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Heidi Klum’s insensitive ‘old woman’ Halloween costume

Category: Current

I hoped for a minute that she was parodying the whole eternal youth myth. But no, the supermodel was just ridiculing the old.

I am not privy to the thought processes of supermodels (thank God), and I cannot for the life of me think what was running through Heidi Klum’s head when she came up with the idea that dressing as an old woman was an amusing concept for Halloween. Heidi is well-known for going the full nine yards on All Hallows’ Eve. She’s been Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (or Gunther von Hagens’ flayed body, depending on your cultural references), the Hindu goddess Kali (managing to offend an entire religion) and now she’s given us what currently terrifies the western world beyond all reason – age.

Yes, there are cultural differences at play here – dressing up for Halloween in the US does not necessarily mean witches, vampires and Frankenstein – but it’s hard to see this stunt as anything other than ill-judged and offensive. There is a fine line here and Klum has crossed it.

Once the initial “red mist” had dissipated and I started to analyse my reaction, I’ve concluded it’s the fact that she played it straight and gone to a great deal of trouble to do so. This is not the slightly more acceptable “comedy crone” that we’re used to seeing and can tolerate – if we can’t laugh at stress incontinence and sagging bosoms we’re screwed. No, the problem for me is that it feels frankly insulting to quick fix a look that most of us are working hard to achieve over several decades. I’m not joking – take pride in the battle scars life leaves. Lines, wrinkles, veins, scars are all badges of survival – signs of a life lived. How dare Heidi Klum make light of that. As several people pointed out when I started on a rant this morning – there are those who have gone too soon who would have been very happy to embrace a wrinkled and stooped old age.

I then began to wonder whether she was trying to subvert the whole supermodel eternal youth myth. Perhaps she was saying something profound about all of us heading the same way. Something like “age is compulsory” or perhaps “life is terminal”. But after reading her comments on Twitter, such as “Little old me” – I decided I was crediting her with too much existential angst.

No, it is quite simply that making herself into an old woman for an evening is meant to be funny – not ironic, not an indication of the inner terror of a young and beautiful woman, not witty or making a point, it is purely to ridicule the old and have a good laugh at their expense. There is a serious discussion beginning on the subject of positive ageing and positive representations of age. I’ve been to two conferences in the last two weeks on the subject. Both were fascinating, stimulating and reassuring. What baffles me is that neither were rammed to the rafters – there seems to be some sort of apathy among older people about tackling their own future and status. Perhaps they think if they ignore it, it will stop, like ignoring a child having a tantrum. Or perhaps it’s a generational thing and they feel it’s impolite to make a fuss.

Unless a fuss is made there is a real danger that they (we) will find themselves negated still further to the point of oblivion. Older people, and I include myself at 58, must stand up and be counted, and protest against ageist nonsense such as this. Younger generations must be allowed to see positive representations of age and older people, not stereotypes and caricatures. To allow the current situation to continue is to stoke the fires of ageism and isolation of older generations. What are older women used for in the advertising world? Anti-ageing beauty products (usually heavily airbrushed or shown on 30-year-old models), medical products and walk-in baths: I’ll happily bore the tits off anyone who wants to talk to me about the lack of positive imagery in the media. Which might be rude of me to say so, but I’m still not nearly as rude as Heidi Klum.

By Invisible Woman

Obama to nominate Janet Yellen to be next Federal Reserve chair

Category: Politics

President Obama will nominate Janet L. Yellen to be the next head of the Federal Reserve, the White House said Tuesday. The historic appointment, if confirmed, would make the former UC Berkeley economist the first woman to lead the world’s most powerful central bank.
Yellen, the Fed’s vice chair, would replace Ben S. Bernanke, whose second four-year term as chairman expires Jan. 31. She would take over at a crucial time — the central bank is gearing up to reduce its unprecedented support for the economy without damaging the fragile recovery.

Obama will announce the nomination at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, joined by Yellen and Bernanke.

The Fed’s leadership and policy signals are being closely watched around the globe, especially in developing economies where many fear a too-rapid or poorly communicated pullback of stimulus would have severe consequences for global financial markets and the flow of capital.

The nomination was expected and culminates an unprecedented public campaign that included letters from congressional groups and extensive lobbying by economists and others in and out of Washington.
In naming Yellen, 67, a veteran central banker with a reputation as a consensus builder, Obama opted for consistency and a candidate favored by many economists and liberal Democrats. The president’s top choice, former Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, withdrew from the running in September in the wake of mounting political opposition.
Unlike Summers, a close former economic advisor to Obama, the president has had few personal exchanges with Yellen and initially seemed hesitant to appoint her in what he described as one of his most important economic policy decisions of his second term.

