Episode 19: Women, work, and sex

May 28, 2013

"Women are absolutely captivated by their professional success, at the expense of their marriages." - Evelyn Resh, sexuality counselor and author

I never thought I'd be doing a show about sex. It didn't seem, at first blush, to factor into the topic of women and the workplace. But then I found out about sexuality counselor Evelyn Resh and her book Women, Sex, Power and Pleasure, and I thought again. Before I came across the book I was reading a few biographies and memoirs of and by powerful women. Often, by the time I got to the end of a book or article about someone's whirlwind existence, I would have one niggling thought: "I wonder if they ever have the time or energy for sex? If not, what kind of relationship do they have with their spouse?" According to Resh, many professional women's sexuality has gone into retreat and they're in all but sexless partnerships. She wants to change that. Tune in for an enlightening show not just about sexuality but women's difficult relationship with pleasure and enjoyment in general. How many of us regularly tell ourselves, "I don't deserve it?" 23 minutes.

Show notes: This piece about women's sexuality came out in the New York Times Magazine recently. As you can see from the comments, it's generating a lot of interest. Everlyn Resh (below), like many of the commenters, is against using drugs to get women to feel sexy again. Her book is Women, Sex, Power and Pleasure.  

This study doesn't focus on conservative women and sexuality - though I too have heard about said elusive study - rather it focuses on 'housework and sexual frequency in marriage.' I guess you could link the two things (traditional housework roles and more conservative women, that is).

Your thoughts on this show are welcome - post a comment below.

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Episode 18: The power of image

May 13, 2013

"I have people that come to me saying, 'I haven’t made partner in my law firm.'  And I have to say to them, 'Do you wear that much cleavage at work? Because if you wear that much cleavage at work, I'm not surprised you haven't made partner.'"

- Mrs. Moneypenny

Our appearance has an affect on the way others see us, whether we like it or not. Most successful women spend a significant amount of time thinking about the image they present to the outside world. Some even dare to flout expectations occasionally (see Hillary Clinton, below). And while there may be endless emphasis on women's appearance, it's not as if men don't have to worry about this too. The power of image runs deep.

This episode features Financial Times columnist Mrs. Monepenny (alias the impeccably turned-out Heather McGregor) and chemical company engineer Amy Johnson (right - forget the hairdo and makeup), with a fleeting appearance from McKinsey and Company's Joanna Barsh. 12 minutes.

Show notes: You can find the US version of Heather McGregor's book, Mrs. Moneypenny's Career Advice for Ambitious Women, here.

This is the column by Financial Times fashion editor Vanessa Friedman that got me thinking about this whole topic of appearance, and wondering why Sheryl Sandberg didn't touch on it in Lean In. It's called 'Sheryl Sandberg's Mistake'. 

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Episode 17: Female in Silicon Valley

April 29, 2013

"In this one particular conversation I had with an angel investor...he responded, ‘Well, I don’t want to say the wrong thing and call you a meek Asian woman, but I wonder how you will lead a group of about 100 people?’" - Elizabeth Yin, co-founder, LaunchBit

Raising money for a startup is a tough proposition for any entrepreneur. Elizabeth Yin (left) and her co-founder set out more than a year ago to raise a first round of funding for their company, LaunchBit. Along the way, they became more conscious of their gender than they'd ever been before. 18 minutes. 

In part two of the show, we meet Janne Sigurdsson (above), an Icelandic director at Alcoa, the mining company, who talks about how much work her employer has done to make the firm more appealing to women. Smelters aren't known for their allure, but Alcoa upped its female workforce by more than three percent during the recession.

And we meet a couple of executives from Coca-Cola, who explain what the beverage behemoth is doing to make life better for women inside and outside the company.

Show notes: Elizabeth Yin wrote this piece for Women 2.0 about her funding experiences, which prompted me to interview her for the show. This piece from The Verge is also very revealing about just how hard it can be for women business owners to get male investors to take their ideas seriously. 

You can read more about Catalyst's honoring of Alcoa here and Coca-Cola here. Oxfam's Behind the Brands report came out in February.

Sponsorship notices: Do take advantage of Audible's and Squarespace's offers! You can get a free audio book and a 30-day Audible trial by going to Audiblepodcast.com/broad. As I said in the show, Bossypants really is great. For the Squarespace offer go to to Squarespace.com/broad and use the code 'broad4' if you decide to sign up - it'll get you a 10% discount. I built this site using Squarespace 5 - but they're now on 6, which looks even better.

Episode 16: Leaning in

April 12, 2013

Finally, the great debate: The Broad Experience is leaning in. 

