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The New York Times

Magazine | the reckoning: women and power in the workplace, the reckoning: women and power in the workplace.

DEC. 13, 2017

Essays and art from Jenna Wortham, Ruth Franklin, Vivian Gornick, Parul Sehgal, Heidi Julavits, Paula Scher, Olivia Locher, Amber Vittoria and more.

The Reckoning Women and Power in the Workplace

By THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE DEC. 15, 2017

As revelations of sexual harassment break, women have been discussing the fallout and how to move forward. Here, women from across the working world take on this complicated conversation.

We Were Left Out

By Jenna Wortham

“Revolution will come in a form we cannot yet imagine,” the critical theorists Fred Moten and Stefano Harney wrote in their 2013 essay “The Undercommons,” about the need to radically upend hierarchical institutions. I thought of their prophecy in October, when a private document listing allegations of sexual harassment and abuse by dozens of men in publishing and media surfaced online.

The list — a Google spreadsheet initially shared exclusively among women, who could anonymously add to it — was created in the immediate aftermath of reports about sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein. The atmosphere among female journalists was thick with the tension of watching the press expose the moral wrongs of Hollywood while neglecting to interrogate our own. The existence of the list suggested that things were worse than we even imagined, given all that it revealed. It was horrifying to see the names of colleagues and friends — people you had mingled with at parties and accepted drinks from — accused of heinous acts.

A few days after the list appeared, I was in a van with a half dozen other women of color, riding through the desert on our way to a writing retreat. All of us worked in media; most of us had not realized the extent to which harassment polluted our industry. Whisper networks, in which women share secret warnings via word of mouth, require women to tell others whom to avoid and whom to ignore. They are based on trust, and any social hierarchy is rife with the privilege of deciding who gets access to information. Perhaps we were perceived as outsiders, or maybe we weren’t seen as vulnerable. We hadn’t been invited to the happy hours or chats or email threads where such information is presumably shared. The list was F.T.B.T. — for them, by them — meaning, by white women about their experiences with the white men who made up a majority of the names on it. Despite my working in New York media for 10 years, it was my first “whisper” of any kind, a realization that felt almost as hurtful as reading the acts described on the list itself.

As a young business reporter, no one told me about the New York investor known for luring women out to meals under the guise of work. I found out the hard way. I realized he was a habitual boundary-crosser only after The New York Observer reported on him in 2010. Most recently, after I complained in a media chat room about a man who harassed a friend at a birthday party, everyone chimed in to say that he was a known creep. I was infuriated. That information never made its way to me, and worse, it was taken as a given. Was keeping that secret hidden worth the trauma it caused my friend?

The list’s flaws were immediately apparent. It felt too public, volatile and vulnerable to manipulation. But its recklessness was born out of desperation. It detonated the power and labor dynamics that whisper networks reinforce. Information, once privileged to a select few, became decentralized and accessible to all. And the problem of sexual harassment no longer belonged solely to women to filter and share.

Once the list leaked beyond its initial audience and men became aware of it, it was effectively shut down. But who knows what would have happened if it lasted longer? Maybe a better mechanism for warning and reporting harassment could have been finessed; it’s clear we still need one. Even now, amid the torrent of reports of sexual misconduct, women of color are conspicuously absent. It’s still not safe enough for many of us to name our abusers in public.

But during the initial hours after the list’s publication, when it still felt secret, for women only, I moved through the world differently. The energy in the air felt charged, like after the siren goes off in the “Purge” movies. A friend compared the feeling to the final scenes of “V for Vendetta.” She liked seeing women as digital vigilantes, knowing that men were scared. I did, too. I wanted every single man put on notice, to know that they, too, were vulnerable because women were talking. Maybe, within that, we glimpsed the possibility of a new world order, like the one Moten and Harney gestured at. The list was not long for this world, but it might have lived long enough to prove its point.

Just Like the Movies

By Ruth Franklin

“My natural tendency is to observe, not to ask questions,” I wrote in my journal during the spring of my senior year of high school. I had just started a six-week internship at a local newspaper, and it wasn’t going well. At 16, I knew I wanted to be a writer, and journalism seemed the obvious route. But my natural shyness held me back.

One day at the diner where all the reporters hung out, my supervisor introduced me to a colleague. “This is a famous man,” she said with more than a touch of sarcasm. Thirty-two years old and stocky as a bantam rooster, he had shaggy black hair and intense eyes. I recognized his byline — he had just published an article about an elderly eccentric that detoured through his own obsessions, from the bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta to the traces of his childhood.

We talked about ghosts and the poetry of Octavio Paz. He gave me one of his own short stories to read and seemed to care what I thought. Soon I was accompanying him around town in his cluttered hatchback on the hunt for local characters. I thought I had finally found a model to emulate. “Maybe I have reporter potential after all,” I wrote.

On those car rides, we talked about writing but also about our personal lives. I was an alienated teenager, feverish to graduate and leave my family behind. He was divorced with young kids and working hard to support them. Sometimes when we were sitting next to each other, he pressed his arm against mine. On a picnic in a city park where more than a few passers-by recognized him, he confessed that he was infatuated with me. All that restrained him, he said, was my age. His sexual energy was palpable and a little bit terrifying. I wasn’t attracted to him physically, and I told him so. But I was entranced by his independent-mindedness, his nostalgic longing for an earlier age, even his affectations. More than that, he seemed to believe in my potential as a writer.

He often recommended books and movies, but one in particular sticks with me: “Manhattan,” perhaps the most notorious depiction of one of Woody Allen’s favorite paradigms, the pairing of an older man and a much younger woman. The parallels between our situation and this fable of romance between a divorced writer (Isaac) and a high school student (Tracy) couldn’t have been more obvious. But I was struck by the movie’s falseness. The script requires Tracy to be the ardent one, continually pressing Isaac for a commitment he won’t offer. (Indeed, midway through the film he dumps her, to his later regret, for a journalist closer to his age.) Yet Mariel Hemingway portrays Tracy as perfectly blank, her moonlike face virtually without expression, even in the most emotional scenes. The film is only about Isaac: his needs and desires. If Tracy is entertaining questions or doubts beneath the surface, we’re not privy to them.

At the time, I would have sworn that what was happening between me and this reporter was consensual. Now, more than 25 years later, I understand more clearly how incompletely the idea of consent conveys the complexity of such a dynamic. Yes, I flirted with him and enjoyed the power of knowing that he desired me. But in the end I needed him more than he needed me, because he offered something I wasn’t finding elsewhere. For a brief period, he gave me confidence. As his behavior became more aggressive — putting his hand on my leg, asking to kiss me — I started to pull away. He reacted with anger and petulance, and things between us curdled. A few years later, he depicted me in a story published in a popular anthology as a spoiled, haughty Jewish-American princess who is the subject of crude sexual fantasies.

The stories we tell ourselves aren’t just entertainment; books and movies — still more often by men — work to establish archetypes for romantic relationships. They constitute our personal and cultural mythology and are essential to the way we understand our world. A man whose interest is piqued by a 16-year-old girl has a ready-made formula for how that relationship might proceed. The very fact that such a model exists offers tacit permission for him to treat his wants as valid. For the girl who tries to enter the story on her own terms, there are two models: the receptive vessel or the Lolita-like temptress. Ambivalence and fear simply don’t enter into it.

I’m now more than 10 years older than this man was when we met. I’ve worked in journalism for close to two decades. But I spent the early years of my career anxious, questioning, in search of a validation that I couldn’t define. That wasn’t only his fault — I was primed to respond to him the way I did by things that happened long before he came around. Still, the power imbalance in our relationship led me, however unconsciously, to continue seeking legitimation in a man’s eyes. I don’t regret those afternoons driving around town, listening to him ask questions, watching him take notes: They’re part of my story as a writer. But I wish that he, as the adult in the room, had looked past his emotions to consider what would have been best for me, an impressionable teenager who admired him and craved his instruction and his approval, if not his affections. And I wish that my intellectual formation hadn’t had to be so inextricably entwined with a man’s assessment of my value.

When the Fog Lifts

By Meghan O’Rourke

When I became sick with a mysterious illness nearly a decade ago, doctors kept telling me nothing was wrong. I lived for years in a fog not only of pain but also of self-doubt, questioning my own perceptions. It is difficult to articulate how distorting this fundamental distrust of your own subjectivity is, how distorting it was to accommodate myself to a hobbled, painful reality. When my illness was finally named by a physician, my world changed: It could be addressed. And just as important, I no longer felt that my grasp on reality was tenuous.

The conversations I’ve had with my female friends in the weeks since widespread allegations of sexual abuse and harassment have come out — by text messages, over drinks, while minding young children toddling in and out of the kitchen — have circled around a contradiction: We knew, and yet we didn’t know; we were sure, and yet we doubted ourselves. For years, we lived in a climate of uncertainty created by the routine institutional denial that harassment was taking place, actions that went unnamed and dismissed, the scores of “open secrets” in plain sight yet not seen. Then, overnight, it seemed, a shift in our accounting took place. We’d been returned to a shared reality.

We think of our perceptions as being uniquely our own — the very stuff that makes us distinctive individuals. But perception is more dependent on a fine social web of recognition than we like to think. And when it came to sexual harassment, we were, in a sense, all guilty of participating in what social psychologists call the bystander effect, in which people are less likely to offer help to someone in distress if there are other people present, especially if the others are passive. In one striking 1968 study, subjects filled out a questionnaire in a room slowly filling with smoke. When alone, 75 percent of subjects reported smelling smoke. But when “two passive confederates” of the experimenters were planted in the room and behaved as if nothing were wrong, only 10 percent of the subjects reported smelling the smoke or left the room. (Shockingly, nine of 10 subjects “kept working on the questionnaire they were given, rubbed their eyes and waved smoke out of their faces,” the Socially Psyched website recounts.)

In groups, we watch to see what others do and follow suit. By its nature, sexual harassment depends on a social agreement about where we draw lines and how we interpret injury. It wasn’t until the 1980s that “unwelcome sexual advances” and the creation of a “hostile or offensive work environment” came to be considered illegal under the federal protections that derive from Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which legislates against discrimination on the basis of sex, race and religion. “Unwelcome,” “hostile”: These adjectives are by definition descriptive — dependent on a consensus of shared reality, evaluated legally on a case-by-case basis. And a shared reality is, sadly, just what so many of us know that we don’t have, even now. In an encounter between two people, the shadows of subjectivity always determine how the light looks: bright and revealing, or dark and eerie. And when it comes to encounters in the workplace, there are genuine questions of scale, lines in the sand to draw — what is just a clumsy pass? What is actual harassment?

This moment of reckoning has helped women who have been victimized — even in subtle ways — name what had been happening to them; at the same time, it has made the most culpable bystanders feel less certain — a productive redistribution of uncertainty, possibly. Many people, especially men, are asking themselves if they are complicit in what has been taking place and examining their own past behavior to see whether they have ever made a woman uncomfortable. There are, after all, two kinds of uncertainty: the self-doubt created by withheld truths and the self-doubt created by a genuine need to re-evaluate. It may not be such a bad thing if more men walk through the world feeling that they don’t have all the answers.

‘Nobody wants to be a Rat’

As told to Kathy Dobie by a Police Detective

In the 20-plus years I’ve been on the job, our department has truly changed. When I first came on the job, it was awful. In the ’80s and early ’90s, the male police force really did not want women there; women were “ruining the L.A.P.D.” That sentiment was very strong. And if I had made a formal complaint, I would have been called your typical woman, you can’t trust her, she’s gonna roll on you, and then nobody wants to work with you, and it’s just the kiss of death.

There’s definitely a cultural shift that makes the men hired today who are in their 20s quite different. At the patrol level, I think guys and gals get along just fine. The biggest issue we have in terms of sexual harassment is that even though there are procedures for reporting, nobody really wants to do anything. Supervisors, the ombuds office, everyone just wants it to go away. “Well, you know, he didn’t mean anything by it; let’s just move on.” So things fester and then blow up. I’ve seen it over and over again. If you look at the lawsuits against the L.A.P.D., I think half the complaints are internal, not some outside person who got roughed up by the police. So they’ve been trying to teach us to report anything we see. The problem is nobody wants to be a rat.

I actually think the higher you rise among the ranks, the more likely you are to encounter harassment, because coveted positions are at play. If you look at our top-cop management, it’s still very male, and those guys have been around for a couple of decades. They came on in the ’70s or early ’80s, so they’re still carrying those attitudes. I’ll give you an example: There was a captain who got a woman promoted from Detective II to Detective III — a very coveted position. It was discovered through an internal-affairs investigation that she had performed sexual acts on him. That, to me, smells a lot like Hollywood: Hey, if you really want this part, you do certain things to me, and I can make it happen. Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Roy Moore or a captain at the L.A.P.D. — what do they all have in common? They have the ability to make or break lives. They hold the key to things that other people want, so I think that’s the common denominator; the psychology of that man is the same.

Know Your Power

By Zoe Heller

I’m disappointed that the story has remained focused so squarely on the villainous doings of the metropolitan elites. I was never under any illusion that this was the beginning of the end of the patriarchy, but I had hopes that there would be more of a ripple effect, that we would begin hearing about sexual harassment and abuse in the farm industry, in fast food, in retail, in hotel housekeeping. It’s delightful that the chickens are coming home to roost for powerful old guys in the entertainment industry, and yet for large sections of the country, I suspect, the toppling of Harvey Weinstein and others has played less as a “Matrix moment” — a sudden unmasking of the country’s sexist power structures — than as an old-fashioned morality tale about debauched big-city snoots finally getting their comeuppance.

