In 1981 Hardy became the first female firefighter at the Purdue University Fire Department. “At the time it was unheard of,” she said. “But it is not as unusual now as it was 30 years ago for me to be in a fire department.”
Recent trends reiterate Hardy’s statement, with reports that not only do women make up almost 60 percent of the workforce in America, but they are increasingly entering jobs in fields previously dominated by men.
According to a recent NBC news story as well as a study by the Center for Women’s Business Research, women are taking on jobs that have been traditionally held by men.
From ownership and professional positions all the way to the physical labor in industries such as construction, manufacturing, transportation and repair jobs, a woman’s presence is becoming less uncommon.
How does that data translate locally? Greater Lafayette Commerce’s CEO and President Joe Seaman says that’s a question not many people have asked. “The job may have the same name,” Seaman said, “but the skill sets are different. In the past strength was utilized, but now we are utilizing education.”
But what's $10,000 to you if you're a female Republican congressional staffer? It's about how much less you'd make than the men in your office, according to salary data from LegiStorm.
As Catherine Hollander notes as part of this week's National Journal magazine cover story, these numbers aren't a perfect science. Additionally, the salary divergence can be largely explained by thegender disparity in high-level congressional jobs--especially among Republicans. Women working in Congress tend to have lower-ranking jobs and thus lower salaries. But the salary contrasts are striking when matched to congressional salary data on the whole.
The story in the pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat – an important media tool for Saudi rulers – said Saudi male athletes have qualified to compete in track, equestrian and weightlifting at the games that start in less than three weeks.
There is no "female team taking part in the three fields," the report said Sunday, quoting an unidentified Saudi official. He said no female athlete had taken part in qualifying events in Saudi Arabia, which severely restricts women in public life.
Saudi leaders have been under pressure to end the practice of sending all-male teams to international competitions. They could face IOC sanctions after the London Games if women are excluded from the country's Olympic team.
The Saudi Embassy in London said two weeks ago that women who qualify will be allowed to compete. Last week, IOC President Jacques Rogge said he remains optimistic the Gulf kingdom will send women to the games for the first time.
For months there's been intriguing talk that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney might pick a prominent woman as his running mate to help give his campaign a kick – and layer on some luster to a plain vanilla, hyper-cautious and meticulously run campaign.
Among the potential picks, four women, more than any others, have consistently been mentioned as possibilities in the Republican vice presidential sweepstakes:
Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, 44, the former state attorney general and relative political newcomer, who just spent a sweltering July 4 campaigning with Romney.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 40, a Tea Party favorite and one of Romney's early supporters, who recently ducked ethics violations charges related to campaign lobbying.
Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, 52, the first female Hispanic governor in the U.S., who could potentially give Romney a boost with a constituency he sorely needs.
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, 57, who served in the Bush administration and would bring the foreign policy bona fides that Romney lacks.
Just this week, Romney's wife, Ann, said that her husband is thinking about picking a woman to be on his ticket this fall. "We've been looking at that and I love that option as well," Ann Romney told CBS News, as he looked on beside her. She said the person selected for the No. 2 spot on the ticket should be "someone that obviously can do the job but will be able to carry through with some of the other responsibilities."
A significant number of countries continue to struggle with a wide gender gap in the workplace -- a fourth to be exact, according to data recently released by Gallup. That gender gap is technically the difference between the number of men and women in full-time or voluntary part-time work.
The problem is not universal. For every Ecuador or Saudi Arabia, two countries with enormous gender gaps, there is a Ireland or United Kingdom, both of which were found to posses a gender gap that actually favors women.
That's not to say gender gaps only exist in developing countries. Italy, a member of the European Union, posted a workplace gender gap of 13 percent, the survey found.
The pollsters last year questioned 187,119 people across 144 countries.
High-profile female executives should save their breath and their advice – Millennial women aren’t buying what they’re selling.
Only 20% of Gen Y women say that they want to follow in the footsteps of the female leaders in their workplaces, says new research from Bentley University. The survey of 1000 college-educated Millennials found that while 84% of respondents said that they could identify at least one female leader at their job, most didn’t want to emulate her career path.
