Workplace Equality Still Has a Long Way to Go

Written By Patrick Cataldo: Isn’t it a shame that in 2008, with nearly a decade gone in the 21st century, we are still coming to terms with issues of equity in the workplace? There needs to come a day — and soon — when stories about women and underrepresented groups in business become unnecessary. This is not yet the case.

As one who has spent a career working to develop the best possible workforce for my employers and now my clients, I know this: Our nation will not be able to compete effectively in the world marketplace without taking full advantage of the skills and talents of all its works.

The numbers don’t lie: While progress is being made with the placement of women in leadership positions in boardrooms and leadership suites, the figures still show that there is a long way to go. Scarcity of women in leadership positions is all too evident. Only 1.4 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO; just 13 percent of corporate board members are women; and 16 percent of Fortune 500 corporate officers are women. To read the entire article, click here: women

Sexism Sells, But We’re Not Buying It

As someone who spent more than 25 years in the news business, I can tell you first hand that racism and sexism play a factor in how stories get told. No journalist will ever come out and admit their bias but if you watch and listen carefully to the way stories are told, you’ll know. Some so-called journalists go as far as to purposely slant the stories told to further their own agendas. Give a listen to Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson sometime.

In the case of the Democratic Primary, it has been a downright shame to see the stories the media has chosen to focus on when it comes to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  What’s even worse is the name calling Hillary has been subjected to by so-called journalism professionals. It has gotten so bad that on May 23, The Women’s Media Center launched “Sexism Sells, But We’re Not Buying It,” a new video and online petition campaign illustrating the pervasive nature of sexism in the media’s coverage. Please take the time to watch the video and read further by clicking here: Sexism in the Media

Gender Gap Widens in Science and Technology Jobs

Although women make up almost half of today’s workforce, they hold just a fraction of the jobs in certain high-earning, high-qualification fields. They constitute 20 percent of the nation’s engineers, fewer than one-third of chemists, and only about a quarter of computer and math professionals.

Over the past decade and more, scores of conferences, studies, and government hearings have been directed at understanding the gap. It has stayed in the media spotlight thanks in part to the high-profile misstep of then-Harvard president Larry Summers, whose loose comment at a Harvard conference on the topic in 2005 ultimately cost him his job.

Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women – highly qualified for the work – stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

One study of information-technology workers found that women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance. Another study followed 5,000 mathematically gifted students and found that qualified women are significantly more likely to avoid physics and the other “hard” sciences in favor of work in medicine and biosciences.

It’s important to note that these findings involve averages and do not apply to all women or men; indeed, there is wide variety within each gender. The researchers are not suggesting that sexism and cultural pressures on women don’t play a role, and they don’t yet know why women choose the way they do. One forthcoming paper in the Harvard Business Review, for instance, found that women often leave technical jobs because of rampant sexism in the workplace.