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Latino Actress Recieves Backlash for Appearing in Conservative Campaign Ad

Category: Politics

Maria Conchita Alonso- a Latino actress - has resigned from a San Francisco stage production after the backlash she received from the local Latino community for showing support for a conservative candidate for California governor who’s against illegal immigration. Maria, who’s of Cuban and Venezuelan descent, appeared alongside GOP Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County in his recent TV ad for governor.

Donnelly is a Tea Party favorite, reported KPIX-TV in San Francisco, adding that he’s against illegal immigration and was once with the Minutemen Project, which patrolled the border with Mexico to catch those coming across illegally.

Alonso, known for her role in “Moscow on the Hudson” with Robin Williams, was to perform next month at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco’s Mission District in a Spanish-language version of “The Vagina Monologues.” The show producer is Eliana Lopez, wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.

“We really cannot have her in the show, unfortunately,” Lopez told KPIX-TV in San Francisco, adding that Alonso abruptly resigned from the cast on Friday.

“Of course she has the right to say whatever she wants. But we’re in the middle of the Mission,” Lopez told KPIX. “Doing what she is doing is against what we believe.”

That seemed to be confirmed when Alonso heard from angry listeners of a San Francisco Spanish-language radio station Friday after she said in an interview with KIQI-AM that she supported many of Donnelly’s views on illegal immigration.

“I am among those who think that we should help illegal immigrants who are already in the country and who do not have a criminal background, who contribute and who are good people, but those who are not, we need to take out,” Alonso is quoted by La Opinion as saying in an email, according to Fox News Latino. “I spoke with Tim about this issue and he agrees with me.”

Several listeners didn’t like Alonso using the term “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants during the interview or that she used vulgar language in the campaign ad.

“We don’t act like that. First of all, that is not a typical Latina,” Jim Salinas, a long time Mission resident and former president of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club, told KPIX.

Salinas added that there probably would have been boycotts if Alonso had stayed on the production.

“First Amendment rights, we all have the right to say something. But it’s also our right to say we object to that,” Salinas told KPIX.

While Leo Lacayo, a prominent San Francisco Latino Republican who’s been pushing his party to take a more moderate stance on immigration, said he believes Alonso is being treated unfairly.

“It was a political ad, it was a funny ad,” Lacayo told KPIX. “That anybody would lose employment over what their political leanings are is absurd.”

Pope calls for more women in church

Category: Women

Speaking to an Italian women’s organization Saturday, Pope Francis expressed a desire for women to become more involved in the Roman Catholic Church.

Citing the “indispensable role” of women in society, Francis said he has been pleased to see women sharing pastoral responsibilities with priests and families, adding that he wants women to take on a role that is “more capillary and incisive” in the church. Pope Francis went further, complimenting women for their “gifts of delicacy,” including a “special sensitivity and tenderness.” He also  spoke of women in the workplace, noting their role should be expanded there as well.

“This is important, for without these attitudes, without these contributions of the woman, the human vocation would not be realized,” Francis said.

The pope was addressing the Centro Italiano Femminile (Italian Women’s Centre), a non-profit women’s association with a focus on core Christian values.

War on women? U.S. Republican Rand Paul says women are winning

Category: Politics

U.S. Senator Rand Paul on Sunday offered an way out of criticism that the Republican Party is waging a war on women: the women are ahead.

“You know, the whole thing of the war on women. I sort of laughingly say, ‘yes, there might have been, but the women are winning it,’” Paul, a possible contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Paul was asked to comment on remarks that former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee made to the Republican National Committee last week, in which he urged Republicans to argue that women are not “weaklings” who rely on government for help, including contraceptives to “control their libido.”

Rand called Democratic criticism that Republicans are waging a “war on women” a charade that does not lead to good policy.

“I’ve seen the women in my family and how well they’re doing,” Rand said, citing women in medical and law schools. “I think women are doing very well and I’m proud of how well we’ve come and how far we’ve come, and I think that some of the victimology and all this other stuff is trumped up.”

Maria Shriver’s Report Reveals The Financial Struggles Of American Women

Category: Current

One-third of American women are living under or near the poverty line, is one of the shocking findings The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink reveals. The report is coauthored by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress. The report features extensive research on women’s roles in the economy as well as personal essays from Beyoncé Knowles, Hillary Clinton, Eva Longoria and LeBron James.

According to the report, 42 million women and the 28 million children who depend on them are living at less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line — equivalent to an annual income of $47,000 supporting a family of four.