This rejection of the current iteration of female corporate achievement also extends to attitudes toward mentorship; only 5.5% of respondents claimed that a colleague, supervisor or role model was their primary source of career cheerleading, with spouses/partners or parents much more likely to be identified as key career supporters. And only 25% of Millennials of both genders give credit to a manager or supervisor for encouraging them to assume a leadership role at work.
Women in countries with great gender inequality are more likely than men to support authoritarian values, according to a new study of 54 countries. The shift away from beliefs in independence and freedom is the result, social psychologists say, of authoritarianism helping such women cope with a threatening environment.
"If a person is authoritarian, they are more likely to follow what group leaders ask them to do, and to follow the crowd more generally," says Mark Brandt of DePaul University in Chicago, a co-author of the paper just published online in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Prior research has found that adopting authoritarian beliefs gives people a sense of connection to others and protection against threats. "It might be one way to compensate for the social devaluing that is associated with being a member of a disadvantaged group."
Brandt and his co-author P.J. Henry thus predicted that the greater thegender inequality in a country, the greater the endorsement of authoritarianism by women compared to men. They investigated this relationship by analyzing survey data from 54 countries, from Argentina to Vietnam. They used the publicly available World Values Survey, which asks participants about their beliefs in authoritarian (e.g. "good manners" and "obedience") values versus autonomous ("independence" and "imagination") ones. They gathered gender inequality data from the United Nations Human Development Report, which has tracked gender inequality around the world for more than 10 years.
As predicted, they found a link between high gender inequality and a support of authoritarian values among women. "I think many people will be surprised to find out that women can be more authoritarian than men," Brandt says. Most past research on authoritarianism has failed to showgender differences, perhaps, Brandt says, because these data were collected in the United States and other developed nations with lower levels of gender inequality. "Step outside that cultural zone to locations of greater gender inequality, and you will find greater gender differences."
The results of Financial News’ recent Women in Finance Survey bear out a similar view: 82% of hedge fund respondents said their gender has affected their likelihood of having a successful career, substantially higher than the 66% of total respondents who felt the same way. So why do women in hedge funds feel their gender makes it harder to succeed?
Most women in the hedge fund industry do not work in portfolio management positions, which create the performance upon which the hedge fund industry is built. Only 12% of the 10,000 members of 100 Women in Hedge Funds work in trading and portfolio management and the largest proportion, 26%, are in marketing roles.
Rachel Stewart, a consultant at global executive search firm Odgers Berndtson, said: “Among some of the experienced women, the feeling is that women coming into the industry now should be led towards more roles than marketing, operations and HR. It’s more difficult to get a seat as a partner or director if you don’t have a background of P&L responsibility, as this is the bread and butter of the hedge fund industry.”
Researchers from the universities of Leicester and Essex looked into the concept of "adulting," which is defined as the attempt by people to be seen as mature and responsible, professionally and socially, and, when looking at a London hedge fund, found that women faced problems at every stage of adult life – from getting started in the company to keeping credibility among colleagues after giving birth.
By contrast, young male staff were given more opportunities to settle into corporate life, and suffered fewer dilemmas in juggling work and parenthood, found Jo Brewis, Professor of Organisation and Consumption at the University of Leicester School of Management, and Dr Kat Riach, Senior Lecturer in Management at Essex Business School at the University of Essex.
"Our in-depth research into life for male and female workers at a busy hedge fund showed women are never the right age in organisational terms," said Professor Brewis, who has borrowed the phrase 'never the right age' from fellow management experts Professor Wendy Loretto and Dr Colin Duncan from the University of Edinburgh Business School, who originally coined it. Professor Brewis and Dr Riach gathered evidence in late 2010 through 53 interviews with men and women at the fund aged between 25 and 37, and 150 hours of observation.
They found that women's problems began when they entered the company. Unlike their male colleagues they were given little or no informal guidance and training as new members of a team.