Career & Practice Guide: Gender Equity

Everyone has an opinion, anecdote, or horror story about women and work. Now the acclaimed author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast shows how real working women with families are actually making the most of their time. "Having it all" has become the subject of countless books, articles, debates, and social media commentary, with passions running high in all directions. Many now believe this to be gospel truth: Any woman who wants to advance in a challenging career has to make huge sacrifices. She's unlikely to have a happy marriage, quality time with her kids (assuming she can have kids at all), a social life, hobbies, or even a decent night's sleep. But what if balancing work and family is actually not as hard as it's made out to be? What if all those tragic anecdotes ignore the women who quietly but consistently do just fine with the juggle? Instead of relying on scattered stories, time management expert Laura Vanderkam set out to add hard data to the debate. She collected hour-by-hour time logs from 1,001 days in the lives of women who make at least $100,000 a year. And she found some surprising patterns in how these women spend the 168 hours that every one of us has each week. Overall, these women worked less and slept more than they assumed they did before they started tracking their time. They went jogging or to the gym, played with their children, scheduled date nights with their significant others, and had lunches with friends. They made time for the things that gave them pleasure and meaning, fitting the pieces together like tiles in a mosaic--without adhering to overly rigid schedules that would eliminate flexibility and spontaneity. Vanderkam shares specific strategies that her subjects use to make time for the things that really matter to them. For instance, they . . .
* Work split shifts (such as seven hours at work, four off, then another two at night from home). This allows them to see their kids without falling behind professionally.
* Get creative about what counts as quality family time. Breakfasts together and morning story time count as much as daily family dinners, and they're often easier to manage.
* Take it easy on the housework. You can free up a lot of time by embracing the philosophy of "good enough" and getting help from other members of your household (or a cleaning service).
* Guard their leisure time. Full weekend getaways may be rare, but many satisfying hobbies can be done in small bursts of time. An hour of crafting feels better than an hour of reality TV.

With examples from hundreds of real women, Vanderkam proves that you don't have to give up on the things you really want. I Know How She Does It will inspire you to build a life that works, one hour at a time.

A groundbreaking book from bestselling author Lois Frankel proves that women possess innate skills that make them the best leaders (that means better than men ) in today's workplace and beyond.

More than fifty trailblazing executive women who broke the corporate glass ceiling offer inspiring and surprising insights and lessons in this essential, in-the-trenches career guide from Joann S. Lublin, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and management news editor for The Wall Street Journal. Among the first female reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Joann S. Lublin faced a number of uphill battles in her career. She became deputy bureau chief of the Journal's important London bureau, its first run by women. Now, she and dozens of other women who successfully navigated the corporate battlefield share their valuable leadership lessons. Lublin combines her fascinating story with insightful tales from more than fifty women who reached the highest rungs of the corporate ladder--most of whom became chief executives of public companies --in industries as diverse as retailing, manufacturing, finance, high technology, publishing, advertising, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals. Leaders like Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, as well as Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, and Brenda Barnes, former CEO of Sara Lee, were the first women to run their huge employers. Earning It reveals obstacles such women faced as they fought to make their mark, choices they made, and battles they won--and lost. Lublin chronicles the major milestones and dilemmas of the work world unique to women, providing candid advice and practical inspiration for women of all ages and at every stage of their careers. The extraordinary women we meet in the pages of Earning It and the hard-won lessons they share provide a compelling career compass that will help all women reach their highest potential without losing a meaningful personal life.

The key to advancing gender equality? Men. Women are at a disadvantage. At home, they often face an unequal division of household chores and childcare, and in the workplace, they deal with lower pay, lack of credit for their contributions, roadblocks to promotion, sexual harassment, and more. And while organizations are looking to address these issues, too many gender-inclusion initiatives focus on how women themselves should respond, reinforcing the perception that these are "women's issues" and that men—often the most influential stakeholders in an organization—don't need to be involved. Gender-in-the-workplace experts David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson counter this perception. In this important book, they show that men have a crucial role to play in promoting gender equality at work. Research shows that when men are deliberately engaged in gender-inclusion programs, 96 percent of women in those organizations perceive real progress in gender equality, compared with only 30 percent of women in organizations without strong male engagement. Good Guys is the first practical, research-based guide for how to be a male ally to women in the workplace. Filled with firsthand accounts from both men and women, and tips for getting started, the book shows how men can partner with their female colleagues to advance women's leadership and equality by breaking ingrained gender stereotypes, overcoming unconscious biases, developing and supporting the talented women around them, and creating productive and respectful working relationships with women.

