Even as the PreparedU Project focuses on women in business, especially millennials, the topic continues to engage the media as well. In the coming weeks, we’ll round up some of the best, saving you time to further the cause of equality in the workforce — a true millennial value.
Matt Lauer Continues to Show Chauvinism on Today Show
During an interview with Mary Barra, NBC’s Today Show host Matt Lauer asked the General Motors CEO whether she thinks she got the job because she’s a woman, and how she’s managing to balance career and motherhood — inciting rage among the masses, starting with several male business columnists (including Tom Walsh of the Detroit Free Press), who asked if Lauer would be asking the same questions about balancing executive duties and parenthood of a male CEO, specifically Barra’s industry contemporaries Alan Mulally at Ford or Sergio Marchionne at FiatChrystler. Watch the video on Politico.org.
Verizon Wants You to Know Girls are More Than Just Pretty
We’re standing and clapping for Verizon and their decision to air an ad following the story of a single girl from toddler to teen, highlighting the ways we discourage her over the course of her lifetime. The results are alarming: Despite 66 percent of fourth-grade girls saying they like science and math, only 18 percent of college engineering majors are female. Watch the video on HuffingtonPost.com.
White House Hosts Summit on Working Families
Starting a discourse on potential political action that could alleviate the burden for America’s dual-income households, the White House hosted the first-ever Summit on Working Families this week — drawing attention to the fact that America is only one of three countries not to require paid leave for a sick family member, and that some parents have trouble “even taking a day off to give birth.” Read these 7 Ideas That Could Make Life Easier For Working Parents on Money magazine.
5 Things Every Female Entrepreneur Should Know
In this piece on ELITE Daily, Aubrie Pagano, the young founder and CEO of (formerly Boston-based) fashion label Bow & Drape, shares her four best tips for women in entrepreneurship — with the emphasis on the fact that “What it takes to make it is, in a lot of ways, gender neutral — a business you’re proud of or a new IPO doesn’t look different whether you’re a man or a woman.” In addition, 99Dresses founder Nikki Durkin (who started her company at just 19 years old) shares lessons with Medium.com about what it’s like when your startup fails — something she claims the startup press rarely shares, “Maybe it’s because most founders are men, and men generally don’t like talking about their feelings. [Or] maybe it’s because failure is embarrassing.”
Leaning Out: Sexist Double Standards in Negotiating
It’s been well documented that female CEOs are evaluated with a different set of criteria (and held to a higher level of scrutiny) — and, according to The New Yorker, the same gender bias may be true for females who try to negotiate their salaries. Focusing on studies from Carnegie Mellon and Harvard, as well as the personal story of a Nazareth College professor known as W, the article shows how negotiating can actually backfire for women in business.
April Lane is a freelance writer.