In the introduction, Shriver explains that these dire circumstances are due to a confluence of cultural and economic factors:

These are not women who are wondering if they can “have it all.” These are women who are already doing it all — working hard, providing, parenting, and care-giving. They’re doing it all, yet they and their families can’t prosper, and that’s weighing the U.S. economy down.

Three critical factors contributing to women’s poverty are:

  1. Women are more likely than men to work in “pink-collar” service or caregiving positions, which are usually poorly paid and lack benefits.
  2. Even though women earn the majority of post high-school degrees, higher education is difficult to obtain.
  3. Single-parent families are increasingly common. According to the report, “more than half of the babies born to women ages 30 and younger are born to unmarried mothers, most of them white.”

As Shriver writes in the report’s opening chapter: “Leave out the women, and you don’t have a full and robust economy. Lead with the women, and you do.”

Here’s hoping that this new report will lead to tangible change.

The full text of The Shriver Report is available for download on Amazon.com.

Do women make better money managers?

Category: Women

The perception that men have greater power in the workplace is why women outpace them when it comes to investment returns, researchers say.

Female money managers consistently outperform their male counterparts, and social scientists say this unbalanced power dynamic is one reason why. But, they add that eventually, as the power balance evens out in the workplace, women may lose some of that edge.

Men’s higher testosterone levels lead them to trade more and take more risks: “Men can become a little immune to some of the signals in this market,” said Meredith Jones, a director at consulting firm Rothstein Kass. “Having more women in risk-tasking positions… can help mitigate some irrational exuberance.”

Jones is the author of a study, released Wednesday, that found since 2007, female-owned or female-managed hedge funds delivered returns more than six percentage points higher than hedge funds overall, and two percentage points higher than the S&P 500.

“Women just tend to think about money management and the markets differently,” said Jones.

Research done by social scientist Deborah Gruenfeld, co-director of the Executive Program for Women Leaders at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, suggests that the perception of greater power in the workplace can hurt people’s decision-making ability.

“We found that power led to perceived control over outcomes that were uncontrollable and/or unrelated to the participants’ power,” she wrote in a research paper published in Psychological Science in 2009.

“Members of dominant groups… [are] more likely than others to believe they can control the future,” she wrote. In the hedge fund world, that’s men; Rothstein Kass found that only about 20 percent of hedge funds are run by women.

“Power makes people less loss-averse. They’re less concerned about what a loss would feel like,” said Ena Inesi, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School. She theorized that people in positions of power are more likely to have the resources to weather a loss, so they might not be as concerned about potential negative outcomes.

The differences between how men and women act as managers is also important according to Crystal Hoyt, an associate professor of leadership studies at University of Richmond.

Female managers are more likely to collaborate, since a hard-charging, authoritarian leadership style is more likely to be perceived as masculine. “There’s a backlash if they’re too masculine,” she said. “They have to know when to listen to others and not assume they know exactly what to do,” Hoyt said. Taking the advice of others could improve their success as investors.

Movements like LeanIn.org, founded by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg works to make it easier for women to get on in corporate America. Ironically, social scientists say a more inclusive corporate culture would reduce the current gap between male and female performance when it comes to investing.

It won’t happen overnight. “I could see it taking longer than a decade,” Jones said. “I think they could potentially get closer but I think it’s very difficult to change behavior and biology.”

As more women rise to leadership roles, bosses of both genders will gravitate towards management styles that work best, which means men and women might solicit the advice and expertise of their colleagues. On the flip side, some female executives confident in their power and not bound by gendered tenets about how women “should” behave might act more like men.

Big dreams for Michelle Obama after the White House

Category: Women

First Lady Michelle Obama turned 50 on Friday, is only just starting to build her legacy. Presidential historians expect to see more from her in her commitment to fighting childhood obesity, supporting military families and encouraging good education and volunteer work to deepen in the next couple of years, and anticipate she will fully devote herself to those issues after she and her family leave the White House.

“I will be in my early 50s when I leave here, and I have so much more that I should do,” Obama recently said in an interview with People magazine. “I don’t have the right to just sit on my talents or blessings. I’ve got to keep figuring out ways to have an impact — whether as a mother or as a professional or as a mentor to other kids.”

The first lady is likely to continue promoting Let’s Move, her fitness and wellness program, and Join Forces, which assists military families, plus return to the philanthropy work that she did before she became first lady. But she’s unlikely to make a run for public office, experts say.

Robert Watson, a presidential historian and professor at Lynn University in Florida, expects the final year of President Obama’s second term to be a big year for Michelle Obama.

“If history holds, I expect Mrs. Obama will enlarge in her role,” he said, pointing to the fact that she already is making more of an effort to promote a good education than she did in the president’s first term.