But after Summers’ withdrawal, White House officials talked up Yellen’s prospects on Capitol Hill as they sought to ensure she would pass the sometimes acrimonious and partisan confirmation process.
With more than a third of the Senate’s 55-person Democratic caucus having signed a letter in July urging Obama to nominate Yellen, she is expected to be confirmed. The Senate unanimously backed Yellen in 2010 to become the Fed’s vice chair, and she had served on the Fed board of governors under Chairman Alan Greenspan from 1994-97 as well.
But Yellen, a Democrat who was previously a top economic advisor to President Clinton, could face resistance from Republican members who have opposed the Fed’s easy-money policies in recent years.
Yellen may also find tough questioning about her time as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2004-10, a period when she also was involved in the Fed’s monetary policy decisions. Though Yellen raised early concerns about the risks banks were taking during the sub-prime housing boom, like most economists, she did not foresee the real estate’s disastrous crash, which triggered the worst economic downturn since the Great Recession.
More recently, some have criticized Yellen as being too willing to risk an increase in inflation through aggressive monetary policy in a bid to reduce the high jobless rate. Though the focus on unemployment is popular with many Democrats, and many economists say she is right to lean that way in the current situation, Yellen has nonetheless been painted in some corners as soft on inflation, an inflation dove in Fed-speak.
In recent years, Bernanke and the Fed have been subjected to intense criticism and scrutiny over the central bank’s policies. Bernanke, a Republican, was confirmed 70 to 30 in 2010 for his second term as chairman in what was the narrowest victory margin for a Fed chief in the central bank’s history.
As the Fed’s vice chair, Yellen has been a staunch supporter of the similarly soft-spoken Bernanke as he has gone to extraordinary lengths to stimulate the tepid recovery from the Great Recession.

Under Bernanke, the Fed has kept its benchmark short-term interest rate at near zero since late 2008. The central bank’s balance sheet, or asset holdings, have quadrupled since mid-2008 to $3.7 trillion as the Fed has purchased Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities to pump money into the financial system.
Fed policymakers, including Yellen, had been expected to begin reducing one of the central bank’s key stimulus programs in September. But they decided that the economy, particularly the labor market, wasn’t strong enough to start tapering the $85 billion in bonds the Fed has been purchasing each month since September 2012 to lower mortgage rates and other long-term interest rates.

As well as being the first woman to lead the Fed since it was created 100 years ago, she would be the first vice chair to ascend to the top job.

Why women feel ‘stigmatised’ for not having children

Category: Culture

New research suggests that many women aged 35-45 who do not have children feel judged for not having had a baby.

Even if they plan to have a child, nearly 60% have at some point felt stigmatised for leaving it late.

About 40% are too embarrassed to talk about fertility, especially with family and friends, often the biggest source of pressure.

Susan Seenan from Infertility Network UK says this prevents some women from seeking help for fertility problems.

The organisation, which interviewed 500 women for its survey, said it was a common problem.

“Trying for a baby is a very personal thing which people don’t always want to talk about, but there is constant pressure from families saying ‘Isn’t it about time…?’,” said Ms Seenan.

“And if you don’t say anything, then friends and family assume you like your lifestyle too much to be bothered about children.”

If women are then diagnosed with fertility problems, the sense of isolation can become even worse, she says.

“Unfortunately, infertility is still a taboo subject. When women are labelled as infertile they feel a failure, because they have let themselves and their partner down.

“Their basic biological instinct to have a child is kicking in – and at that point everyone seems to have babies, but they can’t.”

Ms Seenan suggests that for women in this position, it is easier to talk about mental health problems than infertility problems, which is the reason behind the forthcoming National Infertility Awareness Week.

Hurtful

Neela Prabhu, 36, from London, knows how hard it is to spend years trying to become pregnant. She and her husband tried for over a year before seeking help, and that took its toll on them both.

“My mental state at the time wasn’t great and although some friends tried to be well-meaning, they kept saying unfunny things about our situation. They were trying to be helpful but sometimes it just hurt. All I could think about was having a baby.”

The success of IVF depends on a woman’s age

Neela’s parents are from India and are very supportive, but she says her mother couldn’t relate to her problems, partly because it is an issue rarely discussed in Asian communities.

She says she wants this to change.