Instead of moving outward, much of the conversation among women on social media has been taken up with identifying and decrying lesser forms of male misconduct — dirty jokes, unsolicited shoulder massages, compliments on physical appearance. It is inevitable that in the great outpouring of female wrath, minor grievances, as well as major ones, should have emerged. And hostile work environments aren’t built on violent sexual assault alone. Nevertheless, we seem to have wound up spending an inordinate amount of time parsing the injurious effects of low-level lechery on relatively advantaged women. Part of the problem with these conversations is that the injuries sustained by a creepy comment or a lewd remark are largely subjective. It’s fine to demand that men stop being brutes, but it helps if there is some consensus on what qualifies as brutishness. As it turns out, my unexceptionable office banter is your horrifying insult, and your innocuous flirtation is another’s undermining insinuation. (I remember thinking guiltily during the Anita Hill hearings that a joke about a pubic hair on a Coke can didn’t sound that awful to me.) It seems neither likely nor desirable that we will succeed in banishing all sexual frisson from the workplace. And we know that many happy romances and marriages have originated on factory lines and in conference rooms. Given that the burden of making the first move traditionally lies with men, and given that it’s not always possible to gauge whether an advance is unwanted until someone makes it, there is good reason to question whether everything that is now being deemed misconduct has come from the same well of dastardly male entitlement.

An argument that has kept cropping up in recent weeks, one that will be familiar to those who have followed the debates about campus rape, is that even in the absence of force or explicit threat, the suggestive comments or sexual advances of a male colleague are implicitly coercive. A woman’s ability to register her opprobrium, or to say “No, thank you,” is always compromised by her fear of repercussions, or by her youth, or simply by her female impulse to placate. The danger with this a priori assumption of women’s diminished agency is that it ends up exaggerating female vulnerability. It casts women as fundamentally fragile beings, whose sexual assent, like that of minors, cannot be trusted to indicate true consent. It presents female passivity as natural. There’s no doubt that women, particularly younger ones, have a tendency to go along with things they don’t want to — to say yes when they really mean no — but that propitiatory tendency is not some incorrigible feature of the female character, any more than predation is the incorrigible inclination of men. And we do women a disservice by treating it as if it is. This is not about blaming the victim; it’s about pointing out to the potential victim that she has more power than she knows.

Several times in recent weeks, I’ve read and heard people asserting that older women like me, women who came of age before the Anita Hill hearings in 1991, are generally more accepting of sexual harassment and less sympathetic to women who complain about it. (This, it’s claimed, is because we grew up with lower expectations of male behavior and feel that the young should endure as stoically as we did.) I would characterize the generational divide differently. I think older women are, by and large, more reluctant to squander women’s hard-won right to sexual autonomy by characterizing themselves as helpless and in need of special protection. I think they are more likely to see “power dynamics” between individuals as complicated, fluid and not necessarily reducible to age and status differentials. I think they are also — although this is less a generational difference than a function of age — much better at telling men where to get off.

Reawakened Rage

By Vivian Gornick

What is never properly understood by those who do not experience it is how deep the rage over inequality goes once it is made conscious, how far-reaching it can be and yes, how unforgiving. At the moment, the hated imbalance between women and men, the one that all men, everywhere, have exploited for centuries, is in the dock, and women in the thousands have risen up to bring charges against men of power with the crime of having looked not at them but through them for as long as any of them could remember. These women are not yet Madame Defarge knitting at the foot of the scaffold, but half a century of insufficient progress, on the score of sexual predation alone, now fills their heads with blood and leads them to lash out at its ongoing pervasiveness, branding men to the left and to the right with accusations that include acts of real evil as well as those of vulgar insensitivity. As James Baldwin might have put it, an oppressed people does not always wake up a saint; more often it wakes up a murderer.

For many of us, it is dismaying to behold, in a movement meant to correct for social injustice, the development of what can seem like vigilante politics; the dismay, in fact, is being accorded disproportionate attention, as though its existence is more important than what gave rise to it. But if we stop for a moment to think rather than react, we soon come to realize that the courageous demand that begins with a visionary’s declaration of rights can, and usually does, descend quickly into the maddened belligerence characteristic of those who cannot stop rehearsing a grievance that feels very old and reaches far into the past. That is the course history has usually taken, and for the moment, we in America are all trapped in its turmoil.

My generation of second-wave feminists discovered how hard it is to build a case for women’s rights from the inside out, how few approached with a wholeness of mind and heart the prospect of equality for women. Those of us in the 1970s and ’80s who said (and kept on saying) that the subordination of women had now become intolerable were often denounced as witches, bitches and worse: denatured fanatics staring into a vision of the future that would upend the world as we knew it. Our radicalism lay in declaring the risk well worth taking: a calculation society as a whole is never willing to act on; it must be driven to it. But we feminists were persuaded that the American democracy was not only healthy enough but also mature enough to give up the idea that men by nature take their brains seriously and women by nature do not. We were convinced that what today we saw by the hundreds would tomorrow surely be seen by the thousands, and the day after that by the millions. Only people of serious ill will or intellectual deficiency or downright political greed would oppose the obvious. And after all, how many of them could there be?

As the decades wore on, I began to feel on my skin the shock of realizing how slowly — how grudgingly! — American culture had actually moved, over these past hundred years, to include us in the much-vaunted devotion to egalitarianism. However many thousands of women continued to join our ranks, we kept hearing: “Love is the most important thing in a woman’s life; that’s just nature.” “Women can be good but never great (thinkers, artists, politicians); again: nature.” “Oh, I get it. You don’t want to marry the Great Man, you want to be the Great Man. How very unnatural.” “Whatever happened, she was asking for it.” I remember thinking: Who says such things to a human being the speaker considers as real as he is to himself? Who tells anyone that the wish to experience oneself to the fullest is unnatural? Who thinks it acceptable that a set of needs described as essential to anyone’s humanity be considered necessary for some but not for others? Who, indeed?

I soon came to feel — and I still feel — that social and political inequality is one of the worst burdens anyone can be made to shoulder. The sheer unfairness of it! The contempt inscribed in it. My own angry disbelief in those years swelled until I found myself copying out quotes from people like the Cromwellian soldier who, on the scaffold, said: I never could believe that some men were born booted and spurred and ready to ride, and others born saddled and ready to be ridden. I, too, was now willing to go to war.

It’s not necessarily true that only a social explosion can galvanize cultural change, but inevitably, in the face of the failure to act — the term “sexual harassment” is now almost 50 years old — that’s the way it feels when that rage reawakens. And the way it feels is now compelling a movement bent on making transparent (once again!) what it’s like to live, as a class of people, brutalized or ignored but either way socially invisible.

The silence imposed by that invisibility! For better or worse, only liberationist politics — loud, brash and bullying as it sometimes seems — has ever broken it. The pity of it all is that the silence returns as the inequities once again get swept under the rug, where they fester, and wait for the next moment when the rug will turn into a rock under which these wormlike suppressions have morphed into snakes that come out hissing, should the rock be turned over.

‘A Purge Is Coming’

As told to Yamiche Alcindor by a Capitol Hill Aide

I think women on Capitol Hill right now are just kind of breathing a sigh of relief that people finally can talk about these things and not have to suffer when they come forward. A lot of people are saying, “I wonder who’s going to be next,” because everyone knows that this is just the beginning. We really feel as if a purge is coming. I don’t think that a lot of people necessarily know who, but as soon as a name comes out, then you start to hear people saying, like: “Oh, yeah. I heard that guy was creepy.”

They asked me to pitch in and just talk to survivors who call Representative Jackie Speier’s office. It’s such a gut punch when you hear the name of the member of Congress who harassed them. Al Franken was hard. It hurts the most when it’s men who have built their political careers advocating for women and then show such disdain for actual female human beings. I think it also just really shows how important it is to have women elected to office, promoting more women to senior staff and having more women involved in Capitol Hill positions and in the political process.

He’s Accused. Now What?

By Jazmine Hughes and Collier Meyerson

Jazmine Hughes: I casually know some of the men who have been accused of sexual harassment in our circles, and there are a handful I consider friends. My first thought was: What am I supposed to do with these assholes? I believe the women! But how would I show that? Did you see how Gayle King responded to the Charlie Rose accusations? It’s the best instance of “what to do when your friend is accused of sexual harassment” that I’ve seen.

Collier Meyerson: I was actually seized with panic when I heard about a friend accused of sexual misconduct. I never considered what would happen when a close friend, one whose struggles and goodness I know intimately, is questioned. Do I cast out every man who has overstepped a boundary, or only people who I’ve heard are serial sexual assaulters? I watched that clip of Gayle King, and the thing she said that most resonated with me was “You can hold two ideas in your head at the same time.” We can remember and understand that our friendships to the accused are real and also be on the side of survivors of sexual assault. But as we stumble through this, I’m feeling scared to say anything publicly, for fear of reproach. The environment is so incredibly polarized, and women can’t even feel out what to do when their loved ones are accused. I feel like I can’t even mourn that loss. Do you feel that way?

Hughes: For once, I feel grateful to not be famous — having this burden to comment is so unfair. This secondhand shame is insulting, and unproductive, and still somehow makes this into a problem for women. Personally, though, regarding these friends, I’ve answered questions when asked, but I’m not “spreading the word.”

I’ve also had long talks with friends who have been named; they’re promising but depressing. They admit to rehabilitation, but also to guilt. They’ve changed, but they had to have something to “change” away from. Everyone’s trying to get better — but what does better look like? How do we measure penance?

Meyerson: “How do we measure penance?” is exactly what I’ve been thinking about. Men repent, or if they’re famous, they retreat after their apologies. But it feels as though there are all these proverbial eyeballs looking toward women to make the decision for all men: What now? And that’s what I’m so troubled by. I don’t know the answer. In my universe, there is this expectation to purge. As my boyfriend said recently: “Humans have always tended toward purging, and it’s never worked out.”

Hughes: If I could point to anything tangible, it’s that I’d want the men to feel shame — not embarrassment, but a deep, abiding sense of wrongdoing that causes them pain and follows them like a stench. But then ... there are my friends, who’ve made the “correct” apologies or sought treatment of their own volition or stopped drinking or left the industry or left town. Which is heartening, but is that because my standards are low? What’s enough, both for myself and other people? I have a friend who is cooling her relationships with incendiary acquaintances because she doesn’t want her tacit approval to signal to other women that the guy is reasonable. Here’s a question: Say you’re having a party. Do you invite the Friend?

Meyerson: Thinking about this moment, I realize that this is not the first time any of us have heard stories about friends of ours crossing the line or harassing someone. I had a friend tell me the other day, “I remember when you told me I made this one girl feel uncomfortable because she had to say no twice, and I never forgot that.” And then there are the one or two men I’ve been friends with who have had more serious allegations against them, whom I’ve since let go. I think the right answer is that each case is different, each relationship is different.

Would I invite “that person” to a party? If I have an investment in the man, I’d go to my community and speak with them about what they’re comfortable with.

Hughes: I’m impressed that you’ve been able to talk to your male friends who might’ve slipped up in such clear terms. I have trouble doing that. What do you say?

Meyerson: I’ve had those moments a few times now: Men asking me if what they did was O.K., but it’s all subjective. What doesn’t seem like a big deal to me might have been quite a big deal to another woman. All of us have different boundaries. I don’t really have some sort of boilerplate response. It’s based on an accumulation of feelings I have about the person, about what I perceive their particular transgression to be. But I want to ask you: We’ve established that ostracizing can be important, if only just in the short term, for the mental health of women. And I really do think that. But is it appropriate for every man? And how long do we cast them out? Forever?

Hughes: It feels animalistic, in a way — at times, I see men and I want to lash out, like a mother protecting her cubs. It comes from a place of deep-seated anger that I’ve never accessed before. I guess all I can do is ostracize as long as I need to feel safe.

This email exchange has been edited and condensed.

Sorry, Not Sorry

By Parul Sehgal

When I was a child, I lived near a notorious landfill called Smokey Mountain. It jutted out of the heart of Manila — a ziggurat of decomposing plastic bags, high as a 10-story building. Squatters made their homes on its slopes and perished in the frequent fires. From time to time, I recall the city promising to raze it and put in proper housing but never making good. Smokey Mountain flourished for years.

It was my early object lesson in selective blindness. You can ignore anything if you put your mind to it, apparently — even two million metric tons of smoldering trash. Anywhere you look, there’s a Smokey Mountain of a kind, a site of shame or suffering that we refuse to reckon with — even as it bursts into flames.

The recent statements from men accused of sexual harassment are among the stranger documents of shame I have encountered: putative apologies garlanded with self-congratulation, bristling with rage. Some sound like grotesque inversions of award-acceptance speeches, dutifully acknowledging family and friends, casts, crews, networks and agents. Others attempt clumsy deflection. Kevin Spacey, accused of assaulting numerous young men, takes the opportunity to come out of the closet and, horrifyingly, equates his alleged crimes with being gay. Louis C.K. repeatedly mentions how much his victims admired him in his open letter — and invokes his penis so insistently that it feels as if he’s covertly indulging his exhibitionism all over again. Jeffrey Tambor responds to charges of sexual harassment and aggression on the set of “Transparent” with further aggression. Many claim that the behavior is in the past and seem irritated to have to answer for it. After all, as Mark Halperin protests, he’s mostly cured now.

These statements of the men seem especially shabby when compared with the majestic testimonies of the women who have come forward. In their interviews, essays and op-eds, they relive moments of terror and humiliation and shame, even as they are forced to establish their credibility and, in some cases, account for their silence over the years. Intense introspection marks these statements. The women audit themselves to a fault and reckon painfully with what speaking out might cost them. In a column in The Hollywood Reporter, the screenwriter Jenny Lumet described being sexually assaulted by Russell Simmons — and her fear of going public now: “I have built a life in the past 25 years and a reputation in my industry. I need no one to have this visualization of me. I will, like the others, lose work because of this.” She wrestles with guilt — “As a woman of color, I cannot express how wrenching it is to write this about a successful man of color” — and worries about the effect of this story on his children. It’s an extraordinary piece of writing. In response, Simmons offered little more than a limp admission of his thoughtlessness before turning to his real task: buoying up his shareholders.

