backgrounds.

As the leader of The White House Project, I see daily the repercussions of our failure to use the resources represented by American’s women who cross all of these diverse areas, and I know what we are missing out on.   For instance, as our recently released Benchmarks Report revealed,  women led only 3 percent of the Fortune 500 companies and hold fewer than 17 percent of the executive positions in those companies, even though research shows that profits at Fortune 500 firms that most aggressively promoted women were 34 percent higher than industry medians.

As Frank Rich noted, there are real changes in American life that cannot be repealed, but that can be used to foster a better life for all of us, if we remember what Franklin Roosevelt said long ago, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

View this online.

For another WMC Exclusive posted today, click on “The Tea Party Movement—Taking the Pulse,” a report and analysis by Peggy Simpson. The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author alone and do not represent WMC. WMC is a 501(c)(3) organization and does not endorse candidates.

 

December 2, 2009

Why Aren't Women Running for Office?

Posted by twhpadmin under Benchmarks, Go Run
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Chicago Sun Times
By Carol Marin
December 2, 2009

Where the heck are the women? Just look at the current list of candidates running for statewide office.

For governor?

Seven Republicans, four Democrats and one Green? All men.

For lieutenant governor?

Six Republicans, six Democrats, all men.

Secretary of state? All men again.

Only Lisa Madigan, the incumbent, brings gender diversity to the race for attorney general.

For state comptroller, just two women among seven candidates: Republican Judy Baar Topinka and Green Party R. Erika Schafer.

For state treasurer, Democrat Robin Kelly is the lone female.

On the federal level, it’s just as bleak.

For U.S. Senate, out of 16 candidates, there is just one woman on the Democratic ticket, Cheryle Jackson, and one for the GOP, Kathleen Thomas.

What’s happening?

“I wish I knew the answer,” Republican political strategist Christine Dudley said Tuesday.

Dudley has been trying hard for years to recruit Republican-minded women to run for office through a program known as the Illinois Lincoln Excellence in Public Service Series, which since 1995 has graduated 165 women from its training sessions. Even so, Dudley says, “Times are tough. Our classes have gone from 18 women down to 10 because it’s been difficult to raise the money.”

Loretta Durbin, a prime mover in a parallel Democrat-oriented effort, said Tuesday that of the 100 women her Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership has trained since 2002, 33 have run for public office.

“Women’s greatest obstacle,” she said by phone from Springfield, “is fund-raising and just becoming part of the political structure of the area they are in.”

And let’s be honest, neither the establishment Republican nor Democratic parties has made recruitment of female candidates much of a mission.

“Politics remains misogynist,” lamented Dudley.

“It’s a huge mistake by both parties,” said Pat Brady, the new head of the Illinois GOP. “We’re trying, though. We tried to recruit two women for the governor’s race, and they wouldn’t get in. They had reasons, and a lot of good ones.”

And that’s the other part of this story.

Though the grand old parties have done a lousy job of encouraging women to run, women also have shown significant reluctance to jump in, according to longtime activist and political strategist Rebecca Sive. “The women who get to the high posts have to decide early — Lisa Madigan is a good example of that — but a lot of women don’t figure that out early enough.”

For the sake of influencing policies critical to women, they had better hurry up.

Marie Wilson certainly believes that. She is the founder and president of the White House Project, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit dedicated to advancing women’s leadership all the way up to the White House. It trains women all over the country to run for office.

Wilson argues that the gap in women’s political leadership is part of a whole system of gaps: the wage gap (women earn 78.7 cents for every dollar earned by men); the Fortune 500 gap (women occupy only 15 percent of board seats); the attorney gap (women lawyers’ salaries are $20,000 to $90,000 less than their counterparts), and the film and television gap (women are only 16 percent to 23 percent of top leadership).

Hence, the political gap.

“In politics,” according to Wilson’s White House Project, “women have lost ground in the last decade as elected statewide executive officials (including governor’s lieutenant governors, etc.) and made only small gains in Congress,” where women now constitute just 17 percent.

The aforementioned organizations and individuals are working hard to improve that dismal number. But it’s up to us women to take the risk.

And run.

To read the original article click here.