“I want there to be more openness. I want women to talk about infertility even if they are dying inside, and I want to give women the confidence to talk about the journey of having a child.

“But it just seems to be a taboo subject – why should this be?”

Neela finally had a daughter four years ago after IVF and has recently discovered she is pregnant again with her second baby, following two failed cycles of IVF last year. She has never found out the cause of her fertility problems despite numerous investigations.

Neela started trying for a baby at 27, but many women leave it much later and by doing so they decrease their chances of conceiving naturally and risk missing out on treatment under the NHS.

‘Fallback solution’

Current guidelines recommend that women up to 39 should be offered three full cycles of IVF and women aged between 40 and 42 should have access to one cycle.

But there are huge variations in criteria across the UK. In Oxford, for example, 35 is the limit for IVF treatment on the NHS.

Many couples try for years before seeking help and before they know it they are in their late 30s – and in some areas that’s too old.”

Tim Child Oxford Fertility Unit.

Tim Child, medical director at the Oxford Fertility Unit at the University of Oxford says people are leaving it too long before before going to see their GP about their fertility problems.

“When couples start talking about their fertility, that’s the point to speak to a healthcare professional.

“Good advice can be given early on about weight, diet, alcohol intake etc which could help, but many couples try for years before seeking help and before they know it they are in their late 30s – and in some areas that’s too old.”

He says that women wrongly assume that IVF is a good fallback solution when in fact the success rates are 40-50% for the under-35s, dropping to 20% for the under-40s and just 5% for women aged up to 43.

Neela hopes that people can be more understanding and supportive towards women “who can’t just fall off a log and get pregnant” so that people like her can feel more comfortable talking about it.

Instead of asking personal, intrusive questions, she wants people to be aware that one in seven heterosexual couples in the UK is affected by infertility.

Being judged has made Neela speak out.

“People used to ask me, ‘Don’t you want another child?’ It’s really nobody’s business but mine.”

National Infertility Awareness Week runs from 28 October.

90% of Wikipedia’s Editors Are Male—What’s The Solution?

Category: Uncategorized

Wikipedia is like little else in history. Relied on by students, scholars, journalists, and citizens, it’s one of the top 10 websites in the world and the not-so-hidden base of much of our informational infrastructure.

It’s also the product of ridiculous inequality. To wit: It’s estimated that 90 percent of the encyclopedia’s top editors are male.

We’ve known gender has been a problem for Wikipedia for a while. (Diversity generally causes problems for the encyclopedia, as well: Non-Western male editors seem to be rare, too.) The gender gap has been why organizations like Brown University have organized edit-a-thons to add entries on women in science.

But a new story in the MIT Technology Review, by Tom Simonite, reveals how deeply concerned the organization charged with overseeing the encyclopedia is with the lack of new, female editors—and how the community that runs Wikipedia doesn’t always have those concerns in mind.

“The biggest issue is editor diversity,” a founder of the site, Jimmy Wales, tells Simonite. A member of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, he wants the encyclopedia to “grow the number of editors in topics that need work.”

Those topics, it seems, fall into two categories: articles written mostly by women, and articles about the global south. As Simonite reports:

In 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota and three other schools showed that articles worked on mostly by female editors—which presumably were more likely to be of interest to women—were significantly shorter than those worked on mostly by male editors or by men and women equally. Another 2011 study, from the University of Oxford, found that 84 percent of entries tagged with a location were about Europe or North America. Antarctica had more entries than any nation in Africa or South America.

The site’s problem isn’t just attracting and retaining women—it’s attracting and retaining any type of new user. Earlier this year, four researchers examined 2,100 new editors over the history of the website, grouped them into various categories, and looked to see whether they stuck around after their first set of edits. Specifically, they wanted to know about “good-faith” new users—users who had the right goals but didn’t quite get their first sets of edits right—and “golden” users—users with both the skills and ideals to immediately improve the encyclopedia.

This chart shows what they found:

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In short: Since 2003, and especially during 2006, the number of workable editors who stuck around at the site tumbled, dropping below 20 percent. So far this decade, the proportion has seemed to drop even lower.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which stewards the encyclopedia, has tried a number of tactics to nudge that number back up. Maybe the most interesting of these is a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” WYSIWYG editor, which sought to reduce the amount of jargony wiki-code new users would see. But the editors who run the site, and who impose steep regulations on those who hope to join, complained that the editor was buggy and pushed back. Now, new users won’t see the WYSIWYG editor by default.