But in this way these statements — even when garbled, terse or self-serving — are revealing. You can glimpse how the men have learned to live with — and avert their eyes from — their own cruelty. You can see how they continue to insulate themselves from fully understanding the suffering they have caused. How much easier it is to cop to “thoughtlessness” or “insensitivity” (another favorite word of the accused) — to hurting someone’s feelings, essentially — than to acknowledge the realities women enumerate: panic, revulsion, rage, depression, decades of lost work. There’s a profound dissonance between the gravity of the events the women describe and the men’s mild interpretations.

Almost all the accused lean on abstract language and passive voice. They are sorry women “felt disrespected,” “were hurt,” “felt pain.” There is a sort of splitting that occurs, too; many men express remorse that “their behavior” has hurt people, as if their behavior were a rogue doppelgänger that needs to be reeled in. A few, like Louis C.K., say they are trying to reconcile their behavior with who they are. These maneuvers effectively remove women from the story. The narrative changes: It becomes less about men grappling with what they’ve done to someone else and more about men lamenting what they have done to themselves — and especially their careers. It takes on an existential hue — “a journey” for Harvey Weinstein, “a reckoning” for Leon Wieseltier. For Mark Halperin, it’s a sickness to rise up and defeat. Stories of abuses of power — and their systematic concealment — are spun as redemption narratives. These men are suddenly Odysseus in exile.

Odysseus, of course, finds his way home. Which is what many of the women coming forward fear. “There seems to be a formula for redemption: Apologize, put your head down, remove yourself from the public eye, come back up after enough time has passed, align yourself with the people that you’ve wronged and then resume your place back in line exactly where you were kicked out,” the actress Olivia Munn, one of at least six women who have accused Brett Ratner of sexual misconduct, told The Los Angeles Times. The public censure, the shows being canceled, the outrage, she says, is just pruning; “the disease still remains in the tree.”

Smokey Mountain was eventually shut down in 1995. It’s still inhabited, but more sparsely. You can take tours now and imagine it in its heyday. A few miles away, a new dump thrives. It’s twice the size.

‘There’s a Warning System’

As told to Kathy Dobie by a Bartender

I’m 32, and I’ve been a bartender for 10 years, five in New York City. There’s always been a sort of warning system that bartenders have for everything from people who drink too much to sexual predators. Even in a city as big as New York, everyone in the industry knows one another. Bartenders and waiters take care of people — that’s our job. So it’s important that we take care of one another.

When I was 21, at my first official bartending job, the owner had already been sued for sexual harassment, I heard. One night, I went into his office to take him the money from the register, and he patted my butt on my way out. I immediately put on a stern face and said, “No!” as if he were a dog. From that day forward, he never tried anything like that. My experience in the industry has been that if you assert yourself and make your boundaries clear, they will be respected. It’s actually a largely liberal industry, and that sense of community, of fairness, of gender equality, I think it’s felt a little more strongly in this industry than others, because more often than not you work as a team, men and women together. I felt that if somebody were to act inappropriately toward me, I could immediately go to a co-worker, a co-owner, and it would shame them. My industry’s not like the entertainment industry. There’s only so many big-time producers, but there are enough bars and restaurants in the world to employ everyone. I know people are not always as fortunate as I am. I’ve never been in a position where if I were to quit on the spot, I would go hungry the next day, or worked in a small town where there’s nowhere else to go. I don’t have to pick from the bottom of the barrel. But there’s a lot of bottom of the barrel out there.

They Looked the Part

By Laura Kipnis

When Henry Kissinger famously said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, what he actually meant, I think, is that power makes an unattractive man more alluring. Attractive men don’t need aphrodisiacs: Physical attractiveness is its own aphrodisiac. In Kissinger’s formulation, power is a fungible currency — interchangeable with beauty, and sufficient quantities of it offset shortfalls in physical appeal.

The question is whether Kissinger’s premise has reached its expiration date.

Or that’s what I found myself wondering following the first round of sexual-harassment revelations, as conversations with friends inevitably turned, often with dark hilarity, to the physical hideousness of so many of the accused men. Of course, the hilarity was tinged with a bit of guilt, voices were lowered — because we weren’t in high school, right? Having been subject to the brutality of appearance rankings ourselves, we should refrain from imposing them on others, right? Still, surveying the photo arrays of the accused, you suspected that these were not the sought-after guys in high school. Now, old and smug, bloated with power and fine cuisine, their physical unloveliness gave the unfolding story a pleasing Grimm-like quality: They’d acted monstrously, and they looked the part.

As friends shared their own episodes of harassment and gross come-ones, I noticed a theme emerging, something I hadn’t considered. Being hit on by someone you judged unattractive was regarded as more insulting than being encroached on by someone decent-looking. A friend who’d had to physically fight off a drunken but not uncomely movie star with whom she’d shared a limo described the ordeal with amused outrage, but a mild overture from an aging, balding editor who looked like a potato in horn rims (her description) left her fuming. It was a sudden glimpse into a complicated set of internal sociosexual calculations that I suspect we all perform. Clearly it’s the harassing behavior itself that’s wrong, but being harassed by someone from a different attractiveness echelon compounds the affront. Perhaps it risks lowering you in your own esteem — does he think he’s in my league? — yet you feel guilty for making such reckonings.

Everyone knows the principle of “assortative mating,” even those who aren’t familiar with the phrase. It refers to the tendency to pick mates who are similar to ourselves in characteristics like class and education, and also, of course, attractiveness. There’s nothing random about such choices, and obviously I’m saying nothing a user of Tinder or Grindr would find surprising. The more attractive you are — or perceive yourself to be — the more attractive you want your mate to be, other things being equal.

But other things aren’t always equal: power and money allow people — male people, mostly — to jump the queue, so to speak. At least that rogues’ gallery of unattractive harassers suggests this has been the operative fantasy. In the worst cases, it’s a fantasy that power overrides consent, in the way that handsomeness or charisma wins female favor, “sweeps a girl off her feet.” Like how being a rock star must feel — and were the harassing men rock stars in their imaginations, I wondered? “He’s a rock star,” people now say fawningly about every C.E.O. with a good fourth quarter. Do some of them start to believe it, misidentifying every woman they meet as a compliant groupie?

When I decided to crowdsource the attractiveness question on Facebook, my female friends were eager to weigh in. “I think it’s important for female humans to express their distaste for such male flesh,” one wrote. “Men like these have long lived with the assumption their flesh is tolerable, and some may believe it’s desirable.” Someone who knew one of the accused harassers long ago recalled him as exceedingly brilliant but exceedingly homely; bent on seducing women to get back at the girls who ignored him in his youth. For the women, talking about male appearance leveled the playing field; letting men experience the same kind of vulnerability women have long endured felt like a small victory.

Many of my male friends, however, were bristling, especially male progressives. They never thought about women in terms of appearance, more than a few said righteously. I was accused of body shaming, as well as superficiality, to which I retorted, summoning my inner Oscar Wilde, “Nothing is less superficial than appearance.”

Here’s something else I found curious, but no one was exactly saying: there were not a lot of good-looking men among the accused harassers. Do those guys refrain from harassing women, or is it that they’re less likely to get reported? Apparently men themselves believe it’s the latter. A male Facebook friend directed me to an old “Saturday Night Live” sketch titled “Sexual Harassment and You.” Shot in black and white, in the style of a 1950s educational film, it depicts two different men, one an ungainly dork (Fred Armisen), and the other a handsome stud (Tom Brady), coming on to two female co-workers. The dork is threatened with harassment charges; the stud gets dates and phone numbers. I noted that the writer and director were both male.

“Male power” has acquired a sleazier connotation than in Kissinger’s heyday. If some men have operated on the principle that women’s bodies were there for the plucking, regardless of niceties like consent, at least they’ve been getting away with it somewhat less lately. Which is not to say there isn’t still plenty of transactional sex and mating; plenty of “arm candy” at the side of powerful unsightly men. It’s not as though women haven’t been complicit in propping up these arrangements. Let’s be honest: We, too, have been known to leverage what we have, where we can. The question, obviously, is whether female versions of power would be less sleazy than male versions have been, especially because we keep hearing that the solution to the sexual-harassment problem is to put more women in positions of power. But even if men act out sexually more than women typically have, do we gain anything by playing the women-as-men’s-betters card? Moral smugness isn’t a great look, either. According to my informants, attractiveness matters plenty to women; we do our share of ranking and assessing, inequitable as that may be. The point is not assuming that your attractions are reciprocated. And that whatever obliviousness certain guys have displayed on that front ends — right around now.

‘I Felt Ostracized’

As told to Jaime Lowe by a Soldier

I was a service member in the Army for nearly a decade. It seemed that men pulling women on top of their laps was not uncommon. It happened to me only when I was off duty, but always by my superiors. I lost count of how many times my ass was slapped or I was brushed up against. Stuff like that became so exhausting and conflicting. Conflicting because a lot of the time it was with guys I trusted and worked really well with.

In the winter of 2011, my unit was in Kuwait. One time during a break, I went behind a shipping container to smoke a cigarette, and I was chatting with a sergeant from our company. About a month later, I was talking to an acquaintance who worked with this sergeant, and he just started joking about the time I gave the sergeant a blowjob behind the shipping container. I found out that the sergeant had been spreading rumors about very specific sexual acts that I had supposedly performed on him and others in the company. It was mortifying, and everyone seemed to know.

I decided to make an informal complaint about it, and then I felt ostracized by members of my unit. It felt as if the unit was trying to protect this guy and not me. I was questioned, and some of the queries focused on the fact that I was always seen with men or that I encouraged a certain culture. Basically, I was being accused of asking for it because I told a dirty joke every now and again. I could tell what was happening, so I ultimately filed a formal complaint. That was extremely nerve-racking. It meant I was under an even bigger microscope. There were those who wanted to send me back home or to another base or to another unit altogether. They were just going to leave him there and uproot me. Remove the victim from the situation instead of the person causing the problem. There’s a good-old-boy network.

People in power are willing to ignore bad behavior because it’s convenient or because outstanding performers in the unit are being protected. These guys are wonderful at their jobs, but some can be monsters behind closed doors.

Answers for My Daughter

By Heidi Julavits

In mid-November, my daughter began to notice the men. She had heard the reports about Harvey and Louis and Kevin and Al, and now she had a question. “Why have no women been accused of sexual misconduct?” she asked.

I was on autopilot and responded from an unthinking place: “These abuses are often a function of a power inequity, and many more men are in positions of power than women.”

Was my response an explanation? A justification? A brushoff? Did it imply an essentialist reading of gender? Was it, at a bare minimum, useful? At 13, my daughter will have her first job next summer. Substantive engagement with a soon-to-be underling about the dynamics of workplace power abuse seemed fairly critical.

Around this time, I started to mishear the news. Sound waves entered my inner ear; men became women. I misheard, “[Name of famous female writer that sounds like Roy Moore], Alabama’s Republican candidate for the Senate, is alleged to have made sexual advances toward a woman who was 14 years old at the time.” I heard, “[Name of famous female writer that sounds like Roy Moore] forcibly kissed her when she was a high school student.” In the absence of anything to laugh about, this misheard news made me giddy. Why? Women commit such abuses; it’s no joke whatsoever. Maybe my brain wanted to hear fake news to complicate a secret message that I could not help worrying other people might be hearing and believing: Men abuse power, and women do not. Men have overbearing sex drives they cannot control, and women do not.

Such thinking quickly lends itself to other “thinking,” like the thinking displayed by James Damore, the writer of the “Google Employee Memo.” Among his messages: The reason so few women work in tech is because women are biologically different from men, and we need to accept that women are gregarious (rather than assertive); women prefer aesthetics to ideas; women seek a work-life balance rather than professional status. The sum being: Women will never be as good as men at, for example, coding.

I am not delivering such messages — at least not intentionally. But I recalled what I heard when I was a girl, when my mother and her friends actively fought for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. I understood “equal rights for women” to mean that women, historically, were not allowed to do what men were allowed to do and that women should be allowed to do all those things. I did not find this message controversial.

But combined with the response I gave to my daughter, and the recent habits of my inner ear, I sensed another potential perversion of meaning. Men and women were equal. Men were not hornier than women or slimier than women. I might have been reassuring my daughter that when she assumed a position of power, she would be able to balance the scales; she and her female friends could sexually abuse powerless people, of any gender, with unrepentant (until caught) vigor.

I decided to ask my daughter why she thought men were disproportionately guilty of sexual harassment in the workplace. She wondered if the preponderance of men in the news might be connected to the fact that, she had heard or read somewhere, a majority of all murders were committed by men. Then she paused. She thought about what her “thinking” implied. “To say that is a stereotype,” she said. “That women don’t murder or rape or harass, and men do. Because really no one should do any of those things.”

Right. No one should do any of those things. Somewhere along the way, baked into the acceptable standards of behavior for people in power, is a thing that nobody should do. And yet it became an entitlement. My daughter and I talked about power; was power to blame? Was power an unavoidably corrupting force? But to claim that power always corrupts risked excusing the individual offenders.

We finally settled on one useful point for future thinking and action: For the first time during my lifetime, and also by implication, during hers, victims were proving more powerful than the power that created them. The next step would seem to involve the nonvictims in the redefinition of how power works. Because in the current system, it could be argued that there are three types of people: people in power, victims and nonvictims. Recently, I witnessed a nonvictim learn about the decades of power abuses perpetrated by a friend and colleague. “I just wonder if I’ve been complicit,” the nonvictim worried. To which I wanted to reply: There can be nonvictims only so long as there are victims. If you do not call out your friend’s behavior, then yes, you can count yourself complicit.

On Thanksgiving, my family played a game of charades. Many people were involved, ages ranging from 8 to 85. I asked my son, who is 8, to contribute a clue. He gave me “sexual harassment.” I asked him if he knew what it was. He said, “It’s when you touch somebody, and they don’t want you to touch them.” Good enough. I put “sexual harassment” in the salad bowl; I felt it had earned its cultural place alongside “Little House on the Prairie” and “Kim Kardashian.” Maybe, too, I considered it a bit of an experiment. Who would pull the clue? Would a man’s performance of “sexual harassment” be more easily identifiable to the group over a woman’s? Maybe it mattered only that the action be legible to all genders, no matter the body performing it.