 

November 24, 2009

Cultivating Authentic Ambition

Posted by twhpadmin under Benchmarks, Women's Leadership | Tags: |
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Forbes Woman
By Jennifer Allyn
November 23, 2009

Earlier this month, the White House Project released a report benchmarking women’s leadership in 10 different sectors. The good news is a majority of Americans (89%) are comfortable with women leaders. The bad news is women comprise only 18% of those leaders. Whether it’s business (16%), law (18%), journalism (22%) or the military (11%), women leaders have yet to achieve critical mass. The question is why and what will it take to have a breakthrough in those numbers?

In my opinion, it’s going to take ambition. When organizations talk about diversity and talent management, the conversation about ambition is noticeably absent. One reason is that it’s complicated. There are many things that influence our aspirations–family background, personality, talents and experience, among others–but gender also plays a major role. Men are assumed to be ambitious until proven otherwise. In contrast, women still receive mixed messages about their style, their commitment to work and their ability to combine leadership with family. As a result, organizations need to be more gender intelligent when it comes to identifying and grooming female leaders.

In her book Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women’s Changing Lives, Anna Fels writes about the social pressures that undermine women’s career aspirations. According to Fels, ambition is composed of two key elements, the first of which is a desire for mastery. Over the last century, as women earned the rights and privileges that were once the domain of men, they demonstrated their commitment to mastery. But mastery of any task takes a long time, which makes recognition the second crucial ingredient: To sustain any ambition individuals need to be recognized, at frequent intervals, by a larger community.

While Americans love stories about people who succeed against all odds, the truth is leaders rise to the top with enormous help from a network of parents, teachers, mentors, peers and supervisors.

Recognition becomes a challenge for women because our expectations about femininity are not easily reconciled with our notions of decisive leadership. Or, as Anna Quindlen once wrote, we want women leaders to be “tough as nails and warm as toast.”

Furthermore, ambition is regarded as a masculine trait, so many women are reluctant even to claim the term. During a panel discussion at my firm we asked the audience what they felt when they heard the word “ambitious” used to describe someone. Almost all the men (94%) had positive connotations, compared with only 57% of the women; and 24% of the women had negative connotations about the word.

Then there is the work and family dilemma. When men become parents their commitment to work is presumed to increase. Wanting to advance on behalf of the family is a central part of a breadwinner’s role. As a result, fathers receive approval for sustaining their professional ambitions as they juggle family responsibilities. In contrast, women’s careers are still viewed as competing with their role as mothers. Suddenly the social feedback becomes mixed and working mothers have to justify their commitment to their careers and prove their worth as parents. That’s why motherhood is a critical milestone where women evaluate, and often downgrade, their long-term ambitions in favor of short-term balance. Organizations have an important role to play in changing that dynamic. By providing flexible options and elongating career paths, women would be able to slow down without giving up their aspirations.

Sigmund Freud famously asked “What do women want?” Too often I’ve observed women wanting what they think they can have. And according to this benchmarking report, that’s 18% of leadership positions.

Women, and the organizations they work for, should want more. To aim higher we need to reclaim the word “ambition,” step up to leadership despite the challenges and help each other sustain our dreams by offering our peers and protégés the all-important recognition upon which their success depends.

Jennifer Allyn is a managing director at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, where she is responsible for designing programs to retain, develop and advance women at the firm.

To view original article click here.

 

November 18, 2009

Program: Women Must Take Initiative in Leadership

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St. Cloud Times
By Amy Bowen • November 13, 2009

Women need to fight for what they believe in and help make Minnesota politics more diverse.

About 80 people packed Mary Center in St. Cloud to hear that message Thursday from two Minnesota female politicians. State Sen. Patricia Torres Ray and Virginia City Councilor Nevada Littlewolf spoke at Taking YOUR Seat at the Table. The event aimed to encourage women to strive for leadership positions in government and other sectors.

The event was sponsored by The White House Project, a national nonprofit encouraging more females to enter politics, and Hands Across the World, a St. Cloud-based nonprofit that aims to help immigrants and refugees adapt to life in the United States.