Simonite unfolds the full story more comprehensively than any other account I’ve seen. His is an important, broad article on a system and body of knowledge that shapes the information that reaches us everyday, even if we’re not always aware of it.

Women gain as gender gap ‘narrows’

Category: Women

The gap between men and women has narrowed slightly in the past year in most countries, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report.

Iceland, Finland and Norway top the list of 136 nations, based on political participation, economic equality and rights like education and health.

The Middle East and North Africa were the only regions not to improve in the past year, with Yemen at the bottom.

The Philippines and Nicaragua both feature in the top 10.

The WEF has produced the report annually for the past eight years.

The release of this year’s edition comes as the BBC rounds off a month-long focus on women and gender around the world with a major event at Broadcasting House in London.

One hundred women from all around the world are gathering for a day of debate and discussion as the 100 Women season comes to an end.

Yemen’s challenge

Iceland’s position at the top of the WEF rankings was the fifth year in a row the country has been named the world’s most equal.

Report founder and co-author Saadia Zahidi told the BBC that since the WEF began compiling the index in 2006, 80% of countries had made progress.

“What’s worrying though is that 20% of countries have made no progress or are falling behind,” she said.

She singled out the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as countries that had invested in education and health, but had not integrated women into the economy.

Nadia al-Sakkaf, editor of the English-language Yemen Times, in London for the 100 Women conference, told the BBC that she had stopped counting the years her country had languished at the bottom of the equality list.

“It comes down to everyday life. We had three women running for president in 2006. We have lots of women in senior positions,” she said.

“But our levels of maternal mortality are very high, and 35% of girls aged 6-14 years old are not in school.”

Human capital

Saadia Zahidi of the WEF said that by contrast many sub-Saharan countries had not invested in women, but through necessity they played a major role in the economy.

Nordic countries continued to lead the way because they had a long history of investing in people, she said.

“They are small economies with small populations; they recognise that talent matters, and that talent has to be men and women.

Overall, the report, entitled Global Gender Gap Report 2013, found Iceland to be the most advanced country in the world in terms of gender equality for the fifth year running.

Iceland, Finland (second), Norway (third) and Sweden (fourth) had all closed over 80% of the gender gap, where 100% would represent full equality.

The highest-ranked Asian nation was the Philippines (fifth), praised for its success in health, education and economic participation.

Asia’s major economies performed poorly, with China in 69th place and Japan 105th.

Nicaragua in 10th place was the highest positioned country in North and South America, and was praised for a “strong performance” in terms of political empowerment.

Among major world economies Germany ranked 14th (down one), the UK held its position at 18, with Canada at 20 and the United States 23rd.

On matters of health and survival, the report finds that 96% of the gap has now closed.

In terms of education, the global gender gap is 93% closed, with 25 countries now judged to deliver equal treatment to boys and girls at school.

It is a different picture on the core issue of economic equality, where the gender gap has closed by 60%.

In developing and developed countries alike, women’s presence in economic leadership positions is limited.

And while women have made small gains in political representation – 2% this year – only 21% of that global gender gap has closed

Ms Zahidi said the idea of the report was not to remind poor countries that they had fewer opportunities than rich countries, but to give them a tool to improve the situation.

“Women make up one half of the human capital available to any economy and any company; if that talent isn’t integrated, that is going to be a loss for both women and men,” she said.

THE TOP 20 COUNTRIES
	2013	2012
Iceland	1	1
Finland	2	2
Norway	3	3
Sweden	4	4
Philippines	5	8
Ireland	6	5
New Zealand	7	6
Denmark	8	7
Switzerland	9	10
Nicaragua	10	9
Belgium	11	12
Latvia	12	15
Netherlands	13	11
Germany	14	13
Cuba	15	19
Lesotho	16	14
South Africa	17	16
UK	18	18
Austria	19	20
Canada	20	21

Google Autocompletes The World’s Opinion Of Women

Category: Culture

Here’s one easy way to determine how rampant sexism is across the globe: run a Google search. To prove that masses of Internet users have worrying opinions on what women should–or cannot–do, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) tested the search engine’s autocomplete feature. Type in the words “women” and “shouldn’t” or “women” and “cannot,” and you’ll get a litany of despicable options: drive, vote, speak in church, box, have rights…you get the point (interestingly, here in the U.S., when you type in “men shouldn’t,” you get a more innocuous list: wear flip-flops, wear shorts, marry).

