RULING THE WEEK
We’ve heard the refrain: Working women are hard-hit by Covid-19 as they try to keep their jobs while taking on more duties at home during the pandemic.
Some new staggering numbers back that up. The annual Women in the Workplace report by Lean In and McKinsey, which surveyed over 40,000 employees in corporate America, finds that 1 in 4 working women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce altogether because of Covid-19, while 1 in 5 men are considering the same.
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This marks the first time, in the six years this study has taken place, that women are intending to leave their jobs at higher rates than men, says Lean In CEO Rachel Thomas.
“If I had a panic button, I’d be hitting it,” she says. “To see the scale of the impact on women left me jaw-dropped.”
This is especially true for women in senior roles — who are more likely than women at lower levels to be mothers and more likely than male leaders to feel like they’re “always on” and to have partners that work full time. These senior-level women are 1.5 times more likely than their male counterparts to be considering stepping back at work right now, with 75 percent citing burnout as the main reason.
“We’ve been doing this study for six years, and we’ve seen … slow, hard-earned progress in the representation of women particularly at more senior levels, and if … a fraction of [these women step out] it will wipe out almost all of that progress we’ve seen over the last six years,” says Thomas. These senior-level women, too, are often the ones advocating for more gender diversity at their companies, and paving the way for women below them.
So what to do? In a new op ed, Thomas and Sheryl Sandberg, founder of LeanIn.org, wrote that companies should “consider resetting goals and extending deadlines,” making sure to adjust review criteria to reflect the bizarre world we’re living in. Also, companies should try hard to combat that “always on” feeling many women have, perhaps “establishing set hours for meetings and making sure managers are evaluating employees based on what they’ve accomplished, not how many hours they’ve worked. They should also make it OK for employees to set their own boundaries, and leaders should model this.”
Happy Friday and welcome back to Women Rule. Need a break from keeping up with the latest on President Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis? Give us a read! Thanks to Maya Parthasarathy, who curates the reads section each week. Email us at [email protected] and subscribe here if you don’t already.
#METOO LATEST -- “The Secret History of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Departure from Fox,” by Jane Mayer: “In November, 2018, a young woman who had been one of Guilfoyle’s assistants at Fox News sent company executives a confidential, forty-two-page draft complaint that accused Guilfoyle of repeated sexual harassment, and demanded monetary relief. The document, which resulted in a multimillion-dollar out-of-court settlement, raises serious questions about Guilfoyle’s fitness as a character witness for Trump, let alone as a top campaign official.
“In the 2020 campaign, Trump has spotlighted no woman more brightly than Guilfoyle. She was given an opening-night speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. And this fall Guilfoyle, who is Donald Trump, Jr.,’s girlfriend, has been crisscrossing the country as a Trump surrogate, on what is billed as the ‘Four More Tour.’ …
“According to a dozen well-informed sources familiar with her complaints, the assistant alleged that Guilfoyle, her direct supervisor, subjected her frequently to degrading, abusive, and sexually inappropriate behavior; among other things, she said that she was frequently required to work at Guilfoyle’s New York apartment while the Fox host displayed herself naked, and was shown photographs of the genitalia of men with whom Guilfoyle had had sexual relations.
“The draft complaint also alleged that Guilfoyle spoke incessantly and luridly about her sex life, and on one occasion demanded a massage of her bare thighs; other times, she said, Guilfoyle told her to submit to a Fox employee’s demands for sexual favors, encouraged her to sleep with wealthy and powerful men, asked her to critique her naked body, demanded that she share a room with her on business trips, required her to sleep over at her apartment, and exposed herself to her, making her feel deeply uncomfortable.” New Yorker
2020 WATCH -- “‘The Women Around Him Are Accessories to His Brand: Trump has said it was important to put a woman on the Supreme Court. But his long, checkered history with women makes it unlikely he’ll make inroads with female voters,” by Michael Kruse: Trump’s latest Supreme Court pick “offered the possibility to bolster support with not only the most ardently pro-life women in his base but women in general, and college-educated suburban women in particular.
