Women Take the Lead for World Health

Earlier this month we marked World Health Day, and as the world faces a global health threat the spotlight has been on public health and health workers. Through it all we’ve been inspired by women around the world who are taking the lead to save lives and protect communities, by the obstacles overcome and solutions devised by people of all genders, and by those who empower women and citizens of every country as we work to come together like never before. Take care of yourselves and one another during this time, and join us as we look at some amazing women during this difficult time.

What Do Countries With the Best Coronavirus Responses Have in Common? Women Leaders, from Forbes—“Looking for examples of true leadership in a crisis? From Iceland to Taiwan and from Germany to New Zealand, women are stepping up to show the world how to manage a messy patch for our human family. Add in Finland, Iceland and Denmark, and this pandemic is revealing that women have what it takes when the heat rises in our Houses of State. Many will say these are small countries, or islands, or other exceptions. But Germany is large and leading, and the UK is an island with very different outcomes. These leaders are gifting us an attractive alternative way of wielding power.”

COVID-19 Has Been Harder on Women Business Owners. These 11 Resources Can Help, from Fast Company—“With COVID-19 wreaking havoc on the economy, a recent poll from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce showed that 24% of small businesses are just two months away from shuttering permanently, and 11% are less than one month away. And according to American Express, many women-owned businesses work within industries most vulnerable to COVID-19 devastation. 22% of all women-owned businesses are hair salons, nail salons, and pet groomers, and women also own 16% of the hospitality and food service sector.”

She Figured Out How Ford Could Manufacture Coronavirus Face Shields, from Fortune—“There’s a whole host of corporations pitching in to make equipment to combat the coronavirus pandemic. In the latest issue of Fortune, writer Maria Aspan gives us a peek at one of those efforts: Ford’s shift from manufacturing automobiles to producing medical supplies.”

The Secret Weapon in the Fight Against Coronavirus: Women, from The Guardian—“Being a woman doesn’t automatically make you better at handling a global pandemic. Nor does it automatically make you a better leader; suggesting it does reinforces sexist and unhelpful ideas that women are innately more compassionate and cooperative. What is true, however, is that women generally have to be better in order to become leaders; we are held to far higher standards than men. Women are rarely able to fail up in the way men can; you have to be twice as good as a man in order to be taken half as seriously. You have to work twice as hard.”

India’s First Line of Defense Against the Coronavirus Is an Army of 900,000 Women Without Masks or Hand Sanitizer, from Buzzfeed—“The skills and the capacity these women have, the way in which they are familiar with each community’s members — the sick, the elderly, the children — the ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists) are the most likely to know when someone is displaying symptoms of coronavirus, has been traveling abroad or is missing from the home. Without them, doctors will be operating blind.”

How These Female Entrepreneurs Are Using Technology to Thrive Amidst COVID-19, from Forbes—“Women starting businesses already experience barriers to entry and a lack of funding compared to men, research indicates. Despite these challenges, many female entrepreneurs have developed creative online strategies to propel their businesses forward during these times of uncertainty. Three women entrepreneurs sat down to discuss how their business is thriving despite the COVID-19 crisis.”

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London Breed Sworn In as First Black Woman to Serve as San Francisco Mayor

San Francisco native and former acting mayor London Breed was sworn in as Mayor of San Francisco yesterday, making her the city’s first black woman to hold the position—and only the second woman overall. A champion of helping everyone, regardless of their circumstances, Breed is a great example of the importance of the voices and influence of women, especially women of color and women from underrepresented groups. Breed’s election also puts her in rare company: The mayors of most of the United States’ largest cities are men, and some large cities like New York or Los Angeles have never had a woman mayor. 

Click through to read an article from PBS NewsHour from the day of Breed's swearing in; with more the election, Breed, and what the milestone means for representation.

By Janie Har

SAN FRANCISCO — London Breed will make history Wednesday as the first black female mayor of San Francisco when she is sworn into office in the city that has come to embody extreme wealth and poverty in the modern age.

She will take the oath outdoors on the steps of City Hall in a public ceremony before at least 1,000 spectators. Afterward, she will meet well-wishers in her new office — an open house tradition that dates back a century.

The 43-year-old Breed succeeds Mayor Ed Lee, whose unexpected death in December prompted a special June election to serve the remainder of his term.

Breed, a San Francisco native, has pledged to address the city’s most pressing problems, including homeless tent camps, open drug use and unbearably high housing prices.

She also says she is committed to ensuring that impoverished African American and other minority children receive the opportunities they need to advance.

Breed grew up in public housing and frequently talks about the tough love and support she had growing up, especially from her grandmother who raised her.