The person who pulled the clue was a man in his 60s. He approached the other team. He waggled his tongue; he exaggeratedly pretended to grab the bodies of the opposition in all the appropriately inappropriate places. Everyone knew immediately what he was doing. Men and women, girls and boys, all called out his actions, correctly, by name.

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Ruth Franklin is a book critic and the author of “Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.” Weronika Gesicka is a Polish visual artist focused on questions of identity, both in a personal and social context , and topics related to memory. Vivian Gornick is a New York-based essayist, memoirist and literary critic. She is a recipient of a Ford Foundation grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of more than 10 books, a number of which have been nominated for major prizes. Zoe Heller contributes frequently to The New York Review of Books and has published three novels, including “Notes on a Scandal.” Jazmine Hughes is an associate editor at the magazine. Sarah Illenberger is a Berlin-based artist, illustrator and designer. Ina Jang is an artist based in Brooklyn. Her latest project, “Utopia,” was shown this year at Musée des Beaux-Arts Le Locle in Switzerland. Heidi Julavits is the author of “The Folded Clock: A Diary,” four novels and a forthcoming book on rape culture and parenting, to be published by Crown in 2018. Laura Kipnis is a professor at Northwestern University and the author, most recently, of “Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus.” Olivia Locher is a photographer based in New York who is known for her sarcastic approach to studio photography, with a heavy focus on color and concept. Her first monograph, “I Fought the Law,” was published by Chronicle Books in September. Tracy Ma runs a graphic-design practice in New York and is an adjunct faculty member at Parsons School of Design. Collier Meyerson is a contributor to The Nation and a Nobler fellow at The Nation Institute. Meghan O’Rourke is a poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of “The Long Goodbye” and, most recently, the poetry collection “Sun in Days.” Rachel Perry uses sculpture, photography, performance, and drawing to remark on the unremarkable in our daily lives. Paula Scher has been a principal at the international design consultancy Pentagram since 1991; she is one of the most acclaimed graphic designers in the world. Parul Sehgal is a book critic at The Times. Amber Vittoria is an illustrator living and working in New York City. Jenna Wortham is a staff writer for the magazine.

Opening animation by Jessica Svendsen and Ben Barry. “As told to” illustrations by Chloe Scheffe. Source photos for Gesicka: ClassicStock/Alamy. Photograph of Illenberger concept by Johannes Berger. Produced by Rodrigo de Benito Sanz, Kyle Ligman and Alice Yin.

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Research Roundup: How Women Experience the Workplace Today

by Dagny Dukach

Summary .   

What will it take to make gender equity in the workplace a reality? It’s a complicated question, with no easy answers — but research from a wide array of academic disciplines aims to expand our understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities women face today. In this research roundup, we share highlights from several new and forthcoming studies that explore the many facets of gender at work.

In 2021, the gender gap in U.S. workforce participation hit an all-time low . But of course, substantial gender disparities persist in pay, leadership representation, access to resources, and many other key metrics. How can we make sense of all these different dimensions of gender equity in the workplace?

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Essay on Women Employment

Students are often asked to write an essay on Women Employment in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Women Employment

Introduction.

Women employment refers to the participation of women in the workforce. It’s crucial for economic growth and social development.

Importance of Women Employment

Women employment is important for economic development. It leads to higher income levels and improved living standards.

Despite its importance, women face many challenges. These include gender discrimination, lack of education, and societal norms.

To improve women employment, we need to promote gender equality, provide education, and break societal norms. This will empower women and contribute to societal progress.

250 Words Essay on Women Employment

The importance of women employment.

Women employment is vital for various reasons. It aids in the economic growth of a nation by enhancing productivity and diversifying the labor market. It also promotes gender equality by breaking the stereotype of women being confined to domestic chores. Further, it empowers women, fostering their financial independence and boosting self-esteem.

Challenges in Women Employment

Despite its significance, women employment faces numerous obstacles. Gender bias, wage disparity, lack of opportunities, and societal prejudices often impede women’s professional growth. Additionally, the burden of balancing work and family responsibilities often discourages women from pursuing careers.

Strategies to Promote Women Employment

Addressing these challenges requires comprehensive strategies. Governments and organizations need to implement policies promoting gender equality at workplaces, such as equal pay and opportunities. Additionally, initiatives like flexible work hours, parental leave, and childcare facilities can help women balance work and family life.

In conclusion, women employment is a cornerstone of societal progress and economic growth. Despite the challenges, concerted efforts from governments, organizations, and society can foster a conducive environment for women to thrive professionally. This not only strengthens the economy but also propels the journey towards gender equality.

500 Words Essay on Women Employment

Women employment, a term that signifies the participation of women in the workforce, is a topic that has been at the forefront of societal discourse in recent years. It is more than just an economic issue; it is a matter of gender equality, societal progress, and human rights.

The Historical Perspective

Women employment is crucial for several reasons. Economically, it boosts the productivity of a nation and contributes to its growth. Socially, it can help break down gender stereotypes, promote equality, and reduce poverty. From a personal perspective, it allows women to be financially independent, boosts their self-esteem, and provides them with opportunities for personal growth and development.

Challenges and Barriers

Despite its importance, women employment faces numerous challenges. Discrimination, both overt and covert, still exists in many workplaces. Women often find themselves earning less than their male counterparts for doing the same job, a phenomenon known as the gender wage gap. They also face a ‘glass ceiling’ that prevents them from reaching top-level positions.

The Way Forward

Addressing these challenges requires concerted efforts from all sectors of society. Governments should implement and enforce laws that promote gender equality in the workplace. Corporations should adopt policies that facilitate work-life balance, such as flexible working hours and parental leave.

Education also plays a vital role. By providing girls with equal access to quality education, we can equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the workforce.

Women employment is a multifaceted issue that encompasses economic, social, and personal dimensions. While progress has been made, much work remains to be done. By addressing the challenges and barriers that hinder women’s full participation in the workforce, we can move towards a more equal, inclusive, and prosperous society.

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IELTS Essay # Working Women

You should spend 40 minutes on this task. In the 21st century, many women have come out of their home to become what we call working women. What are the advantages and disadvantages of women joining the workforce? Write at least 250 words.

Sample Answer -One

When most countries were fighting for democracy and freedom from British rule, an internal turmoil was happening simultaneously. The struggle of women to get equal rights and by the end of 20th century, women have surely made their presence visible in the global world. Although, with more women working, there is growing economy and better lifestyle, certain areas like kids and home have surely got the back seat.

In this positive social change scenario with women becoming part of corporate organisations and, for that matter, establishing their own ventures, has helped them do things independently, making them more confident and even helped them gain self respect. This has in turn reduced the physical or mental abuse cases. In addition, women being more emotionally mature, a woman at higher level in an organisation can bring more stability to the company.

However, with more and more women joining multinational companies, has certainly given a back step to the children and social life. With both partners working, there is less of time for family life, leaving the children unhappy and lonely. It has often been seen that now kids are more likely to take a wrong step than ever before. Moreover, cases of depression and anxiety are more prevalent in kids than ever before. A woman is the person who makes a house, home. With women finding it difficult to juggle home and work, the quality of life gets deteriorated.

Overall, work has allowed women to grow individually, develop their skills and become more creative than ever before. However, when women are asked to between work and home, with no help from their partners, it leaves the family and kids feeling left out.

Sample Answer -Two

The economy of the world is booming, we have stable organizations, smarter kids and a lifestyle like never before. This is not because a magician has just changed the course of history. But because women have finally come out of their homes to find themselves, let their creative juices flow and to bring about a change in the world. But, just like the two faces of coin, with more and more woman working , there are certain areas of our lives, that have taken a back seat.

On the positive side, women who work, tend to be more financially independent. This allows them to do things just for themselves without being accountable to anyone in the family. Secondly, working women often  set an example for their kids, being a source of inspiration for their children. For example, once in an interview, Indira Nooyi’s daughter was asked what does she wants to be in her life. She simply said, she wants to be herself with all the great things her mother has taught her, by example.

However, on the downside, a woman who chooses to work, has more on her platter than her peers. She has to not only juggle between work and home but also take care of herself, which woman often forget to do. As a result, their is a steep decline in the health of a woman. Even more, a woman has to face, in many cases, sexual harassment at workplace, which makes life more miserable.

Overall, a business women, has so much to offer to the society in terms of experience, intelligence and personality. However, when there is no helping hand, it often leads her to being exhausted and tired, causing a work life imbalance.

In the 21st century, with more and more countries gaining freedom, there are more number of women joining the workforce. So, one can find an increased head count of women in companies, as employers, as entrepreneurs or as business heads. Although, some believe it is the best for the world that women start working while others are of the opinion that there are lot of disadvantages with women joining the workforce. Let us today have a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of working women.

ADVANTAGES –

• Smarter Kids – Working women tend to have smarter and more active kids when compared to their counterparts who don’t work. This is because a working women has to move out of the house leaving the house intact. Their kids understand better their responsibility and hence learn simple things faster.
• Financial Stability – A working women adds to the family financially. It is beneficial for a family in large as their are less financial issues and kids get the best as parents are able to afford it.
• More facilities for kids – When the family operates on money earned by both the husband and wife, there is surely more cash inflow, allowing the kids to be able to join better schools, better extra classes and learn things better.
• Inspiration- A working woman is often a inspiration for her kids. A child learns more from her mother than he or she learns from anyone else. A working woman is very easily able to teach her kids the importance of hard work, of balancing life and staying happy even in tough times.
• Freedom – A working woman is more independent than her counterparts. She is free to take her decisions independent of either her parents or her spouse. She knows that her choices and decisions directly impact her and with the freedom to take her own decisions, she becomes more creative and bold.
• Increased self-respect – A working women is entirely self dependent on herself and with she struggling with so many other things in life, she gains lot of respect for herself.

DISADVANTAGES –

• Health Issues – A working woman has to manage both house and office at equal level leaving her tired and emaciated at the end of the day. This often leaves very less time for the girl to take care of herself, making her more prone to diseases.
• More chances of children to fall into bad company – When a child gets more freedom it does makes them responsible. But, in some cases it even leads them to bad company and with working women, it is very difficult to find out what their kids are up to.
• Gap Between Kids and Mothers – Due to office work, most mothers are not able to attend their kids parent meeting and hence are not in very touch of their child’s progress. It often leaves them guilty and some children tend to go into stage of depression.
• Harassment at Workplace – Working women have to suffer harassment at workplace. It could be sexual harassment or mental harassment, leaving a lot of void in the life of a woman.
• More Burden – If a woman finds no helping hand, from her partner, it causes difficulty as she has to work 24 hours without any help, causing drift in the husband wife relationship.

Overall, there are several advantages of working women and if a woman gets a supportive hand from the society and her spouse, things can really be turned into something very beautiful with no disadvantages at all.

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Why has COVID-19 been especially harmful for working women?

After decades of struggle, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women in the United States the right to vote. This hard-won right foretold the increasing presence of women not only in the voting booth, but also in the workplace. By the beginning of this year, the centennial of the 19th Amendment’s ratification, women’s labor force participation stood at 58% , nearly a three-fold increase since 1920. Without the increasing participation of women in the workforce, household income growth of the middle class would have remained largely stagnant since the late 1970’s .

While there is much to celebrate, the 19th Amendment’s centennial anniversary also coincides with a major threat to the gains women have made in the workplace: the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing measures required to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus have had staggering economic and social impacts, hitting women particularly hard.

COVID-19 is hard on women because the U.S. economy is hard on women, and this virus excels at taking existing tensions and ratcheting them up. Millions of women were already supporting themselves and their families on meager wages before coronavirus-mitigation lockdowns sent unemployment rates skyrocketing and millions of jobs disappeared. And working mothers were already shouldering the majority of family caregiving responsibilities in the face of a childcare system that is wholly inadequate for a society in which most parents work outside the home. Of course, the disruptions to daycare centers, schools, and afterschool programs have been hard on working fathers, but evidence shows working mothers have taken on more of the resulting childcare responsibilities , and are more frequently reducing their hours or leaving their jobs entirely in response.

Problems facing women in the labor market have never been hidden, but they have been inconvenient to address because they are so entrenched in the basic operations of our economy and society. The low wages associated with “pink collar” occupations have long contributed to the feminization of poverty, and the chronic shortage of affordable, high-quality childcare reflects outdated notions of women’s societal roles, how the economy functions, and child development. COVID-19’s massive disruption to employment, childcare, and school routines has crippled the economy and pushed millions of women and families to the financial brink. This moment provides an important opening to rethink how policy supports women’s roles as financial providers and parents.

Women are disproportionately represented in low-wage jobs

Based on our own analysis of 2018 American Community Survey data, before COVID-19, nearly half of all working women—46% or 28 million—worked in jobs paying low wages, with median earnings of only $10.93 per hour. The share of workers earning low wages is higher among Black women (54%) and Hispanic or Latina women (64%) than among white women (40%), reflecting the structural racism that has limited options in education, housing, and employment for people of color.

For some women, jobs paying low wages don’t present economic hardship—think of someone with a higher earning spouse or early in their career. But a substantial number of women support themselves and their families by working in low-wage jobs. Fifteen percent are single parents, 63% are in their prime working years (ages 25-54), and 57% work full time year-round, indicating the position is not a side activity. Forty-one percent live in households below 200% of the federal poverty level (equivalent to about $43,000 for a family of 3) a common measure capturing the working poor. More than one quarter receive safety net benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, Social Security, or other public assistance income.

Women are much more likely than men to work in low-paying jobs: 37% of working men earn low hourly wages, nearly 10 percentage points lower than women. Some of the difference between men and women is explained by personal choice—for example women often pursue education in lower paying majors, fields, and occupations than men. Some women also prioritize work flexibility over wages.