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The ads were created by Christopher Hunt at Ogilvy & Mather Dubai. Each one includes a line of small print, listing the date on which the search was run. Why not give autocomplete a try and see what pops up when you type “women can” into the search bar. Or better yet, the phrase “misogynists are.”

By: Jennifer Miller via FastCo

Where are the women in science? Right here … My top 10 female scientists

Category: Work

Ada Lovelace Day asks people to think about the women that have inspired them to be the person that they are today. The Day remembers the incredible woman who developed the world’s first computer program – long before computers existed – and asks us to consider and write about all those women who work in tech and other male-dominated fields, like science, engineering or manufacturing.

The first Ada Lovelace Day in 2009 saw more than 1,200 people write about the women they admire who work in STEM and four years later, the Day is still going strong.

In the spirit of Ada Lovelace Day, here are 10 women that have been an inspiration to me, both during my childhood, and as my academic career has developed.

Jean Golding

Jean’s a pretty remarkable woman, and I was lucky enough to interview her recently for a book about women in science and technology, published today. Jean was instrumental in setting up Children of the 90s, a multi-generational birth cohort, which recruited about 14,000 pregnant women in the early 1990s, and followed them, their children, and other family members since then. This dataset (which I’m lucky enough to work on) is an incredibly detailed study, with interviews and questionnaires being completed by the participants, as well as biological samples collected. It began before the kids were born, and is still going now, over 20 years later. Jean’s vision as to what data would need collecting means the dataset is being used today for cutting edge genetic and epigenetic research.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Jocelyn was still a PhD student when she made a discovery which won her supervisors a Nobel Prize (a lot of people at the time, and since, believe she was very unfairly overlooked for the prize).

She was using a radio telescope to study quasars, when she noticed a weird signal. Rather than ignoring it, she investigated further. It turned out to be the first recording of a pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star.

And how could I not be impressed by the woman whose pulsar became a truly iconic image, after it was pictured on a Joy Division album cover?!

Athene Donald

Athene was voted by The Daily Telegraph as one of Britain’s 100 most powerful women, and it’s easy to see why. She was the first female physics lecturer at Cambridge University, and since then, as well as having a highly successful academic career, has done a great deal to support women in physics, and science and technology more generally.

Her blog, on Occam’s Typewriter, abounds with honesty about being a woman in science, and I’ve found a lot of the posts to be incredibly interesting and useful; full of guidance for early career scientists like myself.

Sophie Scott

I’d been in the same room as Sophie Scott (pictured) for approximately 30 seconds when I realised I wanted to be her when I grew up (disclaimer: this was earlier this summer).

I was interviewing her about a piece of kit, an MRI scanner: perhaps not a particularly thrilling topic, but she was making me laugh so much I was worried I was ruining the recording.

Sophie is a neuroscientist of high regard, and has done some fascinating research on speech perception, including, amongst other things, understanding laughter. When she’s not in the lab she can on occasion be found onstage, where she’s an excellent stand-up comic too. Awesome or what?

Helen Czerski

Helen’s barely older than me, but the amount she’s achieved in her career to date is utterly inspiring. She’s already established herself as a very successful physicist and oceanographer, working in Cambridge, Toronto, Los Alamos National Lab, Scripps in San Diego and Rhode Island, before moving to Southampton University.

Not only this though, she somehow squeezes in media and broadcasting roles, including most recently as a presenter on the excellent Dara O’Briain’s Science Club for the BBC. And anyone who, on her website, lists hot chocolate among her passions, is alright by me.

Helen Sharman

I was lucky enough to have been brought up by parents who instilled in me the belief that I could do anything I wanted to, could be anything I wanted to be. At age seven or eight, this was an astronaut, after a trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and witnessing Discovery launch from our motel balcony.

My parents were also realists though, and pointed out that since I was once seasick on a pedalo, space travel may not be for me. But around the time I had this dream, a British woman was up there living it.

In 1991, Helen Sharman (pictured above) became the first British person in space, as part of project Juno. She won the place after a rigorous selection process, and spent eight days in space, mostly on the Mir space station. I bet she was never seasick on a pedalo.

Angela Attwood

Ange is co-director of my lab group, the Tobacco and Alcohol research group at the University of Bristol. She is the academic equivalent of a swan: presenting a serene image, which almost belies the incredibly hard work she puts in to her highly successful career in addiction research. Not only is she active in research, but she lectures, manages the lab group, and is in charge of a number of students, both undergraduate and postgraduate.