“This strategy, too, brings to a head in the stretch run of this campaign a longtime Trump pattern and paradox. He’s been seen by some as a champion of women — and by others as a harasser and an abuser. He’s freely and frequently uttered sexist, misogynistic comments for decades — ‘you have to treat ‘em like shit,’ ‘blood coming out of her … wherever,’ ‘she got schlonged,’ etc. — and by now has been accused by a litany of women of sexual misconduct. And yet he’s never not had women working for him in important roles, going all the way back to the decidedly gender-retrograde 1970s. …
“His nomination on Saturday of Amy Coney Barrett was in this manner nothing if not a familiar Trump tactic — a well-timed, well-publicized promotion of a woman as a form of inoculation against ongoing charges of male chauvinism or worse. Can it work?” POLITICO Magazine
-- “‘Conservative Republican women are alive and well’: House GOP moves to close gender gap,” by Melanie Zanona and Ally Mutnick: “The GOP — which has long shunned identity politics, at least when it comes to gender — has experienced a real attitude and cultural shift around electing more women to Congress, according to interviews with over a dozen lawmakers, candidates, operatives and aides. Women are stepping up to run, citing their gender as an asset and answering the siren sounded by party leaders — even as President Donald Trump remains divisive among women of both parties.
“‘The 2018 cycle was a motivating factor,’ said retiring Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana, one of just 13 Republican women in the House and head of recruitment efforts for the party’s campaign arm. ‘Even though we had been recruiting and helping women candidates, we realized we did need to shift some strategy and do far more.’
“And so far, the initiative has paid off: 227 Republican women filed to run for the House this cycle and 94 of them won primaries, shattering past records on both fronts. Previously, the highest number of Republican women to run for the House was 130, while the highest number of GOP women to win primaries was 53, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.” POLITICO
-- “Black women are being targeted in misinformation campaigns, a report shows. Here’s what to know,” via The Lily
SCOTUS -- “How Amy Coney Barrett Would Reshape the Court — And the Country”: What do we really know about her judicial philosophy, and how she’d rule on major issues? Politico Magazine asked top constitutional law experts and Supreme Court watchers to weigh in. They see a strong legal mind who could help usher in serious changes when it comes to abortion and other legal issues — welcome, or concerning, depending where your social politics fall. Others highlighted that Barrett would be a role model for women, even if not in a traditional feminist mold, and a strong voice for constitutional originalism. Some suggested her tenure might be less predictable than we think. How so? Here’s what they all said.” POLITICO Magazine
-- OPINION: “Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon,” by Erika Bachiochi: “Barrett embodies a new kind of feminism, a feminism that builds upon the praiseworthy antidiscrimination work of Ginsburg but then goes further. It insists not just on the equal rights of men and women, but also on their common responsibilities, particularly in the realm of family life. In this new feminism, sexual equality is found not in imitating men’s capacity to walk away from an unexpected pregnancy through abortion, but rather in asking men to meet women at a high standard of mutual responsibility, reciprocity and care. ...
“Barrett’s life story puzzles older feminists ... because bearing and raising a bevy of children has long implied retaining a traditional life script — like staying home with the children — that Barrett has obviously not heeded. … If we’re really intent as a country on seeing women flourish in their professions and serve in greater numbers of leadership positions too, it would be worthwhile to interrupt the abortion rights sloganeering for a beat and ask just how this mother of many has achieved so much. ...
“Barrett says that for both parents, the needs of the Barrett children came first, their professions second — and yet both their children and professions thrived. Rather than assume caregiving is a woman’s “choice” to embrace or reject on her own, as Roe does, the Barretts recognize that both mothers and fathers are encumbered by their shared responsibilities to the dependent children in their care. That’s the new feminism building upon, while remaking, the old feminism.” POLITICO Magazine
WHAT RULERS ARE READING
AROUND THE WORLD -- “Most countries failing women and girls with Covid response, UN finds,” by Liz Ford: “Most countries are failing to adequately protect women and girls during the fallout from Covid-19, according to a new UN database that tracks government responses to the pandemic. The global gender tracker has looked at how 206 countries and territories address violence against women and girls, support unpaid care workers and strengthen women’s economic security. Forty-two countries had no policies to support women in any of these areas. Only 25 had introduced some measures in all three categories. ...