But, an extensive body of evidence shows women also face discrimination in the labor market. Even when women make the “right” choices—completing education and pursuing employment in high wage industries and occupations—they are underpaid relative to men, earning 92 cents to the dollar according to one recent analysis . While this underpayment doesn’t necessarily push women into low wages, the earnings disparity illustrates the devaluation of women’s contributions to the labor force. Occupations dominated by women and people of color, particularly care and domestic workers like home care aides, have been systematically and intentionally excluded from federal labor and employment protections, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act’s guarantee of minimum wage and overtime pay , and offer very low wages. Evidence also demonstrates that as an occupation becomes more female-dominated, median wages decline .

Our childcare and school systems don’t meet the needs of working mothers

The majority of women between ages 18 and 64 work. One in four working women, 15.5 million, has a child under the age of 14 at home. Some of these women work part time or have a family member on whom they can rely to provide supervision for their young and school-aged children. But more than 10 million (17% of all working women) rely on childcare and schools to keep their children safe while they work. These women are working at least half time and do not live with a potential caregiver at home—another adult who is either out of the labor force or working less than half time. In comparison, 12% of all working men are reliant on schools and childcare.

There simply are not enough affordable, high-quality childcare options to meet this demand, disproportionately harming working mothers, especially low- and middle-income mothers and mothers of color . The childcare that is available is often unaffordable. A 2018 analysis found that average childcare costs in every state exceed the federal definition of affordability —7% of annual household income. The same analysis found center-based childcare for an infant costs an average of more than $1,200 per month and about $900 per month for a toddler. As childcare becomes more difficult to access, women are more likely to stay out of or leave the workforce; one analysis found maternal labor force participation rates are 3 percentage points lower in childcare deserts than in areas with adequate childcare supply . The childcare system also relies on an underpaid, primarily female workforce —so not only is it a bad system for those it serves, but it undervalues those it employs.

As children get older, the public school system offers some reprieve from the costly and sometimes difficult to access childcare system. Even in normal times, though, parents who work outside of the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. school schedule are left to piece together supervision before school, after school, and during the summer. High income parents can often navigate this misalignment with quality childcare, afterschool programs, and summer camps. For lower income parents, this lack of alignment can be a real burden . And with fewer dollars to spend filling in the gaps between the school day and work schedules, low-income parents are more likely to rely on informal care arrangements, older siblings, and unlicensed home care providers.

COVID-19 has upended the labor market, with disastrous consequences for working women and their families

As we know, COVID-19 has massively disrupted American life. Beginning in March, non-essential businesses closed their doors, workers were furloughed or laid off, and schools and daycares sent children home. At its peak, 95% of the U.S. population was under stay at home orders .

Although necessary for public health, these closures resulted in an unprecedented number of unemployment claims as millions of workers were simultaneously furloughed or laid off. A stunning 39% of people living in low-income households reported a job loss in March , and while there are signs the economy is slowly improving, many people remain without work.

Because of their concentration in low-wage and face-to-face jobs, these layoffs hit women especially hard. While many higher wage jobs could transition from an in-person to remote work environment, that is not the case for the majority of low-wage jobs that rely on interaction between customers and workers, such as retail sales and hospitality , two of the most common occupations among low-wage women. The unemployment rate for women jumped by more than 12 percentage points between February and April while the rate for men increased by less than 10 percentage points. The losses for women without college degrees is even more staggering. Between March and early April, their employment rate dropped 15 percentage points compared to a drop of 11 percentage points among non-college educated men .

Those low-wage women who did not suffer job losses were primarily in frontline occupations, such as healthcare support and grocery workers. These women continued working, often with inadequate access to appropriate personal protective equipment, putting their health and the health of their loved ones at risk.

COVID-19 is hard on women because the U.S. economy is hard on women, and this virus excels at taking existing tensions and ratcheting them up.

COVID-19 has also increased the pressure on working mothers, low-wage and otherwise. In a survey from May and June , one out of four women who became unemployed during the pandemic reported the job loss was due to a lack of childcare, twice the rate of men surveyed. A more recent survey shows the losses have not slowed down: between February and August mothers of children 12 years old and younger lost 2.2 million jobs compared to 870,000 jobs lost among fathers .

Balancing work and family obligations has long been the reality for women in the United States. Historically, women have been the primary caregivers in their families. This has remained true even as most women work outside the home and provide important contributions to household income. Mothers working full-time spend 50% more time each day caring for children than fathers working full-time. But COVID-19 and the uncertainty around childcare and in-person instruction for school-aged children this fall has further increased this burden. July estimates show employment levels in child care services are 20% below levels from the same period last year, indicating a persistent reduction in available childcare. Millions of daycare slots may be permanently lost without further intervention. For schools, reopening has largely been determined at the district level, with diverse approaches and varying levels of success . Furthermore, in-person instruction for students and the reopening of daycares is not a one-and-done proposition. So, while parents, but especially women who have taken on even more during the pandemic , may get a temporary reprieve, outbreaks may force children and their families to quarantine , schools or daycares to close temporarily, or more long-term moves to online instruction .

As the pandemic persists, women will continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of its burden. While there has been some recovery in the labor market, there is still a long way to go to reach pre-pandemic employment highs; low-wage jobs will be the first to disappear again if there is a severe resurgence of the virus this fall. For those women who have been able to keep their jobs, many will continue to balance competing priorities. To earn a paycheck, those who cannot telework must show up physically to work, potentially posing health risks to themselves and their families, and requiring them to find alternative care arrangements for their children if school or daycare are unavailable. Those who can work from home must also care for or help teach their children in the case of inaccessible childcare or limited in-person instruction at schools.

Solutions should do more than provide temporary support to working women

These realities have the potential to set back the labor force participation and wage gains women have made in the labor market over the last several decades.

Solutions to improve the conditions of working women should address both aspects driving the disproportionate harm they have borne as a result of COVID-19’s economic impacts: an overreliance on an inadequate childcare system and their concentration in low wage jobs.

While the role of women in our economy has shifted over the last 100 years, our systems have not similarly evolved to support them. Because these conditions have been longstanding, the solutions put in place should not exclusively focus on short term COVID-19 recovery, but should also make long-lasting changes that aim to close the wage gap, improve working conditions and family leave options, and better align the childcare and school systems to the needs of working parents so mothers who want to work can do so. Policy needs to reflect that women have fundamental roles in both the workplace and in families, and to support women in those roles.

Of course, short-term interventions to address the current crisis are necessary and welcome. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) provided 12 weeks of parental paid leave through the end of the year and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) provided enhanced unemployment benefits that reduced poverty rates . The CARES Act also provided direct aid to states to address immediate problems in education budgets and infused the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) with $3.5 billion to keep childcare providers afloat. But many of the most important provisions of these two pieces of legislation have expired, will expire soon, or were inadequate. The status of another relief package is totally unclear given the latest communications from the White House, and it seems unlikely these systems will receive any additional reprieve this fall.

In addition to the temporary fixes enacted by the FFCRA and the CARES Act, a permanent federal paid parental leave policy and a sustained funding increase for the CCDBG would go a long way in reducing the cost of childcare and working mothers’ overreliance on it. Other policies that could increase women’s labor force participation, close the wage gap, and make work more accessible for mothers include policies that incentivize or fund predictable work scheduling, guaranteed number of work hours , and extended school-day or before and after school programs . We are long overdue in realigning our labor market policies, schools, and daycare system with the modern reality faced by working parents; these interventions should be considered as part of the solution.

Beyond making work more accessible for mothers, the labor market also needs to more fairly compensate women for their work. Improving wage equality and reducing discrimination in the labor market is no easy task. Potential solutions include raising the federal minimum wage and eliminating the tipped minimum wage . Policies to incentivize wage transparency at the firm level can also decrease the gender wage gap.

A women’s place is in the family and the workforce, if they so choose. We can’t bounce back from the COVID-19 recession without interventions to support them in both roles. But we also need to recognize that although the pandemic created an acute and visible crisis, the lack of support for families and workers was a pre-existing condition. Even with the progress made since the passage of the 19th Amendment, our economy was doing a disservice to millions of working women before COVID-19 hit. Returning to the status quo should not be the goal. Instead, we should aim higher—for an economy that compensates women fairly for their work, improves access to jobs through family-friendly policies, and supports women in their chosen roles as breadwinners, mothers, or some combination of the two.

Thank you to Julia Du and Caroline George for research assistance.

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series.  Learn more about the series and read published work »

About the Authors

Nicole bateman, research analyst – metropolitan policy program, martha ross, senior fellow – metropolitan policy program, more from bateman and ross, working parents are key to covid-19 recovery.

For working parents, the uncertainty surrounding child care and in-person instruction for school-aged children is unprecedented, with a cascading set of consequences on family life, education, and earnings.

We can’t recover from a coronavirus recession without helping young workers

As we approach another nationwide recession, we are about to see history repeat itself by hitting young adults and those with lower levels of education especially hard.

Coronavirus makes it impossible to ignore the economic insecurity built into our labor market 

In addition to the dire risk to individual health, side effects of the coronavirus pandemic are sure to include widespread economic hardship and uncertainty. If you experience these symptoms, you’re mostly on your own—as the virus reveals a grossly inadequate safety net and willfully ineffective political system that are poised to leave our most vulnerable […]

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Working Women’s Barriers and Challenges Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
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Introduction

Current role.

I decided to interview the Working Woman from the nursing field. For the purposes of privacy, her hypothetical name is Mary, and she has almost 20-year experience in the healthcare industry. In 2001, she received a Bachelor’s Science in Nursing degree, which allowed her to look for positions in nursing management roles. Up to now, she has worked at the University of Michigan Hospital and the Lake Huron Medical Center as a nursing manager. During her career, Mary regularly participated in professional training sessions and events to improve her skills and expertise as well as enrich her knowledge of the profession. She has additionally cooperated with multiple people, faced many challenges, and coped with different problems. All this information demonstrates that Mary is a valuable person for this assignment since this Working Woman has rich professional experience.

Currently, Mary is a Nurse Manager at the Lake Huron Medical Center. Her responsibilities include making budgetary decisions, managing nurses, developing schedules, coordinating meetings, and making staff decisions. The Lake Huron Medical Center is a successful and requested healthcare facility in the community, and it provides high-quality service to meet patients’ health needs. According to the organization’s official website, it relies on four specific values, including quality, compassion, community, and physician-led (Lake Huron Medical Center, n.d.). Even though it is not mentioned explicitly, the medical facility is woman-friendly. The rationale behind this statement is that females represent a significantly higher portion of the workforce. However, Mary admits that the organization does not offer any effective policies to support women’s needs. The Working Woman stipulates that she has come across various adverse phenomena in her professional experience because of this fact.

The largest portion of the interview was devoted to the barriers that Mary has experienced in the workplace. At her first employment position, she faced a type of discrimination based on her family status. Since she had a 4-year-old son, she frequently asked for days off to take care of her child. Her employer did not like that fact, and the Working Woman started receiving reprimands, which worsened her psychological well-being. That challenging condition led the Working Woman to a decision to leave her first employment position.

However, Mary stayed home for a few months and decided to find a new job because she could not limit herself to the role of homemaker. It was a challenging task, but Mary did not lower her hands, and she kept looking for a suitable employment opportunity. The rationale behind that fact was that the Working Woman already had a 4-year-old son. That is why she was forced to deal with work-life balance issues. According to Mary’s words, she successfully coped with the challenge because she settled to take work home if she needed to take care of her child.

In addition to that, the interviewee admitted that she suffered from harassment at the workplace. The patients and male colleagues could rely on verbal and even physical violence as well as try to coerce her into a sexual relationship. Even though this phenomenon was rather an exception than a rule, it is challenging to overestimate its negative impact on the Working Woman. Mary also stipulated that many of her female colleagues faced the same problem, which denotes that multiple women suffer from harassment in the workplace.

This interview is informative because it allows for making a few essential conclusions about the state of women in the workplace. Mary is not unique in the fact that her role as a mother resulted in various problems for her professional practice. According to Verniers and Vala (2018), females are often subject to recruitment, salary, and promotion discrimination. The rationale behind this fact is that women are more often responsible for homemaking, and this role can interfere with their professional sphere. That is why many employers are not willing to hire females or promote these individuals to significant positions because these individuals are likely to ask for additional days off. This information denotes that the Working Woman suffered from a widespread issue that adversely affects many other women from various companies. It is good that Mary’s current employment position is free from this adverse phenomenon.

Another essential aspect of the Working Woman’s interview refers to her discussion of how she was forced to deal with a work-life balance. According to Powell (2019), employers should understand that their employees “have a life outside of work” (p. 180). This information denotes that individuals should not be expected to devote all their time and effort to perform their professional obligations. Mary was successful because she managed to find a job where she could balance her roles as an employee and as a mother. Powell (2019) explicitly states that individuals are not obliged to limit themselves to a single role. In the past, society believed that males did not need to deal with domestic chores, but this stereotype is not active today, while females were expected to devote themselves to homemaking. That is why Mary’s interview clearly demonstrates that it is possible to reach a work-life balance and perform various roles successfully.

Finally, it is worth attention to discuss the harassment that the Working Woman experienced. Even though men are subject to this problem today, women are historically the most common victims of this violence type. Mary reported the problem and stipulated that it was rather an exception. Raj et al. (2020) stipulated that women experience less harassment in female-dominated industries. This information demonstrates that the problem is more widespread in the workplace if employees represent an even distribution according to their genders. This information is essential for my future professional activity because it is necessary to be prepared for potential challenges. If I know that the problem is likely to occur, I will develop a potential response in advance. For example, if I experience harassment, I will immediately report this fact to senior management or even the police. This statement denotes that Mary raised an essential topic in her interview.

The interview of the Working Woman was a valuable and informative activity. On the one hand, a female with rich working experience has presented useful information about the industry that I would like to work in beyond graduation. This activity provided me with a better understanding of what it means to work in the healthcare field and manage a medical facility. On the other hand, Mary raised a few essential topics that introduced barriers for women in the workplace. Additional research has indicated that these issues are widespread, which denotes that women should make an effort to address them. The Working Woman is a suitable example that a female can reach successful outcomes in the workplace even despite various challenges.