She always has time to offer advice to members of the group, including myself, struggling with work or more personal issues, and I feel privileged to work with her.

Barbara Sahakian

Every August, my lab group head to Harrogate, for the British Association of Psychopharmacology’s summer meeting. It’s a little bit like a family holiday, but with a lot of excellent science thrown in. The current president of the society is Barbara Sahakian, and she is awesome.

Barbara (pictured) is an internationally renowned neuropsychopharmacologist, meaning she researches how drugs affect the brain. She co-invented a battery of tests used by psychologists and neuroscientists across the world, and has recently spoken extensively to the public about neuroethics, in particular related to the use (or abuse) of Alzheimer’s and dementia treatments by healthy people, as cognitive enhancers.

Dorothy Hodgkin

Apparently Dorothy hated the phrase ‘role model’. However, as the only British woman to win a Nobel Prize for science, it’s not surprising that people were, and still are, inspired by her.

As early as the 1930s, Dorothy was using the then very new technique of X-ray crystallography to ascertain the structures of various complex proteins and other biological molecules, including penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin. As well as studying at both Oxford and Cambridge, Dorothy was Chancellor at the University of Bristol later in her career, and a building named in her honour stands testament to her legacy.

While chancellor she campaigned against cuts in university budgets. She also spent a lot of time travelling abroad to foster exchange programmes to bring scientists and students from developing countries over to use the resources of western institutions.

Elizabeth Blackwell

Elizabeth is another inspiring lady with ties to Bristol, where I live and study. She was born here, before at age 11, moving with her family to the USA in 1832. There, she would become the first woman in USA to be awarded a medical degree, by the Geneva Medical College in upstate New York.

She later returned to the UK, and became the first woman on the General Medical Council’s medical register. She, and her sister Emily, who also gained a medical degree, blazed a trail for female doctors, both in the USA and the UK, encouraging women who followed in their footsteps, both then and now.

A Passion For Science is published on October 15, to coincide with Ada Lovelace Day. All profits will go towards supporting Ada Lovelace Day and the FindingAda website.

Suzi Gage is a translational epidemiology PhD student at the University of Bristol, studying relationships between recreational drug use and mental health. She also starred in a certain spoof video about women in science and regularly blogs about all things science. She tweets @soozaphone.

Changing the Gender Dynamics of the Culinary Industry, One Loaf at a Time

Category: Work

Did you know an estimated ten percent of Executive Chefs in the U.S. are women? Hot Bread Kitchen’s stated mission is to leverage the buying power of the food industry to create professional opportunities for low-income immigrant women. While that is true, our secret agenda is to change the gender dynamic of the culinary industry and get more women in the kitchen. To help advance our secret agenda, we launched the Women Bake Bread Scholarship program on Crowdrise.

In 2008, I began Hot Bread Kitchen out of my home as a baking job training program for immigrant women. As a former United Nations policy analyst, I had travelled the world researching migration patterns, while eating my way through each countries’ local dishes. Everywhere I travelled, I saw women standing over stoves and communal ovens, women cooking for their families and feeding their communities.

Upon my return to New York, my appetite for these regional dishes didn’t fade, but my ability to find them did. When I ate in local restaurants, it was always men in the kitchen. Where were the women? Did they forego their culinary heritage and skill upon immigrating to the U.S.? I realized that the answer to these questions was no, but they were instead selling food in the street or cooking in people’s homes.

Accessing formal, living-wage positions in food manufacturing often eluded immigrant women because of their unfamiliarity with the English language, lack of formal training, or the absence of professional networks. As a result, immigrant women are the most vulnerable sector of the labor force, paid less than native women or foreign-born men and often abused in the workplace. Hot Bread Kitchen overcomes these barriers to entry by providing paid, on-the-job baking and English fluency training, coupled with job training services. By placing women in management-track positions in the food industry, we are helping them to build economic security for their families—but job placements are also part of our master plan. By placing and promoting immigrant women in leadership positions in the food industry, we are undoubtedly shifting the traditionally male-dominated nature of the business of food in the United States.

Support our now not-so-secret agenda by donating to the Women Bake Bread Scholarship program. Each week, we will release new prizes, like secret supper clubs and private cookie baking classes to help incentivize donors. Our goal is to raise $100,000 by October 30, 2013 so we definitely need the support of the GOOD community to give a damn, donate, and spread the word.

Is America finally OK with angry women?

Category: Women

Ever notice how anger helps a man command a room, but it often has the opposite effect for women?

