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In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec 12, 2007 / 3 Teves 5768

Seeing through the glass ceiling

By Betsy Hart


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "Female Execs Can't Break Into Boys Club" read the headline of reporter Francine Knowles' piece in The Chicago Sun-Times this week. "Women continue to bang their heads against barriers, despite making limited gains in advancing to. . . top leadership positions. . ." reveal the findings of the Chicago Network, a women's professional group that produced a report on the progress of women in Chicago's top 50 companies, Knowles reports.


Less than 15 percent of directors in Chicago's top 50 companies are women.


The report labeled women's progress as "uneven and inadequate." Sheli Rosenberg, retired president and chief executive of Equity Group Investments and a Chicago Network member, called the numbers "depressing."


The Sisterhood is always depressed. Enough already. The only depressing thing here is the "gender equity" moaning and groaning.


The reality is that to the extent the glass ceiling still exists, it's mainly the result of choices women themselves are making. Shouldn't we celebrate that?


Popular author Warren Farrell showed in his 2005 book, "Why Men Earn More"(AMACOM), that the answer is largely that women more typically choose less demanding, less risky career tracks, say human resources versus sales, than men do. Men are more likely than women to choose the "hardship" tracks — whether physical danger, or lots of traveling/70 hour workweeks/relocating frequently. Farrell actually shows that when women take on equal risks and responsibility as their male counterparts in the workplace, they tend to make more money for the same job.


In fact the evidence is overwhelming that when women are willing to do what it takes to grab the "golden ring" in corporate America, they are as likely as men, maybe even more likely, to get it. Good for them.


But fewer women than men choose to put themselves on the path to the executive suite.


And just why is that a problem to "fix"?


"What's key to more quickly bringing about gender parity?" in the ranks of corporate Chicago (or corporate America), as Knowles puts it, is actually the wrong question altogether. "Why aren't we celebrating women's choices?" would be the better query.


The feminist world erupted in fury when Brenda Barnes, inches away from the CEO spot at PepsiCo, stepped off the hard-charging track because of the toll it was taking on her and her family. (I think the sisterhood would have cheered a man doing the same thing, by the way.) On ABC's "Good Morning America" last year, law professor Linda Hirshman said that "privileged, educated women who choose to stay at home to raise their children are hurting themselves and others." Really?


Too bad for Hirshman and her elitist friends. Census data show that 54 percent of mothers with professional or graduate degrees choose not to work full time. 54 percent. This drives women like Hirshman nuts.


We don't, and won't, have gender parity in boardrooms for the same reason we don't have gender parity when it comes to elementary school room parents. It's about the choices women make. And that's powerful.


As an (unexpectedly) single mom to four kids, I'm especially grateful now that I always worked, at least part-time, when I was married, so that I have more options today. Besides, I love it. I've often written that work for pay is a great thing for moms, even if it's only a few hours a week, partly because it keeps us from getting too wrapped up in our kids!


I'll encourage my daughters to pursue their educational and professional dreams. But I'll also instill in them a sense of gratitude that they live in a time and place where they have choices — choices that many men don't have. I'll encourage them to use those choices wisely. Maybe they can "have it all," however they define it, just not all at the same time. That appears to be the choice many women make, and that's something to celebrate, not whine about.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Betsy Hart, a frequent commentator on CNN and the Fox News Channel, can be reached by clicking here.

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