Lake Huron Medical Center. (n.d.). Mission & values. Web.

Powell, G. N. (2019). Women and men in management (5 th ed.). SAGE.

Raj, A., Johns, N. E., & Jose, R. (2020). Gender parity at work and its association with workplace sexual harassment . Workplace Health & Safety, 68 (6), 279-292. Web.

Verniers, C., & Vala, J. (2018). Justifying gender discrimination in the workplace: The mediating role of motherhood myths. PloS ONE, 13 (1), e0190657. Web.

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Bibliography

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Women in the Workplace 2024: The 10th-anniversary report

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Women in the Workplace report. Conducted in partnership with LeanIn.Org , this effort is the largest study of women in corporate America. Over the past decade, more than 1,000 companies have participated in the study, and we have surveyed more than 480,000 people about their workplace experiences.

About the authors

For this year’s report, we collected information from 281 participating organizations that collectively employ more than ten million people. At these organizations, we surveyed more than 15,000 employees and more than 280 HR leaders, who shared insights on their policies and practices. The report provides an intersectional look at the specific biases and barriers faced by Asian, Black, Latina, and LGBTQ+ women, as well as women with disabilities.

Our tenth-anniversary report analyzes data from the past decade to better understand progress, decline, and stagnation in women’s representation and experiences in the workplace. 1 In this research, we define a “meaningful change” in survey results over time as either an increase or a decrease of at least five percentage points. A change of fewer than five percentage points indicates no meaningful change. It also highlights key findings from 2024 and identifies the changes companies can make to chart real progress on the path to parity—which we project is nearly 50 years away. Over the past decade, women have made important gains at every level of the corporate pipeline (especially in senior leadership). Yet progress is surprisingly fragile, especially for women of color, 2 Women of color include women who are Asian, Black, Latina, Middle Eastern, mixed race, Native American/American Indian/Indigenous/Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Due to small sample sizes for other racial and ethnic groups, reported findings on individual racial and ethnic groups are restricted to Asian women, Black women, and Latinas. who continue to be underrepresented at every level and who view gender and race as obstacles to their advancement. In many instances, we also see that women’s outlook and day-to-day experiences are not much different, or are even worse, than they were nearly a decade ago.

As we reflect on the results from this year, and from the past ten, three things are true. First, companies took action that has led to important progress. Second, change is hard and messy, and we’re somewhere in the middle of the shifts needed to fix the pipeline and make the culture of work more equitable. Third, the gains made are more fragile and less extensive than they appear. Taken together, the scorecard for corporate America is mixed—and though there are bright spots that suggest many companies have momentum, we also see that company commitment to diversity is declining. As we look ahead to the next ten years, the path forward for corporate America is simple: keep going. Over the past decade, women have remained ambitious and committed to their jobs. Now, we need companies to stay ambitious and committed to the important work they have started.

The rest of this article summarizes the main findings from the Women in the Workplace 2024 report.

The corporate pipeline: Progress is not parity

Over the past decade, women’s representation has increased at every level of corporate management (Exhibit 1). Most notably, women today make up 29 percent of C-suite positions, compared with just 17 percent in 2015. But progress has been much slower earlier in the pipeline, at the entry and manager levels. 3 Compared with 2015, women’s representation at the manager level has grown just two percentage points.

Image description:

Six area charts show the percentage of women employed in various corporate roles from 2015 to 2024. Women’s representation at the entry level rose from 45% in 2015 to 48% in 2024, while in manager roles it rose from 37% to 39% over the same period. Women’s representation in senior manager/director roles rose from 32% in 2015 to 37% in 2024, while in vice president roles it grew from 27% to 34% over the same time period. Women’s representation in senior vice president roles increased from 23% in 2015 to 29% in 2024, while in C-suite roles it rose from 17% to 29% over the same time period. The data show that while women’s representation in corporate roles has increased over the past decade, gains have been modest, with representation declining as women advance through the corporate hierarchy.

Source: Women in the Workplace 2024 , McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org

End of image description.

However, the corporate pipeline is not as healthy as the numbers suggest. Women remain underrepresented across the pipeline, a gender gap that persists regardless of race and ethnicity (Exhibit 2). Simply put, men outnumber women at every level.

A segmented bar chart shows the percentage of men and women in various corporate roles. At the entry level, 48% of employees are women, including 28% White women and 19% women of color, while White men represent 33%. At the manager level, 39% of employees are women, including 27% White women and 13% women of color, while White men represent 41%. At the senior vice president level, 28% are women, while 58% are White men. At the C-suite, 29% of employees are women, including 22% White women and 7% women of color, while White men represent 56%. The data indicate a trend of declining representation of women in more senior roles, regardless of race and ethnicity.

Note: Figures may not sum to 100%, because of rounding. Total percent of women per level may not sum to overall corporate pipeline totals, because overall figures do not include employees with unreported race data.

What’s more, women continue to face barriers at the beginning of the pipeline. They remain less likely than men to be hired into entry-level roles, which leaves them underrepresented from the start. Then, women are far less likely than men to attain their very first promotion to a manager role—a situation that’s not improving (Exhibit 3). In 2018, for every 100 men who received their first promotion to manager in 2018, 79 women were promoted; this year, just 81 women were. Because of this “broken rung” in the corporate ladder, men significantly outnumber women at the manager level, making it incredibly difficult for companies to support sustained progress at more senior levels. This phenomenon is even worse for women of color, who represent only 7 percent of current C-suite positions—just a four-percentage-point increase since 2017.

A bar chart shows the number of women promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted to manager from 2018 to 2024. The chart shows women’s promotions have remained relatively stagnant, rising from 79 in 2018 to 81 in 2024 for every 100 men promoted, peaking at 87 in 2022 and 2023.

A bar chart shows the number of White women promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted to manager from 2018 to 2024, compared to the average number for women of all races who were promoted. In 2018, 84 White women were promoted for every 100 men promoted. This dropped to 80 in 2019, rose to 89 in 2020 and 2021, peaked at 94 in 2022, then declined to 91 in 2023 and 89 in 2024. The number of White women promoted to manager outperformed against women overall.

A bar chart shows the number of Asian women promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted to manager from 2018 to 2024, compared to the average number of women of all races who were promoted. In 2018, 80 Asian women were promoted for every 100 men promoted. This rose to 83 in 2019, 98 in 2020, and peaked at 116 in 2021. The number dropped to 95 in 2022, 89 in 2023, and slightly increased to 99 in 2024, but still remained below the 2021 number. The number of Asian women promoted to manager outperformed against women overall.

A bar chart shows the number of Black women promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted to manager from 2018 to 2024, compared to the average number of women of all races who were promoted. In 2018, 60 Black women were promoted for every 100 men promoted. This dropped to 58 in 2019 and 2020, rose to 82 in 2021 and 96 in 2022, and declined to 54 in 2023, remaining at 54 in 2024. With the exception of 2022, the number of Black women promoted to manager underperformed against women overall.

Source: Women in the Workplace 2024 , McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org.

A bar chart shows the number of Latinas promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted to manager from 2018 to 2024, compared to the average number of women of all races who were promoted. In 2018, 81 Latinas were promoted for every 100 men promoted. This dropped to 68 in 2019, rose to 71 in 2020 and 86 in 2021, then declined again to 75 in 2022, 76 in 2023, and 65 in 2024. With the exception of 2018 and 2021, the number of Latinas promoted to manager underperformed against women overall.

Women have made modest but meaningful gains at the vice president and senior-vice-president levels since 2018, but their progress is more fragile than it appears. The main driver of women’s increased representation was a reduction in the number of line roles (that is, positions with profit-and-loss responsibility, a focus on the company’s core operations, or both), which disproportionately affected men given that they hold more of these positions. In the C-suite, women’s progress was even less sustainable. While the reduction of line roles was still a factor, the primary reason women’s representation increased was because companies, on average, added staff roles—that is, positions in support functions, such as human resources, legal, and IT—and hired women into these new positions. Since companies cannot add new staff roles indefinitely, this is not a viable path to parity.

At the current pace of progress, it would take 22 years for White women to reach parity 4 We define “parity” as the representation of all women in senior-vice-president and C-suite roles based on workforce representation trends in the US Census, the current representation of women in entry-level roles, and the assumption that the pipeline and growing population of diverse women will attribute to greater representation of women at senior levels in the future. This is 25 percent of total representation each for White women and women of color, respectively. —and it would take more than twice as long for women of color (Exhibit 4). Put another way, it would take 48 years for the representation of White women and women of color in senior leadership to reflect their share of the US population; this is true parity for all women. To achieve this, companies will need to maintain their current rate of progress, which means addressing weak spots in their pipelines: by finally fixing the broken rung, investing more resources in developing women leaders, and holding themselves accountable for more substantive progress in senior-leadership roles.

A chart features a blue line representing a 50-year time frame, from 2020 to 2070, showing projections for achieving gender parity for all women in senior vice president and C-suite roles.

Parity for White women is projected to be achieved by 2046, 22 years from 2024. Parity for women of color is projected to take 48 years to achieve, arriving in 2072.

Footnote: Parity is defined as the representation of all women in senior vice president and C-suite roles based on workforce representation trends in the US Census, the current representation of women in entry-level roles, and the assumption that the pipeline and growing population of diverse women will attribute to greater representation of women at senior levels in future. This is 25% of total representation each for White women and women of color, respectively.

Company actions: There is still critical work to do

Over the past decade, companies have taken steps to support the advancement of women and make the workplace more equitable. And employees recognize this: a majority think women have more opportunities to advance and point to companies’ increased efforts to make the workplace more equitable.

One point of progress is that today, almost all surveyed companies provide critical support for employees who are parents, caregivers, or managing health challenges—benefits that link to higher rates of happiness and employee retention. Benefits such as these are especially helpful to women, who are more likely than men to have caregiving responsibilities.

Workplace flexibility is another benefit that has expanded significantly in the past decade. Mostly in response to the pandemic, companies dramatically increased their hybrid and remote-work options. Eight in ten employees say flexibility has improved over the past ten years, and employees consistently point to greater productivity and reduced burnout as primary benefits. Flexibility is especially important to women, who report having more focused time to work when working remotely.

To view last year’s report, please visit Women in the Workplace 2023 . For previous reports, please visit the archive .

Companies are also doing more to debias hiring practices and performance reviews but need to go further. When we look at five core practices for debiasing—developing clear evaluation criteria for hiring, before candidates are considered; offering bias training for hiring evaluators; aspiring to have diverse slates of similarly qualified candidates for open positions; developing clear evaluation criteria for performance reviews; and sending reminders to avoid bias during reviews—just one in four surveyed companies have adopted all of them. And the companies that have implemented the full array of practices tend to make the greatest strides in advancing women. 5 Shelley J. Correll, “Reducing gender biases in modern workplaces: A small wins approach to organizational change,” Gender & Society , December 2017, Volume 31, Number 6; Lori Nishiura Mackenzie, JoAnne Wehner, and Shelley J. Correll, “Why most performance evaluations are biased, and how to fix them,” Harvard Business Review , January 11, 2019.

At the same time, companies have scaled back programs designed to advance women. While women face distinct barriers that these programs can help address, fewer companies say gender and racial diversity are priorities for the organization. Companies are reporting declines in career development, mentorship, and sponsorship programs geared toward women (Exhibit 5), as well as recruiting and internship programs focused on women. Relatively few companies track these programs’ outcomes, and in all cases, companies are investing in fewer programs designed to advance women of color.

An arrow plot chart shows the share of respondents reporting diversity practices at their organization in 2017 and 2024. Practices that increased are represented by a cyan line extending from left to right, with the start of the line representing the 2017 value and a circle at the right-most end point representing the 2024 value. Practices that declined are shown as a dark gray line, extending from right to left, with the left-most end point representing the 2024 value.

Declining practices include gender diversity (88% in 2017 to 78% in 2024), racial diversity (76% to 69%), managers encourage respectful and inclusive behavior on your team (97% to 95%), flexible work hours (85% to 77%), career development programs tailored to women (55% to 54%), formal sponsorship programs tailored to women (31% to 16%), and formal mentorship programs tailored to women (45% to 37%).

Increasing practices include managers promote employees’ contributions to others (44% in 2017 to 64% in 2024), managers check in on your general well-being (68% to 82%), remote/hybrid work options (76% to 92%), clear and specific evaluation criteria are established before any candidates are considered during hiring process (72% to 76%), and there are clear and consistent criteria for evaluating performance (72% to 80%).

While companies are setting the right priorities, these priorities are not translating into manager action. Career advancement has long been a core expectation of managers, and now more companies are also asking managers to foster a culture of inclusion and employee well-being, which is critically important to organizational health. When managers invest in all of these areas, employees are less burned out, happier in their roles, and less likely to consider leaving their organizations. However, despite increased trainings for managers on these priorities, they are by and large not translating into better manager performance.

Beyond the manager level, companies are doing more to activate employees as agents of change. Nearly all companies, for instance, offer bias or allyship training. But the increase in training programs does not appear to be translating into greater awareness or action. Employees are not markedly more likely to recognize bias against women or act as allies to women of color. For example, 28 percent of women today recognize microaggressions 6 Microaggressions are daily slights that are rooted in bias and directed at people because of their gender, race, or other aspects of their identity. —comments and actions that undermine their credibility and leadership skills—against other women, nearly the same as the 33 percent in 2019, though still larger than the 11 percent of men who recognize microaggressions today.

While companies have stepped up in some ways, progress has been uneven, and there are clear signs that more needs to be done. Employees universally agree that there has been less progress in how organizations handle microaggressions. And men are far more optimistic than women about how women’s opportunities have improved over the past decade.