“‘The Covid-19 crisis provides an opportunity for countries to transform existing economic models towards a renewed social contract that prioritises social justice and gender equality,’ said Achim Steiner of UNDP, which launched the tracker with UN Women on Monday. ‘This new gender response tracker can help accelerate policy reform by guiding on gaps in national efforts and funding and highlighting best practices.’” The Guardian
-- “Women’s issues at UN: Still ‘too low down on the agenda,’” via AP ... “Her Study Center Was Bombed. She Still Topped Afghanistan’s National University Exam,” via NYT
... “Opinion: Treaties alone can't protect women from violence,” via CNN
WOMEN AT WORK -- “Pandemic Imperils Promotions for Women in Academia,” by Noam Scheiber: “At Northwestern, hundreds of female faculty members have pressed the university to alleviate the disruption of the pandemic, but with limited success. ‘The present is unsustainable,’ said Susan Pearson, a tenured Northwestern history professor who has helped rally colleagues to seek more accommodations. Dr. Pearson, who is divorced and is the primary caregiver for her two children, said parenthood was too often seen in academic settings ‘as a personal choice’ rather than as a societal obligation — ‘like if you choose to live two hours away from work and you have a long commute, the university shouldn’t have to do anything about it.’
“Northwestern, like other universities, initially responded to the pandemic by pausing the so-called tenure clocks of junior faculty members, giving them an extra year to publish academic work that would help them earn the promotion. But research has shown that stopping the tenure clock is an imperfect policy. According to a study of tenure decisions in economics departments published in 2018, men were substantially more likely to receive tenure at their first job after the university allowed an extension for new parents of either sex, while women were substantially less likely to receive tenure than they were before the policy change.
“The reason, said Jenna Stearns, an economist at the University of California, Davis, and a co-author of the paper, is that men appear to devote more of the additional year to academic research, while women appear to spend more of it managing parental obligations.” NYT
-- “New report shows it could take 12 years to reach equal representation of women in tech,” via CNBC ... “The First Female Recession Threatens to Wipe Out Decades of Progress for U.S. Women,” via Bloomberg
LETTER FROM KENTUCKY -- “The Armed Women at the Center of the Louisville Protests,” by Jamie Thompson: “Rochelle Mitchell sat in a small park called Jefferson Square in the heart of Louisville. The crowd around her was beginning to grow, and Mitchell thought she sensed a heightened edginess. It was Friday night and Mitchell and her friends had been protesting for 121 days. The last few days had been particularly anguishing. The state’s Republican attorney general announced on Wednesday that three police officers would not be charged for the killing of Breonna Taylor. The city was already under a state of emergency in anticipation of the decision. Then, just hours after the announcement, a man took aim with a handgun at Louisville officers, injuring two. There had been scattered looting downtown and more than 150 arrests. Many of the roughly 400 protesters gathered in the square on Friday felt certain the police wanted revenge, that a confrontation was inevitable.
“Mitchell, a 32-year-old biology pre-med student at the University of Louisville, wore glasses, long black braids and a purple Black Lives Matter t-shirt. Nothing about her stood out until she reached down, lifted a friend’s AR-15 and slung it over her shoulder. ‘I always pray that we never have to use any type of deadly force,’ she said. ‘But you never know.’” POLITICO Magazine
#METOO INVESTIGATION -- “Canary: The Washington Post Investigates,” is a seven-part investigative podcast hosted by investigative reporter Amy Brittain. “The episodes begin with the aftermath of a sexual assault case in the District of Columbia, where a 27-year-old woman went for an evening jog and was just steps from her apartment when a stranger attacked her. She fought back. She couldn’t have known the real fight was just beginning. Her public warning ricocheted all the way to Birmingham, Ala., where another woman gave voice to a devastating allegation. This podcast follows the Alabama woman’s decision to come forward with a claim of sexual assault against a high-ranking figure in the D.C. criminal justice system, and the spiraling effects of that choice.” WaPo
-- “Aching for Abolition: As a survivor of sexual violence, I know prison isn’t the answer,” by Camonghne Felix for The Cut
IN EDUCATION -- ‘A Battle for the Souls of Black Girls’: “The disproportionate discipline rates of Black boys have long dominated discussions about the harmful effects of punitive discipline policies, but recent high-profile cases have begun to reframe the debate around the plight of Black girls.
