Episode 122: Leading in Faith (re-release)

“My dad’s been pastoring for 30 plus years...I never expected to be able to offer my father resources to very practically help him do his job.”

— Rebecca Anderson

Rebecca Anderson

“Can I really lead a community? Am I providing a source of comfort or strength to people in need? Am I role model? ”

— Rabbi Danielle Leshaw

Danielle Leshaw

“He said, ‘Wow, you’re a shapely chaplain!’ And it was instantaneous. I tried to defuse the situation.”

— Adrian Dannhauser

Adrian Dannhauser

With Easter and Passover approaching, I'm re-releasing one of my favourite episodes from 2015.

It's far more common than it used to be to see women in roles such as rabbi or priest. But these hard-won jobs aren't without their frustrations as well as their triumphs. In this show we meet three women. One went straight to her calling from college, the other two are career-changers. We talk about how women are viewed by the congregation, what you can get away with when you preach, and how getting ahead can still be tougher for women - even within denominations where women are accepted as leaders.

Appearance came up much more than I expected during these interviews. These women have to manage their image just as carefully as any corporate executive.

You can also read a transcript of the show. 

Further reading: Rabbi Dannielle Leshaw is now senior educator with Hillel International. 

Rebecca Anderson is co-pastor at Gilead Church Chicago, where there's a big emphasis on storytelling. 

Adrian Dannhauser is associate rector at the Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan. 

You can read more show notes at the original episode page for the show. 

Episode 121: A Book of Her Own

“Women tend to have about 15 tabs running in their brain at any one time, and sitting down and writing their book feels selfish somehow.”

— Alison Jones

Photo by mactrunk/iStock / Getty Images

Scan the business section of any bookstore and you'll see reams of books written by men, far fewer by women. In this show we talk about women as writers and readers of business books. Is it imposter syndrome, fear, or lack of time that stops women from putting fingers to keyboard? Is Lean In a business book or a self-help book? And why are female authors less likely to embrace a publicity blitz when their book is published? My guest is Alison Jones, owner of Practical Inspiration Publishing, host of the Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast and author of This Book Means Business.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Alison Jones

Further reading: Here's the article Alison wrote for the Guardian in 2016: Imposter Syndrome and Time Issues: Why Women Don't Write Business Books.

Author Bernadette Jiwa's site is TheStoryofTelling.com.

Dorie Clark has been on the show twice and her latest book is Entrepreneurial You.

Angela Duckworth wrote Grit.

Bonus episode: Femininity and Power

“When you see the countries that have been run by women, they’re not necessarily the Anglo-Saxon countries.”

— Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

“I do think Latin countries have a different attitude to women in power.”

In this extra episode we're back with Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. She's fresh from 30 years of living in France, and a keen observer of how gender plays out all over the world. "Anglo-Saxon cultures do not like, embrace, or value femininity," she says. She believes Latin cultures are far more female-friendly - that a woman can be as feminine as she likes and still hold power without the blowback she'd get in a country like the US. 

There's a lot to think about in this 9-minute episode. You can also read a transcript of the show.

Further reading: From The Economist, a piece on violence against women in Latin America. 

From UN Women - Fighting Femicide in Latin America.

Catherine Deneuve and Others Denounce #MeToo Movement, via the New York Times.

Episode 120: Does Your Partner Support Your Success?

“I’m hearing that more and more, that not only is there a reluctance or a discomfort when women are making more than men in a relationship but it’s actually hurting relationships.”

— Diane Reichenberger

“I think you have to be clearer than most couples are about how are we going to manage two successful careers? What are the terms of engagement, what kind of support do we need from eachother?”

— Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

Avivah wittenberg-cox

This time we're talking about couplehood and careers. My first guest is shocked that her mentees' boyfriends refuse to marry them until they - the men - are the main breadwinner. My second guest isn't surprised at all. In this episode we talk about who supports whom in heterosexual and same-sex couples, and what that support looks like. We discuss how dual-career couples can maintain partnerships where each person gets what they want and need. And we get tips on using team-building techniques to good effect at home.

My guests are Diane Reichenberger and Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, author of Late Love: Mating in Maturity. 

You can also read a transcript of the show. 

Further reading/listening: Avivah first appeared on TBE in episode 41, Stop Fixing Women, Start Fixing Companies.

This is a great episode of the new Harvard Business Review podcast Women at Work - it's called Couples That Work. Avivah is in this one too, along with other guests. 

Here's the 2015 Work and Families Institute study Modern Families - same and different-sex couples negotiating at home.

Do Millennial Men Want Stay-at-Home Wives? via the New York Times, by Stephanie Coontz.

Fairygodboss recently did a survey on male/female couples' attitudes to money in relationships. 

Diane reichenberger (r) and her wife sharon on their wedding day with jack the dog

Episode 119: Women in Medicine are Burning Out

“I think we look at other women and we judge ourselves on how they’re doing. So we see this little iceberg of their lives and we say, are we doing as good a job as they are?”

— Robine Devine

Photo by LUHUANFENG/iStock / Getty Images

“You don’t necessarily show that emotion. And so that’s how I carried on most of the time. And most of the time that worked, you know 90 percent of the time that worked, and then every so often terrible things happen and you react to it.”

— Heather Anaya

At the end of 2016 I did a show on burnout that got passed around a lot. At around the same time I began hearing  from female doctors saying burnout is a huge issue in their field. Studies show women doctors burn out at higher rates than men. And given so many of us have at least one woman doctor in our lives, that can't be good for any of us. 

Robin Devine

In this show we talk about why this is happening. We discuss a lack of empathy in a profession that on the surface seems to be all about it; how women judge one another’s success, and how they can help eachother. 

My guests are family doctor Robin Devine and maternal fetal medicine specialist Heather Anaya.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Heather anaya with her husband and children

Further reading: A piece on the Harvard study on elderly hospital patients doing better under the care of female doctors. 

Why are Women Leaving Medicine? from ModernMedicine.com.

Stop Physician Burnout - Unconscious Gender Bias in the Healthcare Workplace via The Happy MD.

Female Doctors Have High Rates of Burnout - Here's Why via Healthcare Business & Technology.

Episode 118: A Year for Women?

“I think changes will be tectonic. We’ve had another movement of a tectonic plate and things are going to settle out and we’ll say, OK, where are we here? ”

— Anne Libby

“I think what might happen is two to three years of hard conversations and unpleasant dynamics. But you need to get that out of the way. ”

— Nastaran Tavakoli-Far

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far 

Anne Libby

Will 2018 be a good year for women at work? After the explosive, high-profile revelations of workplace harassment that snowballed towards the end of 2017, a lot of us are excited about this year. We're hopeful that the momentum created by the #MeToo movement can lead to fairer workplaces with less harassment and more equal pay.  But are we naive?

My guests are US-based Anne Libby, consultant and coach on all things management, and Nastaran Tavakoli-Far, or Nas, who lives and works in London and hosts The Gender Knot podcast. Each talks about her hopes and fears for the year ahead. 

You can also read a transcript of the show. 

Further reading/listening:

You can sign up for Anne Libby's monthly newsletter On Management here.

You can check out The Gender Knot on iTunes and on the show's website.

This is the letter former BBC China editor Carrie Gracie wrote to the BBC audience, explaining her decision to leave her post in China and return to the UK. She found she was vastly underpaid compared to two male foreign editors, and that the BBC would not consent to pay everyone equally.