"I went into the book with very negative expectations. I had read...articles...that suggested she came from a privileged point of view and didn’t have anything to say to the masses. But I felt completely the opposite after reading it." - Yvahn Martin

"There are two people in this book who are not white. One is a Hispanic male and one is an African-American male...She never talks about how non-white women have totally different experiences on top of what she's described." - Stacy-Marie Ishmael

"She’s not risking a ton by writing this book…but once you realize this is not my best friend Sheryl telling me what she thinks, there’s some good stuff in there.” - Dora Chomiak

(Standing up, left to right: Yvahn Martin, Dora Chomiak, Stacy Marie Ishmael.

On sofa, l to r: Ashley Milne-Tyte, Gaea Freireich, Rebecca Jackson)

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's book 'Lean In' was famous - or infamous, depending on your point of view - before it was even published. Once it came out, it shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. This week six women from Generations X and Y gathered over a glass of wine to debate the merits of Sandberg's advice, and discuss how the book plays into the whole debate about male and female roles at work and in the home. Views are varied and unvarnished. 26 minutes (well you can't have six women in a room and edit it down to 15, can you?)
 

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Show notes: my guests were the intrepid Dora Chomiak, Gaea Freireich, Stacy-Marie Ishmael (who you may remember from episode 7), Yvahn Martin, and Rebecca Jackson. 

Here's Anne-Marie Slaughter's review of Lean In from the New York Times Sunday Book Review. And you might like to check out this male take on Sandberg's message on the Harvard Business Review blog. (In short, the author says women should *not* have to be more like men. I don't think following Sandberg's advice means they do, but that's another story. This piece is yet another example of how people read this book through an incredibly personal lens.)

And as I said in the podcast, for inspiring stories of women in science, check out Stories from the Field, from the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

Episode 15: Do we have to fit in?

April 1, 2013

"If you don’t have the courage to step out of your comfort zone, you will not lead. So I don’t view that as a male or female thing." - Kathy Caprino

This has become a big point of contention for many women - the idea that to do well at work we have to fit in to company culture, instead of the company bending to accommodate itself to the way we do things. In the first part of the show I talk to career coach and Forbes writer Kathy Caprino (above). I interviewed Kathy for a print piece more than a year ago, and as soon as I started doing The Broad Experience I knew she'd be a great guest. She's been through it all - the corporate job from hell (that she couldn't quite leave), complete with workplace drama galore, the reinvention-that-didn't-work - and finally found her niche as a career and leadership coach for women. We talk about whether women are really 'fixing ourselves' if we do things the Sheryl Sandberg way, and the extent to which corporations need to alter their inner workings (a lot).

In part two I meet a representative from one of those big corporations, the multinational consumer goods company Unilever. The company has just been honored by Catalyst for its progress in getting more women into its leadership pipeline all over the world - and believe me, it's doing this in some very interesting ways. Can you imagine a company attracting women in the west by cozying up to their parents? Tune in to hear all about this, and more. 17 minutes.

Show notes: Kathy Caprino's book on women getting their careers and lives back is Breakdown, Breakthrough. For more on women and the workplace in India, this recently published piece in the Harvard Business Review has some good information.

You can read more about the details of Catalyst's award to Unilever here. 

Oxfam's 'Behind the Brands' report can be read here. 

Episode 14: When it's too hard to leave

March 18, 2013

Everyone loves Etsy, right? If you live or work in creative circles, you are at the very least aware of this popular online marketplace for hand-made stuff. Danielle Maveal (left) felt really lucky to work there, relishing her role as liaison between Etsy and its many sellers. But eventually she was itching to move on. Except she couldn't bring herself to leave. She's far from the only woman who has wrestled with this. Tune in to hear more about why women stay in jobs longer than men.

And in part two of the show we meet Whitney Johnson, former Wall Street analyst, investment firm founder and current dream-wrangler. We talk about some of the research in her book, Dare, Dream, Do, and how she made the transition from music major to secretary to equity analyst. 16 minutes.

Show notes: Terri Boyer is executive director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. During the interview we began discussing this study from Pew Social Trends. The study found that young women in the US are now likelier than young men to put a high priority on having a career that earns them good money. Terri was arguing that these findings suggest that women may soon lose the tendency to stick in jobs longer than men for all the reasons we discuss during the episode. I'm a bit skeptical, though. I think it's easy to reply to a survey stating your intentions or wishes, harder to actually carry out those intentions. We know women are prey to strong social and cultural influences, from expectations about how they should behave to norms around who does the housework. We need to change more than our intentions to earn good money before we'll be switching jobs as often as men do, and upping our salaries in the process.