Wage Gap and Lipstick (Yes, Indulge Me)

$$Wage Gap$$

According to the census bureau (and as reported by USA Today) the wage gap between women and men is smaller than it has ever been. But is this good news? I'd say not. The reason is that so many men have lost good-paying jobs...jobs that might never return.

Here's how related trends break down:

"Women have held their own or increased dominance in the skilled health care trades — nurses, physical therapists, lab technicians — that are growing in employment. Nine of every 10 nurses are women — same as a decade ago.

Men have increased dominance in the industrial and construction trades such as sheet metal workers, printing press operators and roofers, but those jobs are declining in numbers. The computer business — programmers, operators, hardware engineers — is the only part of the modern economy in which men outpaced women in the past decade."

And, perhaps the most important quote from the article:

"It's not good news for women to have men making poor economic progress," says Carrie Lukas at the Independent Women's Forum. "This isn't a gender war. If men lose, that doesn't mean that women win."

It is worth noting, that when I did a Google news search, this news was covered by only 6 media outlets.

On Lipstick

The cover of the October issue of Money Magazine symbolized women with a big smacker of a lipsticked set of lips. That same week a blogger writing as Rabbit Write invited women to join her for The No Make-up Week experiment.

While the two might seem totally disconnected, here's what I make of them. The premise of the Money article (a similar WSJ article and a CBS MoneyWatch report) is that women come out at the short end when it comes to retirement funds.

The reasons are many (read the articles to find out), but the one that no one talked about is this...

Women have to buy makeup...and cosmetics and have our hair styled and colored and get our nails done and toenails and buy jewelry and accessories. To sum it up, we are exhorted from everywhere to spend money on accoutrements that men don't (or pay much less for) and we make less than they do. No wonder there's little left to save! So, if we all went without makeup (and some other supposed necessities) and put the money into retirement accounts, maybe we'd be better off.

Women CEOs More Trusted

For the second year, the Management Today Institute of Leadership and Management reports that the overall trust in women CEOs remains higher than for men.

"Women rate more highly than their male counterparts both when it comes to employees having confidence in their boss's ability to do their job and also when it comes to being principled and honest. Female CEOs score higher than male CEOs in these areas by two and three index points respectively. But the really important differentiator is chief executives' knowledge of what their employees have to contend with in their day-to-day lives - female CEOs are seven points ahead of their male counterparts on this measure."

Everything New is Old Again

Having been around for a while, it gets my goat when the same old advice is packaged up as new advice for the new reality. Excuse me, but these ten tips have been around in one form or another for the 40 years I've been in business! You'd think that HBR and Success Magazine would know better.

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls.  Follow her on Twitter.

First Woman Gondolier!

Okay, I'm Italian American by heritage so indulge me. The Telegraph reports that there is finally a woman gondolier in Venice. Giorgia Boscolo makes quite a splash (hopefully not literally)

"Ms Boscolo's achievement is truly remarkable as since gondoliers took to the waterways of Venice in 1094, there has never been a woman among them..."The guys joked with me that a woman would not be able to control a heavy and long gondola, but I told them that I had given birth to two children and that was far more difficult."

But wait, what's this? The BBC reports...well, you read it:

"...the BBC's David Willey in Rome says that even now, Giorgia Boscolo can only stand in for a male colleague if he wants to take a day off from the lucrative job of rowing tourists."

Shout out to Jeanine Palumbo for the link!

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls.  Follow her on Twitter.

A Compendium of News

Going, g o i n g, g o n e
WSJ reports that women are leaving financial institutions at a rate far greater than their male counterparts (see above).

"In the past 10 years, 141,000 women, or 2.6% of female workers in finance, left the industry. The ranks of men grew by 389,000 in that period, or 9.6%, according to a review of data provided by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The shift runs counter to changes in the overall work force. The number of women in the U.S. labor market has grown by 4.1% in the past decade, outpacing a 0.5% increase in male workers.
The difference is pronounced at brokerage firms, investment banks and asset-management companies."

Thanks to Francesca for the heads up on this story.

Thumbs Up... Thumbs Down
As part of the Clinton Global Initiative, Coca Cola has committed to have women represent 50% of their micro-distribution centers (basically individual entrepreneurs who distribute product to retailers). While this is great news on one level, my trip to Guatemala in June was evidence of two dangers from American beverage companies: an overabundance of waste in developing countries without the infrastructure to handle it and the very sad feeding of cola products to infants.

Let's Hear it for the Swiss!
For the first time, Switzerland has more women in its cabinet than men. This a mere 40 years after women gaining the right to vote. Now, why is U.S. so far behind after nearly 100 years?

"The four-three majority makes Switzerland only the fourth country in the world to have more women than men in its cabinet, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The others are Cape Verde, Finland, and Norway."

Vision 2020
Speaking of 100 years of women's suffrage...Next month is the first meeting of Vision 2020, a decade-long initiative to advance women's equality in advance of the 100th anniversary of women's sufferage. I am honored to be one of the delegates from RI and look forward to the first meeting next month. Please reach out to your state's delegates and ask what you can do to make change.

And speaking of what's left to be done. Here's what Jenna Goudreau of ForbesWoman has to say.

"In 2010, women are legally able to achieve equal footing. But have they? They are now half of the workforce, but earn only 78% as much as men. They earn the majority of bachelors and masters degrees, but are still more likely to serve as primary parent and housekeeper for the family. We came close to a female president but haven’t had one. Meanwhile Ireland, India, Costa Rica and Liberia have elected a female leader. Women are 51% of management and professional workers, yet in the largest companies in the U.S. only 3% have female CEOs and only 16% of board members are women. For the first time in history, we have three female Supreme Court justices. Time to celebrate? Only 17% of Congress members are women, and only six of the nation’s 50 governors are women."

More on the "Glass Cliff"
In 2004, the term "glass cliff" was coined to describe women who are placed in leadership positions in organizations in precarious financial situations. Summarized in the British Psychological Society's Research Blog, the study by Susanne Bruckmüller and Nyla Branscombe finds:

"...the phenomenon occurs firstly, because a crisis shifts people's stereotyped view of what makes for an ideal leader, and secondly, because men generally don't fit that stereotype. '...[I]t may not be so important for the glass cliff that women are stereotypically seen as possessing more of the attributes that matter in times of crisis,' the researchers wrote, 'but rather that men are seen as lacking these attributes ...'."

That's Dr. Ms....
For the first time ever women earned the majority (50.4%) of doctoral degrees awarded in 2008-09. Most in public administration, health sciences and education.

Women continue to lag behind in mathematics, computer sciences, physical sciences (all <30%), style="font-weight: bold;">Going, going, g o n e?
Women in financial institutions are disappearing, well relatively speaking. (See graph above)

"In the past 10 years, 141,000 women, or 2.6% of female workers in finance, left the industry. The ranks of men grew by 389,000 in that period, or 9.6%, according to a review of data provided by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The shift runs counter to changes in the overall work force. The number of women in the U.S. labor market has grown by 4.1% in the past decade, outpacing a 0.5% increase in male workers.
The difference is pronounced at brokerage firms, investment banks and asset-management companies."

Goldman Sachs in the Crosshairs
Once again a financial institution has been sued for gender discrimination. If it goes the way of Morgan Stanley, it could come at a substantial cost. Morgan Stanley paid out a $54million award.

"Wall Street doesn't get it," said Kelly Dermody, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP representing the plaintiffs.

"Even as some (women) do crack the glass ceiling, Wall Street continues to pay them less, relegate them to jobs that have less upside potential, and exclude them from important clients and business opportunities," she added."

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