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Momorandum Archive »
Executive Momorandum
The Feminine Majority
10/22/2009
Almost fifty years after President John F.
Kennedy asked Eleanor Roosevelt to chair the very first Commission on the Status
of the American Woman, his niece (and current First Lady of California) has
released a landmark study with The Center for American Progress that spotlights
the watershed moment at which we have arrived for the status of women and moms
in American society.
The Shriver Report: Aptly and Provocatively Titled "A Woman's Nation Changes
Everything"
What does "A Woman's Nation" mean?
For the first time in our history, half of all
U.S. workers are women (or put well otherwise: "the footprint of
today’s American worker is as likely to be a heel as a boot"). And here is the
other staggering statistic: Mothers are the primary
breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families.
This latter news is something we assessed from the members of Executive Moms
over two years ago, but how powerful it is to see this substantiated on a fully
national scale.
This is far more than a change in workplace demographics.
This marks a social transformation affecting nearly every aspect of our lives –
how we work, how we play and how we care for one another. These shifts
ostensibly mean the battle of the sexes is over; according to the findings of
this report which was months in the making, men and woman in fact
overwhelmingly agree on what they want in life, and how they view their
roles in marriage, as parents, and in their jobs. And yet, The Shriver
Report also reveals that some of our institutions lag behind and don’t yet
reflect this new dynamic. "Government, business, the media and our faith
communities, in many cases, still cling to outdated models of who works and who
cares for our families." (We know)!
There are a range of opinion pieces and copious information to read through, but
here are a few of our favorite nuggets:
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Today: women now earn 60% of the college degrees awarded
each year and fully half of the Ph.D.s and the professional degrees. Almost
40% of working women hold managerial and other professional positions.
Companies led by women generally are proving to have healthier bottom lines.
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Most workers—men and women—now have family
responsibilities they negotiate daily with their spouses, family members,
bosses, colleagues, and employees. (But it is still a rare doctor’s office
that is open evenings or weekends, even though so many people work at all
hours in our 24/7 economy).
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Now both men and women agree that government and
business are out of touch with the realities of how most families live and
work today. Families need more flexible work schedules, comprehensive child
care policies, redesigned family and medical leave, and equal pay.
Over 80% of men and women agree businesses that fail to adapt to the needs
of modern families risk losing good workers.
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Even as most women today are providing for their
families by working outside the home—they are still earning less than
men—while providing more than their fair share of caregiving
responsibilities at home. (No one reading can identify, right)?
While childless women working in corporations earn nearly the same pay as
their male counterparts, mothers earn 15% less on average than men
and single mothers earn 40% less.
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Love this quote: "Mothers have taken up paid
employment in great—and ever rising—numbers, yet the public discourse often
remains mired in controversy over whether mothers should work, rarely
appreciating the ship-has-sailed reality that most simply just go to work
each day."
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And finally a quote from Maria
Shriver on her mother, Eunice Kennedy
Shriver, as her inspiration for working on this project: "My
role model, like most daughters, was my mother. She was my first image and
idea of what it meant to be a woman. It didn't matter to me that she wasn't
like the other mothers. She wore men's pants, smoked cigars, and worked
outside the home. She was my mother, and she was fearless. She raised me
exactly the way she raised my four brothers: to believe I could do anything.
She sent me right in there to play tackle football with the boys. She said,
"Maria, this may be a man's world, but you can and will succeed in it... And
while she liked to hang with the boys, all her heroes were women... She told
me their stories, because she wanted me to appreciate the gift and the power
of women to change the language, the tempo, and the character of the world.
And she was right."
We did a brief interview with WBCS-TV on the subject:
Here's the link if you want to read the transcript or watch
it online:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/women.in.workforce.2.1253704.html
And to read more of The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation
Changes Everything, visit
http://awomansnation.com This is one we plan on continuing to talk
about. We hope you do too. Post your thoughts on
The Executive Moms Network ...
and talk to each other.
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