The employee experience: Women’s experiences at work have not improved

Despite an increase in representation at work, as well as expanded company efforts, the workplace has not gotten much better for women. Women today are no more optimistic than in the past about their gender’s impact on career advancement, even as they remain highly ambitious—and just as ambitious as men. For women of color, the obstacles feel even more insurmountable. Compared with six years ago, Asian, Black, and Latina women are more likely in 2024 to perceive their race as an obstacle to advancement.

“I’ve seen folks get promoted, and it was decided by who you know, who you hang with, and what you have in common. The fact still remains: like people like people. If you have similar characteristics to someone, unfortunately, it will lead to benefits that I’m just not going to get.”

—Black woman, senior manager

Women’s concerns stem from what they’re up against in their day-to-day work. Women, and particularly women of color, are not getting enough support from their managers. Managers play a central role in women’s career advancement and daily work experiences, yet less than half of women report getting their managers’ help to advance or navigate work challenges. Women of color receive even less of this support than White women do. Given that employees with consistent manager support are more likely to be promoted, this very likely disadvantages women of color.

Conventional wisdom suggests that ageism, or unfair treatment based on a person’s age, predominantly affects older workers. In reality, it is most pronounced for young women. About half of women under 30 say their age played a role in missing out on opportunities at work, and they are almost twice as likely as younger men to field unwanted comments about their age.

What’s more, women continue to confront microaggressions as often today as several years ago (Exhibit 6). Women, especially LGBTQ+ women and women with disabilities, remain more likely than men to experience microaggressions, which make it harder for women to speak up, take risks, and raise concerns at work. Compared with five years ago, women today are just as likely to experience “othering” microaggressions, which can erode a sense of belonging and make it harder for individuals to bring their whole selves to work. Again, LGBTQ+ women and women with disabilities report these demeaning interactions at the highest rates.

Four graphs show the share of women reporting experiencing 1 of 4 types of microaggression in the workplace from 2018 to 2024.

• Any competence-based microaggression rose from 43% in 2018 to 62% in 2019, then fell to 42% in 2021, with subsequent numbers of 37% in 2022, 35% in 2023, and 54% in 2024.
• Having judgment questioned in area of expertise rose from 36% in 2018 to 38% in 2019, then fell to 31% in 2021 and 2022 and 23% in 2023, before rising to 38% in 2024.
• Being mistaken for someone at a much lower level was 20% 2018, 18% in 2019, 16% in 2022, 9% in 2023, and 18% in 2024.
• Being interrupted or spoken over more than others decreased from 50% in 2019 to 29% in 2021 and 22% in 2023, before increasing to 39% in 2024.

Microaggressions take a heavy toll. Women who experience them are more likely to feel burned out and to consider quitting their jobs and less likely to view their workplaces as equitable. By leaving microaggressions unchecked, companies risk losing talented employees and missing out on everything these women have to offer.

“I’m often the only person with disabilities in the room. People ignore me. I get overridden all the time. Then later, someone else will repeat my idea and it will get acted on. It makes me feel I’m not valued as a person in any way, and I don’t feel I can be my true self.”

—Native American and White woman, entry-level, 2021

At the same time, inequity persists in the home as well. Four in ten women with partners say they are responsible for most or all of the household work, a number that has grown since 2016. By contrast, far more men over the same period say they share household responsibilities equally with partners, suggesting a growing gap in how women and men perceive their contributions at home. On top of this, younger women report doing the same amount of housework as older women, which also signals a lack of progress.

Recommendations for companies: The next phase of work will require a bigger playbook

Below are the highlights of our recommendations for companies, and you can refer to the full report for more details.

Over the past decade, companies have invested more energy and resources in women’s advancement. But the fragility of the progress in the pipeline highlights the need to do more. Despite companies’ efforts to activate managers and employees, the culture of work appears to be stuck. If one thing is clear, it’s that deep, systemic change—which requires reshaping people’s mindsets and behaviors—is hard to achieve and does not follow a linear path.

The next phase of change will require even more tenacity, creativity, and optimism, which starts with companies rekindling their commitments to equity and fairness that have gotten us this far. For senior leaders, this means continuing to champion this important work and challenging themselves and their organizations to do better.

For most companies, this will require implementing more of the right practices to help women advance. Our best practices checklist, developed after examining the adoption of key policies and practices and their links to better outcomes for all women, can help organizations identify gaps in their current offerings and opportunities to push further—as the companies making the biggest strides in advancing women have already done (Exhibit 7).

A dot plot chart shows the share of respondents reporting equitable workplace practices at their organizations, comparing responses from top-performing organizations (cyan dots) with all others (white dots). Top performers outperform industry benchmarks for the representation of women and women of color from entry-level through senior vice president positions. The chart reveals significant variability in the percentage-point differences between the 2 groups. Key differences include the following:

• Top performers are 28 percentage points more likely than others to implement bias reminders sent to evaluators.
• Top performers are 12 percentage points more likely than others to implement flexible working hours.
• Top performers are 21 percentage points more likely than others to implement racial diversity as a strategic priority.
• Top performers are 17 percentage points more likely than others to say leadership plays an active role in shaping DEI strategy.
• Top performers are also more likely than others to track attrition and promotion rates for women and/or women of color (15 and 14 percentage-point difference, respectively) and provide menopause support, paid sick and family leave, and support for in vitro fertilization/fertility treatment and for adoption and/or surrogacy (23, 18, 13, and 12 percentage-point difference, respectively).

Footnote 1: Across practices, program eligibility should be open to individuals from all backgrounds. The list of practices in this chart is nonexhaustive and includes only those where the differences between top-performing organizations and all other organizations are statistically significant.

Footnote 2: The top quartile of organizations that outperformed industry benchmark in representation of women and women of color at level 2 (senior vice president) through level 6 (entry level).

Footnote 3: Diversity, equity, and inclusion.

It will also be important to apply rigor to the quality and consistency of practices. Research shows that there are four building blocks  to getting this right: ensuring that employees understand why a new practice is important, building employees’ skills so they can do their part, putting in place mechanisms that support and reinforce new practices, and ensuring that leaders role model the right behaviors. 7 Tessa Basford and Bill Schaninger, “The four building blocks of change,” McKinsey Quarterly , April 11, 2016. Many organizations follow some of these actions when introducing a new practice, but surprisingly few follow all of them.

Finally, there are practical steps that companies can take to drive further progress in the areas we know are particularly important for advancing women and fostering inclusion: debiasing their hiring and promotions processes, inspiring and equipping employees to curb bias and practice allyship, and unlocking the power of managers to influence careers and team culture.

The research from this year, and the past ten, underscores the value of companies’ commitments to change. While women have made progress in some areas, there is still much work to do to create a workplace experience that is inclusive and equitable for everyone. Gender parity continues to be a long-term goal, but one that is achievable through an expanded playbook and greater involvement and buy-in from employees across the organization. Progress also begets progress. Celebrating the wins, even small ones, can help generate enthusiasm and build momentum throughout a company—and make a meaningful difference for all women at work.

Alexis Krivkovich and Lareina Yee  are senior partners in McKinsey’s Bay Area office, Emily Field  is a partner in the Seattle office, Megan McConnell  is a partner in the Washington, DC, office, and Hannah Smith is a consultant in the Southern California office.

The authors wish to thank Abena Mensah, Akaash Sanyal, Alysha de Souza, Charmaine Rice, Daisy Ziruo Zhou, Daniel Verost, Daniella Seiler, David Akopyan, Diane Rice, Elizabeth Alarcon, Gianni Galasso, Haley Tighe, Hannah Smith, Harry Feng, Heather Byer, Jane Qu, Jenn Gao, Katherine Shi, Kathryn Moran, Katie Xie, Kimberly Beals, Laeticia Yang, Logan Krohn, Margret-Ann Natsis, Maria Gutierrez, Melody Zhang, Michelle Lee, Narmeen Noorullah, Natasha Rosa, Nicole Robinson, Nil Karahasanoglu, Nina Li, Niraj Shah, Polina Mamoshina, Progya Parmita, Robert Woodington, Robin Lore, Robyn Freeman, Rowan Benecke, Sadhvika Viswanath, Saloni Singhvi, Sandra Kügele, Savannah Jackson Howell, Sophia Lam, Stephanie Rank, Stephanie Yeh, Steven Lee, Tatiana Zamecnik, Taylor Burns, Thea Castañeda, Zakiyya Ellington, and Zoha Bharwani for their contributions to this article.

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Working Women Essays

by Halim Abdelhalim (Cairo)

your writing skill is so bad

Jan 17, 2017

bad

May 14, 2017

I am not that much into essays but still as I am an 11 year old I think this is a very short and excellent essay.

May 14, 2017

I am the same person who gave you 5 stars but now I have changed my mind after reading it several times. Sorry

Jun 04, 2017

so bad

Feb 10, 2020

You have to write something more this is some what bad.you have to learn more about this.please add something more for this essay Thanks

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Reserving High-Level Jobs for Women

by Haldun (Türkiye)

Men do most of the high level jobs. Should the government encourage a certain percentage of these jobs to be reserved for women? Although gender discrimination is overcome in many areas, qualified jobs are still mostly occupied by men, due to discrimination in workplace and universities. In my opinion, governments should undertake the mission of overcoming this gender inequality. To be a potential candidate for a high level job, being highly educated is considered as an obligation. However, number of male students in universities are significantly more than female students. Thus, there are more male candidates than female ones for qualified jobs. Another reason of this problem is discrimination against women in work places. In many jobs, employers think that female employees are not as capable as male ones; moreover, they see females as inferior. Because of these reasons men are chosen for high level jobs more often. To end this discriminating act, governments should take certain actions, such as encouraging women to get higher education. For this purpose, governments can give scholarships to women, by this gender imbalance in universities can be prevented. Also, giving more opportunities to women such as studying abroad or taking part in researches can make them more qualified; furthermore, encourage them against their male peers. To conclude, high quality jobs are done mostly by men, which is caused by discrimination in workplace and in education. However, with the financial and mental support of the governments this problem can be solved. *** Please assess my essay.

	Hi, In my estimation, your ideas relevant to the topic and generally your words are proper. One criticism about your essay, you need to use "To begin with, firstly, On the one hand" like that. Thank you for share your essay with us. Congratulate upon,

May 19, 2016

Hi there! I gotta say that you have chosen a hard topic to write, and you've done it well. But I think you need some ameliorations for this: 1. About 1st idea, actually I didn't get your point. "However, number of male students in universities are significantly more than female students. Thus, there are more male candidates than female ones for qualified jobs." It will be much more persuasive if you give the comparison between number of female scientist in early 20th century and 21st century. Doing this way, your point is clear about females' abilities have been overlooked too long and 'till now. More specifically, give the examples of female scientist like Marie Curie. 2. 2nd idea, come on, be more specific, man. "In many jobs, employers think that female employees are not as capable as male ones; moreover, they see females as inferior." Why? What are the jobs? It's easy. Because of the lack of physical strength of female's body. Structural engineers, construction engineers, architects, ... every job which required physical efforts counts. 3. 3rd paragraph, same opinion. Examples? European and the US is giving plenty of scholarships for women in poor African countries. The US government, in the effort of reconsidering women's ability, has initiated to put a female hero on the $20 bill. I know when you write, pressure of time limits your thought. Also, this is a bit tough topic. But, in every IELTS essay, DON'T JUST WRITE THEORIES, GIVE EVIDENCES.

Mar 12, 2019

I think feministic attitude extremely affect you. Whatever your point of view it is just arguemental essay not as shown. So that you have to use 'might', 'would' and 'I think', not being absolutely judgmental and indisputable alike.Also, your essay needs more clarification and examples. Anyway, many thanks for your effort and brainstormed thoughts.

Traditional Role of Women

by Chinita Mae (Oman)

Some people believe in the traditional idea that the woman’s place is in the home, while others say that idea is outdated and that women should play an increasingly important role in the workplace of the future. What is your opinion? Primitively women's role is connected to house work, but others believed women's have more exemplary capacity to work outside home. In today's society it is clearly seen that women play's a big role not only in nurturing her family with love and care but also to excel in her fields of interest. Women are capable of giving birth and that is a natural occurence that differs them from men. Experiencing the whole course of pregnancy plus labor and delivery put them in great danger,stress, and pain. But women can overcome all of this because of their innate courage and braveness.it is a clear evidence that women can surpass such a great test. Great minds and heroes are also found in some women of our time, for example florence nightingle qouted as the lady with a lamp who served the wounded soldiers wheyback in the civil war, christianne amanpoure who is a great journalist of today or vanessa williams who is a undefeated tennis champion. They are just few of the many women who excel in different fields showing their care, compassion and talent. Moreover God created man and women equal,therefore women can also perform work that man can do. Female's caring and loving nature makes them more dedicated to their work and become successful on their chosen field. Passion plays a big role on why women can do more other than household chores. In conclusion women's play a huge part in the society not only to take care of her family inside her home, but also she has a position to work in a civilized society. ***** I'd appreciate it if someone could give me feedback on my Work and Career Essay

	It's a great one but names should be capitalzed and u use possessive 's' when not needed. .. great job

Mar 14, 2016

Perfect

Jan 26, 2017

It's a very nice essay 👍🏻

Jul 22, 2018

Very clear and neat presentation.. Used new vocabulary... very different and super... God bless you...

Feb 15, 2019

Just comenting about some errors: -Quoted, not qouted; -an un... Not a un....; -some repeating words. Regards

IELTS Gender Differences Essay

Do men and women have different strengths and weaknesses?