As companies expand their international operations, smart women who are prepared to pursue opportunities overseas can dramatically accelerate their careers, enjoying high-profile projects, bigger promotions, and impressive financial rewards. Get Ahead by Going Abroad is the go-to resource that reveals how women, single or married, can leverage this trend to showcase their skills and move up quickly on their own terms. Written by two women who did so with huge success, the book is packed with candid, instructive anecdotes and examples from their own and others' experiences, and step-by-step guidance for securing and succeeding in an international position. Yeatman and Berdan show how women at every level can benefit from an overseas posting: young professionals seeking to break out from the pack, mid-career women interested in new challenges with increased responsibility, or senior executives in pursuit of positions in executive management. Get Ahead by Going Abroad helps you get further, faster; and have fun along the way. It gives you the strategies to land the assignment, thrive in the job, and enjoy the lifestyle abroad.

While powerful gender inequalities remain in American society, women have made substantial gains and now largely surpass men in one crucial arena: education. Women now outperform men academically at all levels of school, and are more likely to obtain college degrees and enroll in graduate school. What accounts for this enormous reversal in the gender education gap? In The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools, Thomas DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann provide a detailed and accessible account of women's educational advantage and suggest new strategies to improve schooling outcomes for both boys and girls. The Rise of Women opens with a masterful overview of the broader societal changes that accompanied the change in gender trends in higher education. The rise of egalitarian gender norms and a growing demand for college-educated workers allowed more women to enroll in colleges and universities nationwide. As this shift occurred, women quickly reversed the historical male advantage in education. By 2010, young women in their mid-twenties surpassed their male counterparts in earning college degrees by more than eight percentage points. The authors, however, reveal an important exception: While women have achieved parity in fields such as medicine and the law, they lag far behind men in engineering and physical science degrees. To explain these trends, The Rise of Women charts the performance of boys and girls over the course of their schooling. At each stage in the education process, they consider the gender-specific impact of factors such as families, schools, peers, race and class. Important differences emerge as early as kindergarten, where girls show higher levels of essential learning skills such as persistence and self-control. Girls also derive more intrinsic gratification from performing well on a day-to-day basis, a crucial advantage in the learning process. By contrast, boys must often navigate a conflict between their emerging masculine identity and a strong attachment to school. Families and peers play a crucial role at this juncture. The authors show the gender gap in educational attainment between children in the same families tends to be lower when the father is present and more highly educated. A strong academic climate, both among friends and at home, also tends to erode stereotypes that disconnect academic prowess and a healthy, masculine identity. Similarly, high schools with strong science curricula reduce the power of gender stereotypes concerning science and technology and encourage girls to major in scientific fields. As the value of a highly skilled workforce continues to grow, The Rise of Women argues that understanding the source and extent of the gender gap in higher education is essential to improving our schools and the economy. With its rigorous data and clear recommendations, this volume illuminates new ground for future education policies and research.

#1 Washington Post Bestseller First things first: There will be no man shaming. That's What She Said. A recent Harvard study found that corporate "diversity training" has actually made the gender gap worse--in part because it makes men feel demonized. Women, meanwhile, have been told closing the gender gap is up to them: they need to speak up, to be more confident, to demand to be paid what they're worth. They discuss these issues amongst themselves all the time. What they don't do is talk to men about it. It's time to end that disconnect. More people in leadership roles are genuinely trying to transform the way we work together, because there's abundant evidence that companies with more women in senior leadership perform better by virtually every measure. Yet despite good intentions, men often lack the tools they need, leading to fumbles, missteps, frustration and misunderstanding that continue to inflict real and lasting damage on women's careers. That's What She Said solves for that dilemma. Filled with illuminating anecdotes, data from the most recent studies, and stories from Joanne Lipman's own journey to the top of a male-dominated industry, it shows how we can win by reaching across the gender divide. What can the Enron scandal teach us about the way men and women communicate professionally? How does brain chemistry help explain men's fear of women's emotions at work? Why did Kimberly Clark have an all-male team of executives in charge of their Kotex tampon line? What can we learn from Iceland's campaign to "feminize" an entire nation? That's What She Said shows why empowering women as true equals is an essential goal for women and men--and offers a roadmap for getting there. That's What She Said solves for:
·The respect gap
·Unconscious bias
·Interruptions
·The pay and promotion gap
·Being heard
·The motherhood penalty
·"Bropropriation" and "mansplaining"
·And more...

