When you think of special operations forces in Afghanistan, you probably picture a group of men: buff, tattooed and sunburnt. But right beside some of them, a “band of sisters” kept them safe. In her 2015 book “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield,” journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon details a little-known Army program that assigned all-female units to support male soldiers. Known as Cultural Support Teams (CST), these women helped gather intelligence from mothers and daughters in Afghan households, while male counterparts conducted raids to find insurgents.
“In a conservative and traditional society like Afghanistan, particularly places where the insurgency was strongest, male soldiers — no matter how good they were at fighting — could not speak to Afghan women,” Lemmon recounts at a Got Your 6 Storytellers event in Los Angeles. Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who spent an extensive amount of time in Afghanistan for her previous book “The Dressmaker of Khair Khana,” reported the story of Lt. Ashley White and her unit through hundreds of hours of interviews over the course of two years. In an interview with NationSwell, Lemmon discussed what she learned about women’s role in the military during her research.
What inspired you to share the story of CST in Afghanistan?
It was the impossibility of the story on the surface — this group of teammates who became friends and then family at a time when women officially were banned from ground combat. Here was a group of Americans who answered their country’s call to serve, who went onto the battlefield alongside Rangers and SEALs, and who were forever changed by it. They broke ground in service to their country, and we didn’t know them. I wanted to share this slice of history we didn’t know.
While embedded, what did you learn about what it means to serve as an American soldier?
I saw young Americans going in and out of Afghanistan, risking their lives for their nation and for the friends they had come to love. I wanted to share that connection, that friendship, that desire to serve.
What does camaraderie look like in an all-female unit?
Much the same as in an all-male unit. It was about friendship and sisterhood and caring for one another — only it was even more extreme because they were all they had out there, the only people who knew and understood all that they saw and did at the tip of the spear while women officially weren’t there.
How did meeting these female warriors change your idea of womanhood?
This story took me into a world I had never known of women who were funny and fierce, driven and kind, intense and warm. So many times the women we see on our pages or on our screens are one or the other. I wanted to show these women in all their dimensions and to tell a story that was true to who they are and were.
What three words describe your experience abroad?
Afghanistan is a generous, inspiring and heartbreaking place.
What is the quality you most admired in the troops you met?
Tenacity and grit alongside great heart.
How can someone support veterans?
Get involved. Listen to veterans’ stories. Help veterans with their transition into the next phase of life and be aware of the wars we have asked them to fight. Too many are too distant from the battle and don’t want to hear what it was like for the 1 percent of the country that has fought 100 percent of its 15 years of war. That must change.
What unique challenges do female veterans face?
We must recognize that veterans are women and women are veterans. We must expand our version of the veteran to make sure it includes women and the valor they have shown these past decades of war. Otherwise, our antiquated views of what women have and are doing keeps us as a country from offering the respect and the support they deserve from us.
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Tag: women
Can Doling Out Tough Love Empower Female Business Owners?
Gender inequality in the workforce isn’t exactly a secret in the public eye. Yet, 88 percent of female business owners still don’t make more than $100,000 in gross revenue a year. This is where Frederique Campagne Irwin’s fourth start-up, Her Corner, can help.
The networking system has the sole purpose of growing female-owned (and, more specially, female-founded) businesses.
Her Corner was established after a meeting Irwin orchestrated back in 2011, where numerous local, female business owners sat down for dinner and discussed growth strategies. Within three months, 2,000 female business owners contacted Irwin, and the start-up has since exploded across 26 states and is predicted to grow much more in the coming years.
For women that are eager to expand their businesses, Her Corner provides resources to facilitate that expansion (i.e. contacts like contract lawyers and real estate agents for business spaces). Bi-monthly meetings are held in a member’s home, which is “an environment that is intrinsically feminine,” says Irwin.
But don’t think these get togethers consist of chitchat over wine and cheese. The no-nonsense organization gets down to the business of, well, business. “I didn’t want to talk about dogs, renovations or people’s kids,” Irwin tells the Washington Post.
Irwin explains the organization’s purpose to Serious Startups: “Her Corner creates a positive environment where we encourage our members to think bigger, to collaborate to accelerate the possibilities, and to look at networking differently – rather than coming to a large event and handing out business cards, we ask you to start with your small group and start by asking, ‘tell me about yourself and how can I help you.’”