Women and men are commonly seen as having different strengths and weaknesses. Is it right to exclude males or females from certain professions because of their gender? The idea that males and females are born with distinct characteristics from each other has been a unanimous consensus for as long as human beings first came into existence. However, in my view, these differences should hold little to no significance when it comes to selecting specific careers for both genders. To start, the exclusion of a gender from particular professions can have a detrimental effect on many groups in society. Clearly, qualifying an applicant based on their gender instead of their abilities will prevent individuals from developing to their full potential. Furthermore, this mode of thinking directly contributes to sexism by reinforcing harmful stereotypes and setting negative examples for younger generations. For example, a young, impressionable girl who witnessed a woman being denied a job simply for being a woman will form biases about which occupation a certain gender can and cannot enter, and will inevitably constrain herself and her potentials inside that false mindset. Advocators of this exclusion present a counter-argument, stating that the unique attributes of males (better physical strength, authoritativeness) and females (sentiment, gentleness) might hinder them from efficiently completing certain tasks at work, but this view is fundamentally flawed. Firstly, these traits are not exclusive to a certain gender. Secondly, individual who receives enough training or possesses adequate qualifications will prove themselves suitable for a job, regardless of their sex. Finally, supposing that this exclusion was implemented, the workplace and job culture would experience a severe lack in diversity, which has been proven to reduce employees’ productivity and negatively impact their attitudes towards work. From the basis of the points mentioned above, it is conclusive to state that leaving out a certain gender from a profession is never a good idea. Companies and employers should always strive for gender equality and offer equivalent work opportunities to all sexes to eliminate harmful, sexist stereotypes and create a welcoming, inclusive work environment for all.

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5 Women Empowerment Essays Everybody Should Read

What does “women’s empowerment” mean? It refers to the process of giving women control over their choices and access to the opportunities and resources that allow them to thrive. While there’s been progress, gender inequality remains a persistent issue in the world. Empowering women politically, socially, economically, educationally, and psychologically helps narrow the gap. Here are five essays about women’s empowerment that everyone should read:

Women’s Movements and Feminist Activism (2019)

Amanda Gouws & Azille Coetzee

This editorial from the “Empowering women for gender equity” issue of the journal Agenda explores the issue’s themes. It gives a big picture view of the topics within. The issue is dedicated to women’s movements and activism primarily in South Africa, but also other African countries. New women’s movements focus on engaging with institutional policies and running campaigns for more female representation in government. Some barriers make activism work harder, such as resistance from men and funding, If you’re interested in the whole issue, this editorial provides a great summary of the main points, so you can decide if you want to read further.

Agenda is an African peer-viewed academic journal focusing on feminism. It was established in 1987. It publishes articles and other entries, and tutors young writers.

5 Powerful Ways Women Can Empower Other Women (2020)

Pavitra Raja

Originally published during Women’s History Month, this piece explores five initiatives spearheaded by women in the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship community. Created by women for women, these innovations demonstrate what’s possible when women harness their skills and empower each other. The initiatives featured in this article embrace technology, education, training programs, and more.

Pavitra Raja is the Community Manager for social entrepreneurs in Europe, North America, and Latin America. She’s consulted with the UN Economic Commission for Europe and also has experience in legal affairs and policy in the private and public sectors.

The Key to Improving Women’s Health in Developing Countries (2019)

Because of gender inequality, women’s health is affected around the world. Factors like a lower income than men, more responsibilities at home, and less education impact health. This is most clear in developing countries. How can this be addressed? This essay states that empowerment is the key. When giving authority and control over their own lives, women thrive and contribute more to the world. It’s important that programs seeking to end gender inequality focus on empowerment, and not “rescue.” Treating women like victims is not the answer.

Axa is a leading global insurer, covering more than 100 million customers in 57 countries. On their website, they say they strive for the collective good by working on prevention issues, fighting climate change, and prioritizing protection. The company has existed for over 200 years.

Empowering Women Is Smart Economics (2012)

Ana Revenga and Sudhir Shetty

What are the benefits of women’s empowerment? This article presents the argument that closing gender gaps doesn’t only serve women, it’s good for countries as a whole. Gender equality boosts economic productivity, makes institutions more representative, and makes life better for future generations. This piece gives a good overview of the state of the world (the data is a bit old, but things have not changed significantly) and explores policy implications. It’s based on the World Bank’s World Development Report in 2012 on gender equality and development.

Ana Revenga and Sudhir Shetty both worked at the World Bank at the time this article was originally published. Revenga was the Sector Director of Human Development, Europe and Central Asia. Shetty (who still works at the World Bank in a different role) was the Sector Director, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, East Asia and Pacific.

The Side Of Female Empowerment We Aren’t Talking About Enough (2017)

Tamara Schwarting

In this era of female empowerment, women are being told they can do anything, but can they? It isn’t because women aren’t capable. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. As this article says, women have “more to do but no more time to do it.” The pressure is overwhelming. Is the image of a woman who can “do it all” unrealistic? What can a modern woman do to manage a high-stakes life? This essay digs into some solutions, which include examining expectations and doing self-checks.

Tamara Schwarting is the CEO of 1628 LTD, a co-working community space of independent professionals in Ohio. She’s also an executive-level consultant in supply chain purchasing and business processes. She describes herself as an “urbanist” and has a passion for creative, empowering work environments.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Home — Essay Samples — Geography & Travel — India — Working women in India

Working Women in India

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Words: 673 |

Published: Jan 15, 2019

Words: 673 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

• Acceptance As Working Professionals
• Balancing Work-Family Life
• Travelling For Work Is Not Acceptable
• Safety Of Working Women
• Unequal Pay

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What does gender equality look like today?

Date: Wednesday, 6 October 2021

Progress towards gender equality is looking bleak. But it doesn’t need to.

A new global analysis of progress on gender equality and women’s rights shows women and girls remain disproportionately affected by the socioeconomic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling with disproportionately high job and livelihood losses, education disruptions and increased burdens of unpaid care work. Women’s health services, poorly funded even before the pandemic, faced major disruptions, undermining women’s sexual and reproductive health. And despite women’s central role in responding to COVID-19, including as front-line health workers, they are still largely bypassed for leadership positions they deserve.

UN Women’s latest report, together with UN DESA, Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2021 presents the latest data on gender equality across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The report highlights the progress made since 2015 but also the continued alarm over the COVID-19 pandemic, its immediate effect on women’s well-being and the threat it poses to future generations.

We’re breaking down some of the findings from the report, and calling for the action needed to accelerate progress.

The pandemic is making matters worse

One and a half years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, the toll on the poorest and most vulnerable people remains devastating and disproportionate. The combined impact of conflict, extreme weather events and COVID-19 has deprived women and girls of even basic needs such as food security. Without urgent action to stem rising poverty, hunger and inequality, especially in countries affected by conflict and other acute forms of crisis, millions will continue to suffer.

A global goal by global goal reality check:

Goal 1. Poverty

In 2021, extreme poverty is on the rise and progress towards its elimination has reversed. An estimated 435 million women and girls globally are living in extreme poverty.

And yet we can change this .

Over 150 million women and girls could emerge from poverty by 2030 if governments implement a comprehensive strategy to improve access to education and family planning, achieve equal wages and extend social transfers.

Goal 2. Zero hunger

The global gender gap in food security has risen dramatically during the pandemic, with more women and girls going hungry. Women’s food insecurity levels were 10 per cent higher than men’s in 2020, compared with 6 per cent higher in 2019.

This trend can be reversed , including by supporting women small-scale producers, who typically earn far less than men, through increased funding, training and land rights reforms.

Goal 3. Good health and well-being

Disruptions in essential health services due to COVID-19 are taking a tragic toll on women and girls. In the first year of the pandemic, there were an estimated 1.4 million additional unintended pregnancies in lower and middle-income countries.

We need to do better .

Response to the pandemic must include prioritizing sexual and reproductive health services, ensuring they continue to operate safely now and after the pandemic is long over. In addition, more support is needed to ensure life-saving personal protection equipment, tests, oxygen and especially vaccines are available in rich and poor countries alike as well as to vulnerable population within countries.

Goal 4. Quality education

A year and a half into the pandemic, schools remain partially or fully closed in 42 per cent of the world’s countries and territories. School closures spell lost opportunities for girls and an increased risk of violence, exploitation and early marriage .

Governments can do more to protect girls education .

Measures focused specifically on supporting girls returning to school are urgently needed, including measures focused on girls from marginalized communities who are most at risk.

Goal 5. Gender equality

The pandemic has tested and even reversed progress in expanding women’s rights and opportunities. Reports of violence against women and girls, a “shadow” pandemic to COVID-19, are increasing in many parts of the world. COVID-19 is also intensifying women’s workload at home, forcing many to leave the labour force altogether.

Building forward differently and better will hinge on placing women and girls at the centre of all aspects of response and recovery, including through gender-responsive laws, policies and budgeting.

Goal 6. Clean water and sanitation

In 2018, nearly 2.3 billion people lived in water-stressed countries. Without safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and menstrual hygiene facilities, women and girls find it harder to lead safe, productive and healthy lives.

Change is possible .

Involve those most impacted in water management processes, including women. Women’s voices are often missing in water management processes. 

Goal 7. Affordable and clean energy

Increased demand for clean energy and low-carbon solutions is driving an unprecedented transformation of the energy sector. But women are being left out. Women hold only 32 per cent of renewable energy jobs.

We can do better .

Expose girls early on to STEM education, provide training and support to women entering the energy field, close the pay gap and increase women’s leadership in the energy sector.

Goal 8. Decent work and economic growth

The number of employed women declined by 54 million in 2020 and 45 million women left the labour market altogether. Women have suffered steeper job losses than men, along with increased unpaid care burdens at home.

We must do more to support women in the workforce .

Guarantee decent work for all, introduce labour laws/reforms, removing legal barriers for married women entering the workforce, support access to affordable/quality childcare.

Goal 9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure

The COVID-19 crisis has spurred striking achievements in medical research and innovation. Women’s contribution has been profound. But still only a little over a third of graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics field are female.

We can take action today.

 Quotas mandating that a proportion of research grants are awarded to women-led teams or teams that include women is one concrete way to support women researchers. 

Goal 10. Reduced inequalities

Limited progress for women is being eroded by the pandemic. Women facing multiple forms of discrimination, including women and girls with disabilities, migrant women, women discriminated against because of their race/ethnicity are especially affected.

Commit to end racism and discrimination in all its forms, invest in inclusive, universal, gender responsive social protection systems that support all women. 

Goal 11. Sustainable cities and communities

Globally, more than 1 billion people live in informal settlements and slums. Women and girls, often overrepresented in these densely populated areas, suffer from lack of access to basic water and sanitation, health care and transportation.

The needs of urban poor women must be prioritized .

Increase the provision of durable and adequate housing and equitable access to land; included women in urban planning and development processes.

Goal 12. Sustainable consumption and production; Goal 13. Climate action; Goal 14. Life below water; and Goal 15. Life on land

Women activists, scientists and researchers are working hard to solve the climate crisis but often without the same platforms as men to share their knowledge and skills. Only 29 per cent of featured speakers at international ocean science conferences are women.

 And yet we can change this .

Ensure women activists, scientists and researchers have equal voice, representation and access to forums where these issues are being discussed and debated. 

Goal 16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

The lack of women in decision-making limits the reach and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergency recovery efforts. In conflict-affected countries, 18.9 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women, much lower than the global average of 25.6 per cent.

This is unacceptable .

It's time for women to have an equal share of power and decision-making at all levels.

Goal 17. Global partnerships for the goals

There are just 9 years left to achieve the Global Goals by 2030, and gender equality cuts across all 17 of them. With COVID-19 slowing progress on women's rights, the time to act is now.

Looking ahead

As it stands today, only one indicator under the global goal for gender equality (SDG5) is ‘close to target’: proportion of seats held by women in local government. In other areas critical to women’s empowerment, equality in time spent on unpaid care and domestic work and decision making regarding sexual and reproductive health the world is far from target. Without a bold commitment to accelerate progress, the global community will fail to achieve gender equality. Building forward differently and better will require placing women and girls at the centre of all aspects of response and recovery, including through gender-responsive laws, policies and budgeting.

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Woman killed in shooting outside Lowertown Lofts Artists Cooperative identified

Authorities have identified the woman who was shot and killed Wednesday evening in St. Paul’s Lowertown neighborhood .

Carrie Shobe Kwok, 66, of St. Paul was kneeling in the street and working on an art project when police say a man shot her.

The suspected gunman — identified by family members as 29-year-old Seantrell Murdock — was tracked to a home in Belle Plaine. As St. Paul police were staking out the address Thursday morning, Murdock emerged with a gun in his hand, and two officers shot him. He was airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center but did not survive.

Kwok was a member of the Lowertown Lofts Artists Cooperative. Members of the co-op told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS she was a “beloved member” of the group. They described her as a “really sparkly person” who specialized in textiles and was looking forward to what would have been her second art crawl.

“Our community is in shock and grief as we grapple with the unimaginable,” the co-op said in a social media post on Wednesday.

Julie Shobe remembers her sister, Carrie Kwok, as a gentle soul.

“She helped tons of people. She always wanted to take care of others,” she recalls. “I thought I would die before her. Terribly sad.”

Shobe says Kwok had a creative spark that led her to the Lowertown Lofts Artist Cooperative in St. Paul.

“She had a lot of interests,” she explains. “She made clothes out of vintage fabrics or she repurposed antiques. She made shirts out of old tablecloths, like women’s wear.”

At the co-op, fellow artists spoke fondly of Kwok. “The curiosity that I mentioned earlier was there,” Ben Krywosz, the president of the cooperative, told reporters. “She loved life.”

“She was like sparkly,” added Tara Tieso. “Every time she talked to you, you saw little sparkly things around her.”

Just feet away is the mural where Kwok was working when she was killed.

Police are calling it a random shooting.

Several artists were there with her.

“As she passed, she was just in a place that she loved so, so very much,” Tieso says. “She was peaceful knowing that she was surrounded by people who loved her.”   Kwok shared that love with her family, including two children and four grandchildren.

“It’s extremely difficult,” Shobe says. “It’s unimaginable.”

She says the family is leaning on their faith that Kwok was a devout Christian and a strong believer.

“So, our family is pretty much resting on that,” Shobe says. “There’s a lot of people praying for us, and I’m thinking God’s presence is comforting everybody, I’m hoping.”