While the former comes off as passionate, the latter is often remembered as emotionally erratic, an outcome predictable enough to make any woman angry. (Can someone say vicious cycle?)

But there may be a way out, if a new book by John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut is any indication. In Compelling People, the authors posit that what makes individuals captivating is their ability to communicate both strength and warmth, but they recognize that it’s a fine balance — and that balancing act is trickier for women.

As a passionate feminist writer who covers gender in politics, this wasn’t news to me. It’s hard to remember in the wake of Sydney Leathers, but before Anthony Weiner went into complete and utter auto-destruct mode, he was highly regarded by voters for his audacity and unflinching boldness. I remember working in a non-profit organization in D.C. where my coworkers would huddle up at lunch to watch the emboldened congressman ripping Republicans to shreds on the floor over a law for 9/11 heroes, or women’s reproductive freedom, or public funding for NPR. The more he lost his temper, the more he rose in stature to us.

When Senator Claire McCaskill showed half the amount of competitiveness and confidence during the 2012 general election, she was told that “she was very aggressive” that she used to be much “more lady-like.“ It was a similar story in 2008, when Hillary Clinton, a front-runner for the democratic presidential candidacy, was called “too angry to be elected president” by a prominent Republican. A look back at Clinton’s years as First Lady and as a U.S. senator shows that she was met with even more vitriol for being assertive.

In their book Compelling People, Neffinger and Kohut cite a study that showed that Hillary Clinton “has been the butt of more jokes than any other human being, living or dead”. Surprisingly, the woman nicknamed “Chillary” by comedians and politicians alike, climbed in the polls after the Lewinsky scandal “because a significant part of the public sympathized with her as an aggrieved yet loyal wife, even if she did not outwardly radiate warmth.” This poll trend sends a troubling message about what it means to be a prominent, powerful woman. Could it be that the only way to get the public’s sympathy if you’re a strong woman is to be cheated on?

In the public’s eye, anger doesn’t look as appealing on women as it does on men. Although John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut argue that compelling people must exude strength and warmth to get respect and recognition, they explain that gender stereotypes make this role harder to navigate for women. Because strength is traditionally associated with masculinity, strong women are seen in a negative light.

Neffinger and Kohut’s research explains why someone like Elizabeth Warren has been called “unnecessarily aggressive,” with a YouTube that is actually titled “Why Is Everyone Afraid Of Elizabeth Warren?”

This double standard is even worse for women of color, who are already too often boxed into the category of the “angry black woman.” For evidence, one need look no further than to Michelle Obama’s rather neutral response to a heckler, which was grossly exaggerated in the media.

The media freely admits to this imbalance. On Morning Joe, Joanna Coles, Cosmopolitan‘s editor-in-chief, noted that sexism is obvious in the way that the media tells stories “Male congressmen, male senators are always described as ‘stating’ something in the House. Women senators and congresswomen are always described as ‘complaining’. Women are emotional; men are somehow stoic,” she said.

In other words, a man is angry because he cares, while a woman is angry because she’s an emotional wreck.

As Neffinger and Kohut point out, men who are angry don’t only get more respect, status, and better job titles — they also get higher pay Despite the fact that men can use anger to achieve status, women may need to be calm in order to come off as rational. You know, so that people don’t think they’re PMS-ing, or whatever.

So, what’s the solution?

John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut think it’s not up to women to conform by replacing strength with warmth, but rather to increase their expression of both. They cite Oprah Winfrey and Ann Richards as masters of this fine balance.

Although our culture is still largely uncomfortable with angry women, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. For instance, we are becoming more comfortable with Hillary Clinton’s impassioned speeches, like the one she gave at the Benghazi hearing. Even Elizabeth Warren’s impatience with the government shutdown had seemed to at least correlate with her steady climb in the polls. In an interview, John Neffinger told me he is hopeful because Warren has an “ability to tear hypocrites’s argument to pieces with a lilting folksy cadence and a friendly smile.” All of the pictures being shared of her within her base ”pointing angrily with her brow in full furrow” is a sure sign that she has managed to “appeal to everybody.”

If Neffinger is right, maybe we’ve all calmed down about angry women. I certainly hope so, because as Elizabeth Warren well knows, there’s plenty for all of us to be angry about. We’ll need strong, warm, passionate women like her to help lead us out of the mess we’re in.

This article originally appeared on PolicyMic.

