Happy New Year from The State of Women and Women Investing in Women Digital! We hope you are all starting the year strong, healthy, and with clear vision on goals, progress, and challenges for women in the coming year and decade. This week, we’ve collected just a few stories about women around the world—and whether it’s women directors breaking records in the past year, preserving systems that work to empower and raise up women, changing outdated ideas that need to evolve, or new initiatives to promote entrepreneurship for women and girls; we think it’s clear that the world’s women are looking forward with 20/20 vision!
Female Directors Broke Records in 2019, from Fortune—“(A)t the ceremony, women mostly won in the acting categories, from Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Awkwafina to Michelle Williams (who used her speech to champion reproductive rights). Ellen DeGeneres, with an emotional tribute by Kate McKinnon, was the first person besides Carol Burnett to receive the Carol Burnett Award for outstanding contributions to television. Overall, some talented women accepted golden statues last night—but as awards season continues, hopefully we’ll see more women behind the camera honored, too.”
Challenging Our Gendered Idea of Mentorship, from Harvard Business Review—“The reality is that just as women benefit from male mentors, sponsors, and allies, men also gain from the mentorship, leadership, and sponsorship of women. But stories about women leaders are scarce, and they often narrowly focus on how women help each other. Even more rare are examples of the positive impact women leaders have on the careers and business of men. This imbalance reinforces negative bias about the ability of women to lead and contributes to the scarcity of women at the top.”
Why Professional Networking Groups for Women Remain Valuable, from Fast Company—“What the study shows is that women who focus on making a lot of professional contacts may not necessarily receive the same benefits that men get from doing so. They need to supplement that with closer connections with other women they trust. The study’s authors speculate that these inner networks help not just with finding opportunities, but also by exchanging advice specific to the unique challenges women face.”
Recognizing Workplace Challenges Faced by Black Women Leaders, from Forbes—“Gender bias makes career advancement markedly harder for women than men. But gender bias is not the only discriminatory obstacle women face in their careers. Women whose social identities are different from the dominant workplace expectations—that is, women who are not white, straight, less than 40, and childless—encounter three additional obstacles: having to navigate more precarious lose/lose double binds, being forced to conform to cultural norms that may be at odds with their social identities, and encountering biases in addition to those about gender. These three sorts of obstacles are brought into sharp relief by comparing the workplace experiences of black women and white women.”
What Goes Into the Production of a New Girl Scout Cookie Brand, from Fortune—“‘These messages not only remind girls about the leadership abilities they already possess within them, but they also remind consumers that buying Girl Scout Cookies powers amazing and important experiences for girls,’ Girl Scouts CEO Sylvia Acevedo tells Fortune. ‘Whether it’s through selling the new Lemon-Ups cookie, Lemonades, or any other cookie in our lineup, the Girl Scout Cookie Program fosters a multitude of business and life skills in girls, preparing them to be the ambitious entrepreneurs and leaders of tomorrow.’”
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