Episode 65: Transcending tradition - women in India

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“Women face this one universal problem, which is that men mostly cannot deal with women around them...it’s the whole ego issue.”
— Shaili Chopra
Shaili Chopra

Shaili Chopra

India is the world's largest democracy, with a population of more than 1.2 billion. Still, just a third of women are in the workforce. India-watchers say if more women contributed to the economy the country's GDP would shoot up. 

In this show I talk to Indian journalist and author Shaili Chopra. She says Indian women lack role models. She's out to change that with her media company She The People. We talk about the obstacles Indian women face that western women don't, the influence caste still has on society, and why Shaili's nanny has a nanny of her own. We also debate the meaning of the word 'feminist'. 

Don't forget to check out my sponsor this week at Doodle.com - it's free, and it takes the hassle out of arranging meetings.

India has a huge problem with sexual violence and sexual molestation (imagine sitting in your car when a hand comes through the window to grab your breast). In this video Samhita Arni talks to Meghna Pant about the problem and her initiative, Mapping Sexual Violence. 

Episode 64: Forced out

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 June 1, 2015

"This person was already gunning for me, I could tell...there was undermining and erosion of my spirit, that's the only way I can describe it." - Marion Kane

"I prefer not to get mad but to get even. Every time I've been dumped by a man I've upgraded the next time I've gone out with one. And every time I've been sacked I've made sure I've gone out and got a better job next." - Mrs. Moneypenny

24 minutes.

Most of us have a bad breakup with work at some point. You don't have to be fired for things to end on a sour note - maybe you were bullied, you couldn't get on with a manager, or the job they advertised was completely different from the one you ended up doing. But however the end comes, leaving a job under duress is one of the hardest experiences to go through.

Marion Kane In this show we meet two women who know this first hand (so do I - more on that in the show). Marion Kane was a longtime food writer at some of Canada's top newspapers. She loved her work - but not her editor. She chose to leave, but still fantasizes about giving that boss a piece of her mind.

Heather McGregorAnd regular listeners will know Heather McGregor, otherwise known as Financial Times writer Mrs. Moneypenny. She's been fired a few times and has plenty to say about that, and about how to to pick yourself up and move on after the most painful of job losses.

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Episode 63: Getting your hands dirty

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May 19, 2015

"Their world is talking about sports and getting through the day in construction, and they're outside all day. And so they're looking at all the eye candy...and you realize every woman that walks by is being observed and objectified." - Renee Mercado

17 minutes.

What could be more male than a construction site? Only 9 percent of US jobs in the industry belong to women, and even fewer involve manual labor. So what drove Renee Mercado to spend her days outdoors, managing a crew of curious and sometimes suspicious guys?

Renee Mercado

In this show we talk about what drew her to this work, the sexist comments she hears on a regular basis, and how she feels she's making a difference in a man's world.

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Episode 62: Claiming credit

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May 4, 2015

"I think many women feel this, that it is through your relationships with different people in your company that you make things happen, but you just don’t get the credit." - Mary Kopczynski

"This is not about promoting lesser qualified women over more qualified men...this is about seeing that when we put a team together...the quality of the work done will be better if it's diverse." - Curt Rice

18 minutes.

In this show we hear from four familiar guests, using parts of our conversation you've never heard before. Mary Kopczynski

Lauren Tucker is co-founder and CEO of Cooler Heads Intelligence, although when I spoke to her she was the head of a tech division at an ad agency. She talks candidly about race and whether bosses ever see your full potential at work. Mary Kopczynski of 8of9 Consulting says women have to claim credit for their work or others won't notice their achievements. Curt Rice of the University of Tromsø talks about what it's like being a man advocating loudly for women in the workplace. And Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper reminds us it's not just women who make career sacrifices for their families.

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Episode 61: Get ahead. No guilt (re-release)

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April 20, 2015

"We had never experienced anything we thought to be remotely gender discrimination. So we couldn’t even identify it when we saw it." - Jessica Bennett

"Every time you say yes to something you are saying no to something else...You are going to end up not doing the things that matter if you’re not careful.” - Heather McGregor

19 minutes.

I sometimes get emails from listeners, particularly professors, saying, 'The young women I work with believe gender equality has been sorted out - they don't believe there's a problem.' That was Jess Bennett when she began her career at Newsweek in the early 2000s. She'd never come up against any kind of gender discrimination so she didn't think it existed. It was some tired old problem from the past. She gradually realized she was wrong.

In this show we talk about subtle discrimination at work, the changing world of journalism, and, with guest Heather McGregor, the problems of female guilt and how to say no without alienating people (she's good at it).

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Episode 60: Leading in faith

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April 5, 2015

Reverend Rebecca Anderson

"As soon as I heard the criticism of this young female rabbi, the first thing that I thought of was, ‘I don’t think that would necessarily be the way that people addressed a male counterpart.” - Rabbi Danielle Leshaw

"I’ve had a very lovely older guy...say, 'We never get to see you with your hair down.' And I think, get to? It wasn’t in the job description." - Reverend Rebecca Anderson

"The church is still running behind. There are plenty of folks out there who don’t want a woman in a position of high authority." - Reverend Adrian Dannhauser

 

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