Newsweek's Shame and FORTUNE's Fame

On the one hand, Newsweek paints powerful, ambitious and successful women as "bitches". It has chosen 11 of the most powerful women who are also noted for not being so very nice. As a matter of fact, they pitch "11 Powerful Women Who Make Men--and Other Women--Squirm."

Have they ever described powerful men as those who make women and other men squirm? Not likely!

On the other hand Newsweek tells us that we are our own glass ceiling and advises that if we want to get ahead we have to stop being the "good girl". This is actually a very good article and I recommend that you read it. Love this point made by the author, Jessica Bennett:

"Part of (women's inability to self-promote) comes from a lifetime of mixed messages about what it means to be strong. We've grown up watching the Hillary Clintons of the world vilified for being pushy, while our soft-spoken colleagues struggle to rise up the corporate ladder. Society, pop culture and the media all encourage us to be tough but sexy in the process. In a way, we're hybrids of the 1950s woman, who was forced to conform, the 1970s woman who refused to, with a bit of 21st-century porn culture thrown in. We live with outdated expectations about what's acceptable, while pressuring ourselves to achieve it all."

Don't they see how they're playing into the nation's ambivalence about women? Shame on that 11 powerful women feature.

On the other hand, I eagerly wait for FORTUNE's 50 Most Powerful Women every year. Among this year's list are the F500 women CEOs (all of whom act as virtual mentors in my new book).

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls (Dec 2009). She blogs on networking for PINK Magazine. Follow her on Twitter.