Women fight to end shutdown

Category: Uncategorized

Women helping empower other women doesn’t just have social benefits, it also can be powerful economically and politically, according to a group of female leaders who took part in politico’s Women Rule event on Friday — and one of the easiest way to do that is to invest in female entrepreneurs.

“The lowest hanging fruit to pick in some ways is if you really do want to do this, you really have to invest in women entrepreneurs,” said Melanne Verveer, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security executive director and the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. She was speaking at the event at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

Verveer, who served under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said studies show that countries that have a smaller gap between men and women on income and other factors perform better economically.

Verveer was part of one of the two panel discussions at the event, the Tory Burch Foundation and Google, which focused on how to empower women to effect change and grow their businesses. Drawing from both personal experience and data, the women described how making engaging women a priority can have far-reaching results.

Tory Burch, fashion designer and CEO of the Tory Burch Foundation, told the 200 mostly women in attendance that she has seen the benefit of making hiring and empowering women a focus of her own company.

“Women think differently,” Burch said. “I think there’s a different way of management skills, there’s different ways of looking at business. For me, I learned on the job. … So there were a lot of obstacles, and I think it was a bit of blind faith and I didn’t want to talk about it, I wanted it to speak for itself.”

Asked by moderator Judy Woodruff of PBS what Burch would say to people who argue women don’t have the same drive as men, Burch was emphatic.

“I would say it’s not even worth responding to,” Burch said, pointing to her own company’s growth as an example.

Verveer agreed, saying people who believe that should simply look at the “reality today.”

“Women-owned businesses are outpacing men-owned businesses in terms of creation and in terms of yield,” Verveer said.

Women are having an impact in politics, an earlier panel of women leaders said, for example to steer the U.S. out of its government shutdown.

Asked by Mike Allen if the country would be in the shutdown if there were more women in Congress, the panel said what’s more important is what the women who are on the Hill are already doing.

“It’s a moot point, and what we’re seeing is that it’s the women in Congress who are leading the end of the shutdown,” said Natalia Oberti Noguera, founder and CEO of Pipeline Fellowship, specifically pointing to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) as a leader working on a compromise solution to the standoff.

Former administrator for the Small Business Administration Karen Gordon Mills said women are powerful not just because they can find common ground.

“I’m here today for lots of reasons, but one is I love the title Women Rule, because women in power really does lead to, we think, more effective outcomes,” Gordon Mills said. “I think it’s because women in power can really get together and ask the question, ‘What is the outcome we’re trying to achieve?’ … You know that there’s an objective out there that you’re trying to get to and that is what moves the world forward and prevents logjams.”

In a conversation that focused on how to empower women to achieve their goals, members of the panel endorsed getting involved in mentoring and investing in female entrepreneurs.

Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank Julie T. Katzman told a personal story about arriving to a job and asking if there were any women on staff, only to be presented with a low-level employee. She said when she encouraged the company to hire women, they saw immediate results. She talked of disabusing Americans of the notion that women are on the fringe of business.

“Women are not a niche,” Katzman said. “It’s 50 percent of the population!”

The same principles used to get more women into business could also be applied to getting more into politics, the panel said.

One of the takeaways for Goldman Sachs Foundation President Dina Habib Powell from her work is that women in business start small, but then see their business grow.

“The biggest takeaway for them is confidence, and suddenly, they’re becoming political leaders now,” Habib Powell said.

Oberta Noguera said encouragement is key for women entering politics, as it is for those getting involved in business.

“Apparently, it takes up to six times to ask for a women to run for office before she will consider it, versus like not asking at all for guys,” Oberta Noguera said.

Friday’s lunch was part of the Women Rule series, Google and the Tory Burch Foundation that brings high-profile Washington women together to discuss how women are leading change.

In between the panels, Women Rule ambassadors held roundtable discussions with event participants. Women Rule ambassadors in attendance on Friday included Trust for the National Mall President Caroline Cunningham, Senior Adviser to the Nike Foundation Pamela Reeves, Voto Latino founder Maria Teresa Kumar, Glover Park Group Managing Director Dee Dee Meyers, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, American Action Forum Cameron McCosh, Georgetown Cupcake founders Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Berman, National Geographic photographer Jodi Cobb, Bluemercury co-founder and CEO Marla Malcolm Beck, Tory Burch Foundation Executive Director Terri McCullough, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Omidyar’s Stacy Donohue, former Twitter official Mindy Finn and CNN executive producer Michelle Jaconi.

The next Women Rule event will feature U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power in November, followed by a December conference on leadership. Additionally, Women Rule is running an online hub of essays.

via Politico