“She’s going to assert herself. We’re going to see more of the Ivy League-educated lawyer and former CEO,” he said, adding that while presidents often have difficult second terms marred by sagging approval ratings or scandals, as was the case with Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first ladies “tend to spread their wings” during second terms.

Wendy Davis tells Maria Shriver, ‘I’m not an overnight sensation’

Category: Politics

She became a household name immediately after staging an 11-hour filibuster over abortion rights, Texas state senator Wendy Davis insists she climbed a long political ladder to get to where she is today.

“I’m not an overnight sensation. I’m a Texan. And I’m a Texas success story,” the state Democratic gubernatorial candidate said in an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Maria Shriver. “I am the epitome of hard work and optimism.”

In her discussion, which will air Wednesday, Davis describes growing up poor, getting pregnant at 18 and getting divorced a year later. She also speaks about working two jobs at the same time to support her family.

The discussion is part of a weeklong #DoingItAll series of stories in which Shriver highlights the personal and financial challenges many women in America face.

‘Arabs Got Talent’ rapper highlights women’s issues

Category: Culture

When the music started the young veiled woman bobbed her head to the rhythm, raised her hands to get the crowd clapping and then unleashed a flood of rap lyrics that tackled some of the biggest social challenges women face in the Arab world. Using the Middle East’s hit TV show “Arabs Got Talent” as her platform, 18-year-old Myam Mahmoud rapped about sexual harassment, second-class treatment of women and societal expectations of how a young religious woman should behave.

The Egyptian teenager didn’t win the program – she crashed out in the semifinals – but she did succeed in putting the spotlight on something bigger than herself.

“I wanted to tell girls in Egypt and everywhere else that they are not alone, we all have the same problems, but we cannot stay silent, we have to speak up,” Mahmoud told The Associated Press.

In Egypt, a country where politics have grabbed most of the headlines for the past three years, little space has been dedicated to addressing social problems. So Mahmoud, who is a first-year student of politics and economics at the October 6 University in a western Cairo suburb, decided to draw attention to women’s rights through rap.

“Everybody speaks about politics, but nobody tackles the topics that relate to me the most,” Mahmoud said.

She said she gets the ideas for her songs from the surrounding community, and that sometimes girls send her their problems to write about and give them a voice.

“Many girls want to say what I rap about, but they cannot for many reasons,” she said. “I speak for them.”

One of the biggest problems for woman in Egypt is harassment. A U.N. report released in April said the issue had reached “unprecedented levels,” with 99.3 percent of women in the country reporting that they have been subjected to sexual harassment.

A female CEO at GM: A sign of change or an anomaly?

Category: Work

Mary Barra takes the reins at General Motors this month. Is her ascension a part of a larger change for women in traditionally male-dominated industries? Yes and no.

Mary Barra officially starts as General Motors’ CEO on Jan. 15, marking an important milestone of progress for professional women. The 105-year old car company is an iconic American corporation and the automotive industry is tied to notions of traditional masculinity more than other sectors.

But does Barra’s elevation signal a transformative change in the auto and manufacturing sectors? Or is it an anomaly that merely gives the illusion of progress for women?

The answer to both questions may be yes. Prominent women executives highlight the symbolic importance of having a visible female executive to inspire and mentor lower-ranked women, and to counter the unspoken assumption in many minds that a woman couldn’t fill a C-level position.

“There’s no doubt there’s a dearth of women in leadership roles at publicly traded companies,” says Kim Bowers, CEO of CST Brands, one of North America’s largest convenience retailers. “It takes time in the seat to move into a C-suite role. Industries that start out typically male will take longer [to change].”

According to a recent report by Catalyst, the discouraging reality is that for the fourth year in a row, 14.6% of Fortune 500 CEOs were female. Board progress has stalled even longer — no significant change for eight years, with women holding only 16.9% of corporate board seats in 2013. Women occupied only 8.1% of top earner positions, representing no change from Catalyst’s 2012 report.

But looking closely at the most and least male-dominated industries reveals counterintuitive findings. The five sectors in which women have the strongest chance at advancing to CEO are retail-trade (18.6%), finance and insurance (17.6%), oil and gas (16.9%), science and technology services (15.5%), and nondurable goods manufacturing (15.2%). You might not expect to see finance, energy, or technology on that list.

The five sectors where women are least represented in the C-suite are construction (4.3%), arts and entertainment (6.3%), management (6.9%), real estate (9.5%), and durable goods manufacturing (11.2%). When Barra (who was No. 29 on Fortune’s 2013 Most Powerful Women list) takes on the CEO role at GM the durable goods manufacturing number will go up slightly.

The fact remains that the highest percentage of female CEOs — 18.6%, in retail — is rather low given that more than 50% of college and advanced degree earners are women.

