August 10, 2020

Hello Everyone,

I am looking forward to seeing you tomorrow and hearing about what you have been reading and thinking about this summer. I have been reading more then ever and am having trouble trying to decide what to bring. While I would not claim to be a super learner I thought this article with 6 Habits of Super Learners was interesting, and I love that it highlighted the importance of reading.

Three Things

Pandemic Parenting

Women in Design and the Women Principals Group will be hosting a virtual roundtable August 11th on Pandemic Parenting . Zack Stanton wrote an article How the Child Care Crises will Distort the Economy for a Generation, which focuses on the longer term impacts of the current situation. In this article, Betsey Stevenson, an economist states “If you look at how caregiving responsibilities erode a woman’s career, it takes a long time. It’s about not accepting the job that’s going to push you further in your career, because it’s going to conflict with your family. It’s about taking part-time work so that you get more time at home. It’s about choosing the job that has the most flexibility. It’s about choosing the job with the shortest commute. Those are the trade-offs. And those trade-offs end up giving them less opportunity, fewer opportunities for promotions or raises. That’s why you see much bigger gender gaps for women by age 50 than you saw at age 30. These things just happen slowly over time. Even though the pandemic has come as a big crisis and we saw the labor market crater, I think the impact of the child care crisis on women’s outcomes is going to be felt over the next decade.”

1920

100 years ago this August women in the US gained the right to vote. In Canada women were not legally declared “persons” until 1928. Persons Day is now celebrated on October 18th to commemorate this event. The 19th Represents , named after the 19th amendment, is hosting a Virtual Summit with an interesting speaker line up. It is described on their website as “a week of virtual events that raises the voices of women — past and present — who are reshaping the American story.”

Female Leadership

The Harvard Business Review ask Will the Pandemic Reshape Notions of Female Leadership ? This article by Tomas Chamorro- Premuzic and Avivah Wittenberg-Cox poses the question “Could this be the moment, then, to replace our old, obsolete leadership archetypes with more pragmatic and meritocratic models?”

Best,

Alexandra