“In Florida, Kaia Rolle was only 6 last year when police officers escorted her, hands bound behind her with zip ties, from her school in Orlando after employees there said she had a temper tantrum. In Sacramento, the first “virtual suspension” to draw national attention was meted out to a 9-year-old Black girl who was kicked out of her Zoom classroom for reportedly sending too many messages. In Michigan, a teenager was sent to juvenile detention for not completing her online schoolwork.”
“Just this week, the Common Application for colleges and universities cited disproportionate discipline rates for Black girls in its decision to stop asking students to report whether they had been subject to disciplinary action.” NYT
PODCAST NEWS -- In the latest episode of her new podcast, You and Me Both, Hillary Clinton interviews VP nominee Kamala Harris. The two discuss Harris’ upcoming debate — Clinton warns her about “the slights, the efforts to diminish you, you personally, you as a woman who’s about to be our next vice president” — and what happened when Harris got the call from Biden. “You know, you have to hand it to Joe,” Harris said. “And it’s really, it’s part of what I love about his character and his nature. He immediately at the beginning of the call, Hillary, he went right in there and said, ‘Let’s do this together.’” Listen here
-- Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for The New York Times, sat down with Jennifer Palmieri for the latest episode of “Just Something About Her With Jennifer Palmieri.” “The level of criticism that I get is more intense than my male colleagues. Just factually. It just is. Measurably more intense,” Haberman says. “You would think that the Hillary email server was broken by me. It was broken by Mike Schmidt, but you almost never see somebody say that on Twitter. I just think that men in newsrooms are able to yell and get angry in ways that if a woman does the woman is crazy or difficult or aggressive or something. I have a job to do, and I would like to think that I’m doing it the same as my male counterparts. And in fact I am, but my male counterparts don’t get attacked like that.” Listen here
ON SCREEN -- “Gillian Flynn Is Obsessed With Conspiracies,” by Shirley Li: “Gillian Flynn has a penchant for writing angry women, women who become so paralyzed by their circumstances and suffocated by expectations, they’re driven to madness or something like it. In Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, the journalist Camille directs her pain inward, slicing words into her skin and reducing herself to scars. In Gone Girl, the best seller that catapulted Flynn to literary fame, the psychopathic Amy’s displeasure with her husband curdles into cruel mind games. And in Dark Places, Libby, the lone survivor of a massacre, admits her rotten core on the first page: ‘I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ,’ she narrates. ‘Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark.’
“So Flynn fans might be surprised to find that Utopia, her new Amazon series, follows an ensemble of conspiracy theorists who seek a comic book they believe predicts the future. The drama, with its global scale and sprawling narrative, doesn’t exactly scream ‘Gillian Flynn.’ What made the novelist and screenwriter want to add Utopia—a remake of a British cult hit—to her oeuvre? ‘My oeuvre, yes,’ she interjected, laughing, as we talked over Zoom in early September. ‘Let’s use those words a lot. My oeuvre and my career.’” The Atlantic
SPOTLIGHT -- “Doris Burke on Life Inside the N.B.A. Bubble,” via The New Yorker ... “How I Get It Done: Disability-Rights Activist Judy Heumann,” via The Cut
VIDEO -- The lasting impact of the debate debacle and a dive into hate group the Proud Boys
WOMEN RULERS
TRANSITIONS -- Camille Solberg has left the White House, where she was special assistant to the senior adviser to the president on faith. She is now special assistant and events coordinator at USAID’s Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives. (h/t Playbook) … Katie Beirne Fallon, former EVP of global corporate affairs for Hilton, is now EVP and chief global impact officer for McDonald’s.
-- Cara Morrow is now a public policy manager at Facebook, focusing on e-commerce policy. She previously was deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative for WTO and multilateral affairs. … Nadja Bellan-White is now global chief marketing officer of Vice Media Group.
WISDOM OF THE WEEK – Danielle Cadet, vice president, Content Strategy and Development, Refinery29's Unbothered: “Take up space. I don't just mean 'show up,’ but bring your full self to every room. When I first entered the workforce, I was afraid to speak up and share my perspective because I was just so thankful to be invited. But over time, with the support of other women, particularly black women, I learned how vital my voice, perspective and experiences are; that 'different' is not 'less than' and true allyship lies in accountability. That realization has helped to create a more productive work environment for myself, and for the women who look like me knocking on the door.” Connect with Danielle here
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Are women about to lose all the progress they've made? - Politico
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