Irwin’s unique ability to both supercharge members with a pissed-off, let’s-change-this-gender-biased-dynamic, while also providing the build-relationships-first comfort to make the necessary changes is what has this startup on a path to success.
With Odds Stacked Against Them, This Group Is Helping to Build Self-Esteem in Young Black Women
“Babies raising babies,” is how Tracey Wilson Mourning, a former journalist and wife of retired Miami Heat basketball player Alonzo Mourning, describes the group of teenage girls carrying their children near her neighborhood in Florida to The Root.
“I wondered, ‘Which one am I?’ out of that group, had it not been for the mommy I had, had it not been for the amazing women in my life,” she says.
This questioning led Mourning to start a mentoring group for young black women called Honey Shine.
Since 2002, the organization has been reaching out to young black women in Florida, offering group mentorship, a six-week summer day camp and bi-monthly workshops focused on education, health, nutrition, sex and drug education, and making goals for the future. The participants are called “Honey Bugs,” and sharing warmth and affection among the generations is a big part of Honey Shine’s mission.
Honey Shine turns even fun events into learning experiences. For example, a back-to-school shopping trip sponsored by Forever21 that helped 100 girls pick out clothes for school was also an opportunity to teach the Honey Bugs about budgeting and “shopping smart.”
Mourning tells The Root that these girls benefit from guidance in all aspects of their lives. “I know a lot of these young girls don’t have that mom that I had, don’t have those people pulling them up by their coattails or taking them outside of their neighborhoods,” she says. “We have girls that come from neighborhoods called ‘the Graveyard’ where two out of 12 are graduating from high school. Not on our watch.”
Most of all, Mourning wants Honey Shine to show the girls the possibilities that await them if they stay out of trouble and get an education: “[Women] run companies. We own companies. We influence the world,” Mourning says. “And if our girls see that, what a difference that makes. Self-esteem is a powerful tool. We all make dumb mistakes when our self-esteem is low, and I don’t know anyone immune from that, but I feel like if we build self-esteem in our young girls…it makes the world of difference.”
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Inside the Company That Recognized the Importance of Corporate Diversity 50 Years Ago
When you think of Xerox, you probably think of copy machines. But what really should come to mind is diversity.
Back in 2009, Ursula Burns assumed the role of CEO — marking the first time that a Fortune 500 company not only hired an African-American female for the position, but also hired two female CEOs in a row. With women holding only 4.8 percent of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies, and black CEOs in these companies numbering only six, Xerox’s diverse leadership is remarkable.
But it didn’t happen overnight.
The seeds for Burns’s rise were planted 50 years ago through an innovative, company-wide effort to enhance diversity that continues to bear fruit to this day.
According to Paul Solman of PBS NewsHour, during the summer of 1964, race riots broke out near Xerox’s headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. Company founder Joe Wilson decided to meet with black community leaders to find out what could make their situation better.
Damika Arnold, Xerox’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Manager, tells Solman that Wilson “found out that the reason why they were rioting is because they didn’t have access to jobs. So he pledged that the black people of the community would be able to get jobs at Xerox.”
Wilson kept his word and then some. Xerox launched a summer minority internship program — which is how now-CEO Burns first joined the company in 1980. By 1991, nine percent of Xerox’s managers were black, compared to just half a percent at other companies.
But Xerox wasn’t content to rest with just this achievement. Leaders in the company saw that women weren’t making the same gains as men were, and when they analyzed the discrepancy, they found it was due to the fact that women with children couldn’t rise through the ranks because of the strict work schedules imposed on plant managers. So Xerox implemented job-sharing programs. As a result, women (even those with young children) began rising up the ranks.
Burns tells Solman, women are “not dumb in manufacturing. We just — we need a lot more flexibility than you’re allowing us to have.”
Additionally, Xerox encouraged the formation of supportive groups among its workforce, such as the Women’s Alliance, the Black Women’s Leadership Council and a gay and lesbian group. These gave employees of all backgrounds a myriad of opportunities for mentorship and guidance.
Burns believes Xerox’s groundbreaking emphasis on diversity has allowed it to weather decades of change in the business technology industry. The best idea, she says, “is to engage as much difference, as much breadth as you can, because that gives you little peeks into where some of the big opportunities will be.”