She also learned from mentors and neighbors who early on spotted potential and encouraged her to study hard. Now she will earn an annual salary of $335,996.

Breed was most recently president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for more than three years,

On Tuesday, colleagues toasted her and outgoing Supervisor Jeff Sheehy at their final meeting.

Breed thanked her colleagues for their dedication and promised to work with them no matter their disagreements.

“You can’t please everyone. Not everyone is going to like you, not everyone is going to do what you want them to do,” she said.

“And what I noticed about this board, and what made me so proud to be a part of it is, we stand our ground, we do what we think is best and we try to fight for the people we represent.”

Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Women Who Have Female Role Models Are More Likely to Value Their Worth

Powerful women lift one another up-sometimes just by their presence. A recent study found that when in the presence of a woman they admire, 89 percent of women felt freer to set more ambitious goals and focus more on prioritizing their own needs, goals, and potential.

Of course every woman should be free to live her best life and choose the path that leaves her, and those around her, the most fulfilled. Women collaborate, inspire one another, and serve as inspiration for one another's success. We all know women have just as much leadership, expertise, and hard work to offer the world. It's only natural that being encouraged by other women leaders would drive the point home. 

Click through to Moneyish to read the entire article.

By Jeanette Settembre

Women are helping women want more for themselves.

A new study by Lean Cuisine and New York University psychology professor Emily Balcetis found that 89 percent of women set more ambitious life goals in the presence of other women they admired than they did when contemplating them alone. And 77 percent chose greater aspirations in the aspects of life they deemed most important.

Balcetis administered a questionnaire to 18 participants, asking them a series of personal, career and finance questions like what they want most in life, how much money they’d want to make and their dream career. Then, weeks later, the participants were invited to “shop” at a makeshift store where items on the shelves mimicked the same survey questions involving ideal family life and level of education they’d want to achieve — but this time, they were selecting these life choices in the presence of an influential woman in their life.

Despite stereotypes that suggest female relationships trigger anxiety and pressures, the study found, the women chose much more ambitiously than they did when completing the survey alone — deciding on higher salaries and more hours.

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The rise of Davos Woman: who are the 7 female chairs of the World Economic Forum 2018?

While we still have a way to go to reach equal representation in many fields and men still outnumbered women among attendees, the influence of women continues to expand—globally. This year, for the first time in its nearly half-century history, the World Economic Forum was chaired by an all-woman panel. Click through to learn about all seven women leading the global economic conversation in Davos this year.

By Rosa Silverman 

In years gone by, the World Economic Forum has been criticised for the lack of female representation at its annual gathering in Davos. Each year more than 2,500 global leaders, policymakers, business leaders, economists, journalists and celebrities pour into the Swiss resort, but its lack of gender diversity has previously been stark.

In 2015, for instance, only 17 per cent of those attending were women. The term "Davos Man", coined by the late political scientist Samuel Hungtington, became a shorthand for the type of wealthy, elite chap typically found in attendance.

This year, however, marks a change of tone, as the event will be chaired exclusively by women.

So who are the magnificent seven chosen for the first all-female line-up in the summit’s 48-year history?

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Beyond Head Counts: How to Measure African Women’s Political Influence

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Christine Chung

Studies of women’s political participation tend to focus on totting up MPs and cabinet ministers. A pilot investigation into women’s leadership in African governments and legislatures adds two new indicators to look at their influence, not just the numbers.

Around the world, the percentage of women in parliaments has almost doubled in the past 20 years. But that still means only 22.8 percent of all national parliamentarians were women as of June 2016. Despite pockets of progress on gender equality and women’s participation in public and political life, many countries are slow to improve on women’s political empowerment. To get the measure of the problem and work toward a solution requires comprehensive data. The Women in Politics Map by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and U.N. Women provides some numbers and global rankings for women in executive government and in parliament at regional and national levels. But other data is harder to come by.

To address that gap, the International Republican Institute (IRI) recently launched a pilot study of women’s political leadership in Africa. “Women’s Political Empowerment, Representation and Influence in Africa” is an index of women’s representation and leadership at the legislative and executive levels across 29 countries. Women & Girls Hub spoke with IRI’s Director for Global Initiatives and Senior Adviser on Gender Michelle Bekkering and Senior Applied Learning Specialist Matt Baker about how the study is different and what’s still missing.

Women & Girls Hub: Why is this study important?