“We haven’t made a lot of progress, in my opinion. There’s a lot of holding and gating factors,” says Gay Gaddis, CEO and founder of T3, an Austin-based digital agency, who says she has often been the only woman in a room of high-level executives. “A lot of companies will say, secretly, we’ve got two potential candidates: the woman and the guy, both qualified, but better bet on the guy because we think he’ll follow through. We think he’ll be willing to stay later at night if we need him to.”

It’s hard to say whether Barra is part of a new wave of women CEOs who will pave the way for a new generation of female leadership in male-dominated industries or simply an anomaly. Women held only 24.2% of all automotive manufacturing jobs and 16% of executive or senior level positions in 2012, according to Catalyst. And the broader numbers tracked by Catalyst certainly paint a picture of stalled progress in the last decade. Bowers believes that women will eventually break through, as the millennial generation advances to middle management and eventually takes over top roles.

“All these male-dominated industries — be they tech, finance, or automotive — would do better with more women,” says Sharon Meers, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and co-author of Getting to 50/50: How Working Parents Can Have It All. “The research proves out that when you have more women in the room, you have better decision-making. It’s just a fact.”

katherine lewis By Katherine Reynolds Lewis

Paul Graham Shows That Sexism in Tech Is Still a Problem

Category: Twitter

Once again, Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham’s mouth has landed him in hot water. The loose-lipped Silicon Valley power broker said some dumb stuff about women.

graham tweet

In an interview with The Information, Graham was asked about discrimination in the tech scene. Troves of evidence exist revealing sexism in tech exists, like this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference, as one example. But Valleywag highlighted Graham’s comments that show he doesn’t see sexism as a problem, and in fact thinks women are just naturally behind the hacking eightball. Graham now contends the whole thing is one big misunderstanding.

The Information’s Eric Newcomer asked whether Graham’s startup accelerator, Y-Combinator, discriminates against women, and his answer quickly became a defense of tech culture as a whole. Graham said his company does not discriminate, and that any gender imbalance can be explained by the fact that girls don’t start hacking at the same age boys do.

If someone was going to be really good at programming they would have found it on their own. Then if you go look at the bios of successful founders this is invariably the case, they were all hacking on computers at age 13. What that means is the problem is 10 years upstream of us. If we really wanted to fix this problem, what we would have to do is not encourage women to start startups now.

It’s already too late. What we should be doing is somehow changing the middle school computer science curriculum or something like that. God knows what you would do to get 13 year old girls interested in computers. I would have to stop and think about that.

Later, Graham tried to explain that discrimination cannot exist because girls attend tech conferences too. Besides, the time thing. “We can’t make women look at the world through hacker eyes and start Facebook because they haven’t been hacking for the past 10 years,” he said, later in the interview.

The notion of limits on when and how one can start coding is astonishing. Coding is supposed to be the one thing anyone can learn and change their life with. What about all the homeless people? Silicon Valley is supposed to be where bootstraps pick themselves up by the bootstraps and change the world. But apparently that’s not an option for women because of they’re too busy not being on the computer at 13-years-old.

People were predictably outraged over Graham’s comments about girls not hacking for the last ten years. A storm is brewing. That these comments are coming from Graham, an extremely important and influential person in the tech world, is especially troubling. ”Here is a hacker hero—the figurehead behind Hacker News!—and he has no clue how to get girls to care about tech,” said Valleywag’s Nitasha Tiku. But maybe they should not be surprising, considering this is the same guy who admitted discriminating against startup founders with foreign accents.

At one point Graham also said startups sometimes don’t hire people who did not start hacking until studying computer science in college. This, according to Graham, is why there’s some confusion. See, he meant to say “these women,” as in the ones who didn’t start hacking until college:

 

(Update, 04/01/2014 at 5:25 p.m. Graham expanded his defense in emails to Valleywag. He was allegedly misquoted during an interview for a profile on his wife.) To summarize: girls aren’t interested in hacking or coding at an early age, but sometimes they start in college, and then they’ll have terrible job prospects because they didn’t start early enough. Or, something. That’s a rough outlook for any women hoping to break into tech’s boys club.

Following Graham’s logic can be difficult. Tiku put it best when she said he’s merely “justifying the status quo,” rather than examining a real problem. Graham has once again proven himself proud to be the champion of everything wrong with Silicon Valley culture. Thankfully, there are people like Elissa Shevinsky telling women they can go to liberal arts school and read Plato and still play with computers.

Update, 06/01/2014 at 8:55 am: Graham has posted an explanation on his website at: http://paulgraham.com/wids.html

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