Picking up the women and success conversation where Sheryl Sandberg left off, Krawcheck shows women how to take their careers to the next level....by playing by a new set of rules that build on their natural strengths. So much advice for women talks about how to succeed in the static business world of yesterday and today. But that world is rapidly changing, and these changes are empowering women in unprecedented ways. Because in the increasingly complex, connected, and technology-driven world of tomorrow where communication and collaboration rule the day the skills and qualities needed for success are ones that women inherently possess- in spades. By owning those qualities - qualities that make women amazing collaborators, extraordinary leaders and invaluable assets in the business world - you have more power and potential than you realize. Here Krawcheck draws on her experiences at the highest levels of business, both as one of the lone women at the top rungs of the biggest boys club in the world, and as an entrepreneur, to show how women can tap into these skills - and their enormous economic power - to elevate their careers- everything from getting the raise, to new takes on networking and mentoring, to navigating career breaks and curveballs and forging non-traditional career paths, to how to initiate the "courageous conversations" about true flexibility and diversity in the workplace. We can have a more significant role than ever in shaping our companies - and building new companies - into places we want to work. Lighting the path to complete the revolution ignited by Gloria Steinem, Krawcheck shows how each one of us can leverage our growing power to own our careers and our futures.

In her continuing quest to raise the retention rates for women lawyers, Susan Smith Blakely takes the messages of her award-winning Best Friends at the Bar project to a new audience. The first two books in the Best Friends at the Bar series, What Women Need to Know about a Career in the Law and The New Balance for Today and 2017's Woman Lawyer, address the challenges of the law profession for women lawyers and the responsibilities of young women to take charge of their professional lives to develop successful and satisfying careers. With this new book, the author shifts her focus to law firm leaders and their responsibility for helping women lawyers meet the challenges of law practice and for retaining the considerable talent that women lawyers bring to firms and to the profession. Through the use of proven leadership concepts, the author tells law firm leaders what others are afraid to tell them about the failings of their leadership styles, particularly as applied to young women lawyers. As a former law firm partner, a chief of staff in public service, and a wife and mother, Susan Blakely understands leadership for women lawyers and how it must be responsive to the values that are unique to women in the workplace. You will learn Why Women Lawyers Leave; Why Law Firms Should Care; Why Past Retention Efforts Have Failed and What Needs to Be Included in a Successful Law Firm Women and 2017's Initiative; Why Mentors and Leaders are Critical to the Success of Women Lawyers; Who the Millennial Lawyers Are and Why Law Firm Leaders Do Not Understand Them; What Makes an Effective Law Firm Leader for Women Lawyers; and How to Have Conversations about the Important Challenges Facing Women Lawyers Today. Included in the book are check lists to initiate the conversations between leaders and women lawyers to retain talent and positively affect succession plans for law firms.

In this book, a cross-section of women attorneys in a variety of practice areas share their experiences, frustrations, and advice with those considering or currently practicing law. They discuss how they perceive the present state of legal practice for female attorneys, provide their favorite tips for achieving a work-life balance, and discuss a variety of solutions to work-life balance issues.

How do women lawyers define success in today's world? For this new guide, author Phyllis Horn Epstein interviewed over 100 women lawyers of all ages, backgrounds, and lifestyle in a wide variety of practice settings in the nation.

The captivating story of how a diverse group of women, including Janet Reno and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, broke the glass ceiling and changed the modern legal profession In Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers, award-winning legal historian Jill Norgren curates the oral histories of one hundred extraordinary American women lawyers who changed the profession of law. Many of these stories are being told for the first time. As adults these women were on the front lines fighting for access to law schools and good legal careers. They challenged established rules and broke the law's glass ceiling.Norgren uses these interviews to describe the profound changes that began in the late 1960s, interweaving social and legal history with the women's individual experiences. In 1950, when many of the subjects of this book were children, the terms of engagement were clear: only a few women would be admitted each year to American law schools and after graduation their professional opportunities would never equal those open to similarly qualified men. Harvard Law School did not even begin to admit women until 1950. At many law schools, well into the 1970s, men told female students that they were taking a place that might be better used by a male student who would have a career, not babies. In 2005 the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession initiated a national oral history project named the Women Trailblazers in the Law initiative: One hundred outstanding senior women lawyers were asked to give their personal and professional histories in interviews conducted by younger colleagues. The interviews, made available to the author, permit these women to be written into history in their words, words that evoke pain as well as celebration, humor, and somber reflection. These are women attorneys who, in courtrooms, classrooms, government agencies, and NGOs have rattled the world with insistent and successful demands to reshape their profession and their society. They are women who brought nothing short of a revolution to the profession of law.

This is a collection of 101 letters from women who have taken the courageous and difficult step of creating a law firm of their own, either as a solo or with others. Focusing on the experiences, challenges, and opportunities of women-owned law firms, these women reiterate key themes: Of becoming businesswomen. Of choosing a practice area true to their passion. Of controlling not only their days but their destinies. Of ambition in action.

Contains first-hand accounts by successful women lawyers of their experiences at various stages of career development. In the four parts: Where We Are; How We Got There; What Our Environment Is Like; and Where We're Going, this book includes contributors who provide reflections, advice, guidance, and, of course, war stories.