Michelle Bekkering: Often when we’re talking about numbers, we’re talking more about representation. How many women occupy seats in the parliament? How many lead executive ministries? How many heads of state, etc.? However, that does not sufficiently capture the true complexity of gender equality, especially when we’re looking in the field of women’s political leadership. One of the things we noticed early on was the sheer numbers are not really telling the story, but the numbers are so vital.

Matt Baker: That was the bulk of the time that we spent, collecting this data. We collected two new indicators, information that hasn’t previously been systematically collected on African countries: the percentage of women who head up committees in parliaments and the percentage of the national budget that’s headed by women ministers. In many cases, we had to resort to some pretty creative means to get that data.

Women & Girls Hub: Can you give us an example of those creative means?

Baker: In some cases, we were talking to multiple different CSO [civil society organization] activists on the ground to have them find the information that isn’t necessarily online and have them scan or fax some of the requisite documents to help us validate the information. We have a pretty good regional presence and so that enabled us to gather information in places which ordinarily would be quite challenging.

The Women’s Democracy Network has a number of chapters in Africa, so we had access to a number of women who were involved in politics as well as in civil society on the ground in many of the countries that we sampled. We started out trying to get information on every single country in Africa, including North Africa. In the end, we were able to get 29 countries out of the 50-odd in the continent. Even that, just over 50 percent, was a challenge.

Women & Girls Hub: What were your main takeaways?

Baker: The rankings in and of themselves are interesting, but they’re a snapshot in time, and much of the data was from 2014. It can tell us countries like South Africa, Rwanda, Cape Verde and Uganda were at the top end, while countries like Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia were trailing at the bottom.

The most interesting thing was our ability to look a little bit deeper at the interactions between the data that we collected. What we found out validates much of what’s in the academic literature, in terms of more women in parliament being actually associated with more women in leadership roles on committees. That was one of the new indicators we collected. Similarly, we noted that there was a positive relationship between the percentage of women who headed up ministries and the percentage of the national budget managed by women.

Traditional gender roles still appear to play a pretty strong role in terms of what portfolios the women lead. For example, in 20 of the 29 countries that we looked at, women headed up ministries of social development, welfare or those related to family and children. They’re a lot less likely to be heading up ones related to defense and foreign affairs and the like.

The other thing that was interesting was to look at how the levels of democracy in each country interact with the rankings. Once you include a measure of democracy – and we used a policy measure that’s commonly used – we equally weighted the four indicators on the one hand and the level of democracy on the other. That showed that the rankings definitely adjusted. For example, Rwanda, which performs relatively well in the index that doesn’t include a [democracy] measure, drops down drastically. Which is perhaps not surprising, but at least it validates the fact that there is an interaction effect between the level of democracy and performance in terms of women’s ability to engage in the political process.

Women & Girls Hub: What are your next steps?

Bekkering: Ideally, we would undertake similar studies in the other regions so we could have a great global mapping of where women’s legislative and executive leadership and influence lie, but what we’d like to do is add more indicators. For instance, once we were going through this current pilot study, we recognized that we were really looking at representation from a descriptive lens. To the extent where women were present, they were in these positions of leadership. We’d like to take that to the next level and really look at what is substantive representation. Having women in both the executive and the legislature, to what extent are they able to really shape policy, or to enact and influence reform that directly benefits women and children as a group?

That would require us developing new indicators to look at, again, beyond the descriptive numbers and looking more substantially at how are they exerting that influence.

Passing The Baton: 5 Ways Women Leaders Can Help Other Women - Take The Lead

Success is not a finite resource. Contrary to what you may have heard or read, powerful women often help other women succeed -- through gestures big and small, formal and informal; ranging from lifting each other up and reaching out to mentoring and promoting up-and-comers.

We're happy to share this piece from Take the Lead Women on five ways women leaders can help other women, paving the way for even more women leadership and empowerment.

taketheleadwomen.com - I was in the audience at a conference listening to a professional panel last week, with each one of the three women leaders talking about her years of experience in media. A younger woman in the audience raised her hand to ask a question.

“I want to know more about passing the baton, and how I can grow into a career, following in your footsteps.”

One of the seasoned journalists responded, “I want to pass the baton to you smoothly, but I cannot stop and look for you behind me. You need to keep up the pace, so I can reach behind me and you can grab it quickly, move ahead and continue the race. I am happy to help, but if I stop to try to find you, we will both be disqualified. This way we both win.”

But the behaviors of women at work can be on the other end of the spectrum. In some work environments, women leaders not only don’t pass the baton, they make sure they are obstructionists to any other woman rising up. We don’t want to be her. So here are five quick strategies to being the kind of woman in the workplace who is not only amenable to other women, but also supportive to the cause of empowering all the women she encounters professionally.

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