“The greater idea is getting women to the table,” said Catherine Gray, the Midwest associate director for The White House Project, St. Paul. “Women are leading in smaller ways, and this is to get them to the tables where the decisions are being made.”

The public has the perception that females have made progress in holding government leadership roles, but the statistics tell a different story, Gray said. In Minnesota, one in 10 county commissioners are women, she said. Women hold about 18 percent of leadership roles in politics and other business sectors, she said.

The goal of Thursday’s event was to encourage ordinary women to take action, Gray said.

Interest in the topic was evident. Rows of people sat, while others stood pressed up to the walls, as Ray and Littlewolf spoke. Some took notes, while others nodded in agreement as the women spoke. The audience was diverse, from people who said they were born and raised in St. Cloud to immigrants from Somalia.

Such diversity needs to be heard, said Brianda Cediel, co-founder and executive director of Hands Across the World.

“This is just the beginning,” she said. “I want everyone to get prepared for leadership.”

Neither Ray nor Littlewolf aspired to serving in office, they told the audience.

Littlewolf was elected to the City Council in 2008, driven to run after realizing her daughter had Down syndrome. At age 33, she is the only member under the age of 50, the only woman and the only Native American on the council.

“There are a lot of things I bring to the table and how I lead that are different,” said Littlewolf, who also serves as the White House Project’s Midwest rural field organizer.

She would like to see more women become involved in local politics to create a “pipeline” to other elected offices, Littlewolf said.

Ray, who serves state District 62, which includes southeast Minneapolis, told the audience she didn’t know any English when she moved from Colombia to Minnesota 22 years ago.

She credits a friend, who was a social worker, with helping her become active in her new community, Ray said.

Ray is the first and only Latina to serve in the state Senate.

One audience member, who said she was from Somalia, complimented Ray’s English skills and said the senator was “very smart.”

Ray smiled and replied that learning the language is the most difficult aspect of coming to a new country, and that she continues to learn.

Anyone can become a leader, and strength is in community diversity, Littlewolf and Ray said.

“I knew St. Cloud was changing,” Ray told the audience. “I wanted to come here and meet (you).”

Want to read the original article? Click here.

 

November 13, 2009

The White House Project Reports on Women's Leadership Hurdles

Posted by twhpadmin under Benchmarks, Women's Leadership | Tags: |
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November 13, 2009

ABC News

by Maureen White and Ari Pinkus

In terms of sheer numbers, women now surpass men in the work force, but they’re still lagging far behind their male peers when it comes to cracking those glass ceilings.

Women account for just 18 percent of top leadership roles in 10 sectors, including business, nonprofit groups, law and religion, according to the new report, “Benchmarking Women’s Leadership.”

“Women’s leadership is stuck in every sector of American society at a time when we need their innovation … when we need their talent, and the research tells us [to] bring in the women if you want to change things,” said Marie Wilson, president of The White House Project, the nonprofit organization in New York that produced the report.

As many as 90 percent of women and men report being ready to see women in charge. At the same time, people also believe that both sexes are “already leading equally,” which is a misconception, according to the report.

It takes 33 percent of women in top positions for change to occur in the workplace, Wilson said.

“A third women makes it [seem] normal for women to be there,” Wilson said in an interview with ABC News’ Bianna Golodryga. “A third women makes sure that you focus on the agenda and not gender. A third women actually allows women to be themselves and men to be themselves. And what we are looking for is enough women leading alongside men so that both of us can contribute equally.

“I’d really like 50 percent,” Wilson added. “But 33 [percent] really gives us the edge.”

In pockets of corporate America, it’s far below that number. Among the Fortune 500 companies, only 66 have females on their boards, according to the report. In the corporate ranks, women are known for promoting greater transparency and for being more averse to risk. The bottom line, too, gets a boost when women are at the top. For instance, there’s a 34 percent greater return on equity and shareholders’ investment, according to the report.

This has prompted some firms to consider putting more money in the hands of women.

“You are now having a fund started to invest in companies that have more women on their boards because that is the way to actually be more successful — innovation and as well as money,” Wilson said.

Read more at http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/YourMoney/white-house-project-reports-womens-leadership-hurdles/story?id=9068095

 

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