Monica Nicosia, in her The Reading Blog, collected some interesting articles about gender issues, political power, and women in leadership.

Here’s the link

The Wheaton News from Wheaton college reports:

Leading scholar on gender issues delivers keynote

May 17, 2008

NORTON, MASS. — Giving the keynote address at Wheaton College’s 173nd Commencement held on May 17, 2008, Wheaton alumna Katharine T. Bartlett marveled at the dramatic social, technological and scientific advances that have occurred over the past 40 years, and called attention to how far we still have to go.

“We could not know in 1968, even, that in our graduating class was the future governor of New Jersey, and future head of the Environmental Protection Agency, an agency that did not exist in 1968. We could not know that at another all women’s college 35 miles away, was a student who would be running for the democratic nomination for president 40 years later. Nor that her primary opponent in the primary would be a then seven-year-old son of a black Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas,” said Bartlett, the A. Kenneth Pye Professor of Law at Duke University and a leading scholar on gender issues and social change, and an advocate for children’s rights.

Click here for full speech

WELLESLEY, Mass., May 9, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ —-The dynamics of the intersection of race and gender were the focus of research findings released at the national symposium Research to Roadmap: Accelerating the Growth of Businesses Owned by Women of Color convened by the Center for Women’s Business Research

click here for the research results

This is an extraordinarily touching story and illustrates what women are capable of - the selfless generosity and teamwork generated through empathy. Watch the video and try not to get a lump in your throat or tears in your eyes!

Click here to watch the short video

The Washington Post reported today yet another challenge for working women. This is one of the downsides of gaining equality in the workplace…

Drinking and alcohol dependence has increased substantially among women, particularly white and Hispanic women born since 1945, new study finds.

Alcohol use and dependency appeared to remain stable for men, while young Americans report having more lifetime alcohol problems than older Americans, despite having had less time to develop issues with drinking.

The findings were published in the May issue ofAlcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Click here for full article

Linda Sherman of the blog It’s Different for Girls reports on differences in how men and women use and express humor. I found it interesting and entertaining and thought I’d pass it along:

“Men taunt other men with clever nicknames and insults. That isn’t something that women do. They don’t tend to play practical jokes, or engage in humor that humiliates or puts somebody down.” (John Morreal, a professor of religion at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, who has studied humor for 25 years.)*

“For women the primary goal of conversation is intimacy and, for men, the goal is positive self-presentation. Women’s humor supports a goal of greater intimacy by being supportive and healing, while men’s humor reinforces performance goals of competition, the establishment of hierarchical relationships and self-aggrandizement.” (from Mary Crawford’s book, Talking Difference on Gender and Language).

Click here for full article

Young women heading into the workforce be warned: You might think it’s an even playing field, but be prepared to earn less than the men from your graduating class and in the cubicles next to you.

That’s one of the messages Fran Donaldson, president of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women, says should be drawn from 2006 census data made public yesterday on income and earnings.

The Statistics Canada report showed that the gap in earnings between men and women is still a sizeable one as young, uneducated males cash in on the construction and oil boom in western Canada - especially in Alberta.

Click here for full article

PsychSense blogger wrties:

When a woman must choose between caring for herself and caring for another, social pressure fosters the choice of nurturing of others. Women often experiences conflict when faced with what may seem like the continual choice of caring for others or caring for themselves. It is not unusual for women to have difficulty saying no or setting limits, thus ending up doing more than they really want to. Women frequently nurture everyone but themselves and end up feeling conflicted, unappreciated, resentful, and burned out. Women already struggle with these issues, but this is much worse for those in the professional role of nurturer/helper.

Click here for full article with list of specific tips

Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal wrote a fascinating article about the new trend of temporary stay-at-home mothers banding together for part-time work. They provide a valuable resource of talent and keep their skills fresh at the same time. Women are off-ramping for 1-3 years, sometimes longer, to hae and raise children, but want to work part-time and keep in tune with the market. Voila!

Click here for full article