CNN: Sheryl Sandberg: Bring back ‘feminist’ and toss out ‘bossy’
Quick piece summarising Sandberg’s speech at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Sandberg traced many of the issues women face in the workplace to deeply ingrained cultural biases. Men who lead are liked because they adhere to stereotypes. Women are expected to be likable, and when they lead they’re seen as bossy.
“I actually think we need to bring back the word feminist and get rid of the word bossy,” said Sandberg.
As well as the quote about feminism, she also offers advice on some daily rituals that can help women chance how they think about themselves and their abilities.
Bustle: men are the focus of a whopping 82 percent of news stories
Interesting article about a recent study of media in America found that men are still mostly in charge of producing news, and they mostly write about other men. The focus of news reporting hasn’t really changed much in the last 40 years.
[Societal] status beliefs regarding men’s greater competence compared to women may be key in sustaining gender inequality. … These expectations legitimize and normalize men’s overrepresentation in leadership positions and have an adverse effect on female leaders’ ability to exercise power and achieve compliance. … Media visibility — whether positive or negative — may then further enhance entrenched status beliefs, serving as a signal for what and who society sees as important.
Pacific Standard: One Reason for the Gender Pay Gap: You’re Speaking It
Interesting write up of a study that found smaller gender pay gaps in countries where the language is more gender neutral. There’s a number of ways to interpret the data, and they are considered in the article, but it’s yet more evidence of how much the subtleties of language matter
Of course, when it comes to language, a chicken-and-egg question (or should it be rooster-and-egg?) inevitably arises. Does language reflect societal assumptions and prejudices, or does it reinforce them? Presuming the answer is “both,” a conscious shift away from gender-specific words and phrases could improve the situation for the next generation of female workers.
Fortune: Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih: 5 ways for female tech entrepreneurs to get ahead
Clara Shih on the gender disparity in tech and how she learned to deal with it. Some great tips from the perspective of a woman who’s been in this field for a long time.
Shih, like the large majority of women at the Grace Hopper conference last week, believes women across the tech industry need to do a much better job rallying to each other’s cause. This is something she learned from her self-declared mentor, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.