Two experiences happened recently that inspired today’s essay. My husband and I were sitting in the lobby bar at the Hotel Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, waiting to meet friends, and were admiring the scores of photos of famous people that adorned the walls. Deliberately nursing our drinks before dinner, we started a game, guessing for one another which of those famous former patrons we’d choose as dinner companions. After bemoaning how few women were on the walls – at least compared to men – I silently made my choices and then my husband astounded me by guessing every one correctly! I can never really claim to be misunderstood. A few months later, spending a day in NYC before an evening at the…

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That line was uttered by the14-year old genius Caroline in the 1977 Columbo episode Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder. Lt. Columbo had just told Caroline that she was not only the smartest young girl he had ever met, but she was pretty too. Caroline was the youngest member of the Sigma Society, a club for geniuses and she helped solve the murder. Of course, 1977 was the early days of “our” wave of feminism and those of us who were just barely adults then laughed at the irony of that line. We were two years past the International Women’s Year (1975) and we knew there was much work to be done but we were confident in our success. Fast-forward forty years….

The woman sat across from me over breakfast in a local diner. I had asked her to meet me before work to discuss what had happened at a corporate event last week: she drank too much and told a client that I was ruining the company. I thought about this conversation the entire weekend. I wanted to be firm but caring. If this woman had a drinking problem, the company would provide the support she needed. However, I would be clear that her behavior was inappropriate and could not, would not be tolerated! I started my well-practiced speech when she interrupted me with, “I hate working for women. At least with men you know where you stand. I’ve never had a…

It was Saturday and thus my day to be at the nursing home.  My mother was thrilled, eager to spend the morning watching “Press Your Luck” with me and telling me about her week so I struggled to hide my impatience, all the while thinking about how much I had to do at home and the board meeting the following week, scheduled to deliver my year end projections.  I should be ashamed of myself.  Glenn, my husband, visits her every day as the nursing staff never fail to remind me. I am not the caregiver in her life because I have an important job.  I am a bad daughter. Women are the caregivers.  My husband and I talked long and hard…

I’ve been doing some reading on unconscious gender bias and a few paragraphs leaped out at me from an article entitled,  “The Confidence Gap,” by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman; The Atlantic, May 2014. Even as our understanding of confidence expanded, however, we found that our original suspicion was dead-on: there is a particular crisis for women—a vast confidence gap that separates the sexes. Compared with men, women don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they’ll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities. This disparity stems from factors ranging from upbringing to biology. A growing body of evidence shows just how devastating this lack of confidence can be. Success, it turns out, correlates just as closely with confidence…

I am a mother (and, yes, I do know that some employees over the years have used a hybrid of that term to describe me less than flatteringly).  I’m talking about literal mother.  I have two sons, who are now grown men and have their own careers to worry about.  I have loved every moment of being a mother and I strongly feel that the skills I learned in that role led me to more success in the corporate world. The world has changed dramatically for working mothers over the past decades.  There are more of us but that hasn’t translated into strength in numbers or changed the stereotypes around a pregnant colleague.  Research from the Pew Research Center indicates that…