MORE: More Diversity Doesn’t Have to Mean Decreased Social Mobility
This School Encourages Women to Join the World of Politics
For the most part, politics is still a man’s thing. And the numbers from the National Women’s Political Caucus support that (disappointing) claim: Of the 535 Congressional seats, only 18.5 percent, or 99 members, are women. Adding to that, in 2013, only 24.1 percent of the 7,383 state legislators were female.
These statistics are exactly what the Women’s Campaign School is trying to change. Since 1994, this nonprofit has been teaching women the skills needed to run a successful political campaign.
So how did the school start? Well, it can be all traced back to 1992, which was dubbed the “Year of Women” due to the record number of female candidates. But the momentum couldn’t be sustained, and the following year saw a staggering decline in the number of female candidates.
So a number of powerful women — Patricia Russo, head of the Commission on the Status of Women; Conn. Rep. Rosa DeLauro; former Conn. Rep. Nancy Johnson; former Yale Law School Dean Guido Calabresi and others — held a meeting to discuss the future of women in politics. Prior to the gathering, Russo had spoken to New York Times reporter Andree Aleion Brooks who offered a solution to the problem: a campaign training camp for women.
Russo took that idea to the meeting, and with the full support of Calabresi, the Women’s Campaign School emerged.
Through the years, it’s more than proven its worth. In 20 years, the school has trained 1,400 women (about 70 to 80 per year) and boasts graduates such as Sen. Kristen Gillibrand of New York and former Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Most important to the school, though, is its emphasis on being non-partisan and issue neutral. The school wasn’t designed as a forum to debate the hot social topics, but rather, to educate women on how to run successful campaigns in real time. So class topics include organizing, budgeting, polling, fundraising, public speaking, staffing, and working with consultants.
And it appears to be working — many graduates are holding local level positions, such as sitting on municipal or education boards, while looking to expand into the state legislature.
While funding remains one of the biggest challenges facing female candidates, the school is providing these women with a chance to do something different: nonpartisan compromise.
Through the school, women are able to communicate across party lines and know each other as individuals, not as a party color. And women are bringing this practice into the workplace also, as shown through the efforts of Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Wash. Sen. Patty Murray during the last sequester.
“Susan Collins approached Patty Murray, saying, ‘I can’t sit through another meeting where nothing is going to be resolved. Will you sit with me, and let’s put a plan together. At least put something on the table for the others to consider,’ and that became the deal that ended the sequester. So that’s the power of women in public office, and there’s a reason why we need more women running and women winning,” says Russo when describing the situation to Fast Company.
And that’s just one example. If the Women’s Campaign School keeps churning out candidates, who knows what a little touch of femininity can bring to our government.
MORE: A Savvy Investment: Companies That Support Gender Diversity
Military Spouses Didn’t Feel Represented by Congress. This Initiative Helps Them Find Their Voice
After managing sales at a clothing boutique and earning a master’s degree in social responsibility and sustainable communities, Katie Lopez thought her experience spoke for itself. So when she couldn’t find a job after relocating last summer to live with her husband, an Army service member stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the challenge was unexpected. “I was surprised that at interviews, one of the first questions I was asked is when I was leaving,” she says, even though she didn’t know when or where her husband would be stationed next. “There was never any follow-up after the interviews, so I was getting more and more discouraged. And I knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing it.”
She certainly wasn’t. Studies show that labor markets near big military bases are often “saturated with overqualified military spouses eager to work,” according to the Huffington Post. Military spouses face additional challenges, like the fact that they don’t qualify for unemployment insurance when they lose jobs in more than 14 states, since changes of station are seen as “voluntary” moves.
Even when she did attend events geared at hiring veterans and their family members, Lopez found that most job recruiters were targeting veterans themselves — and the positions available were often entry level, virtual jobs that didn’t fit her level of experience. “There was nothing for those of us who were college educated and on a professional track,” Lopez says. “It’s disheartening to think we spent this time and put in the work to advance ourselves and our careers only to get entry level jobs at a call center.”
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In Gear Career is a nonprofit that helps military family members with all career-related challenges — from finding jobs and networking to education and professional training. Haley Uthlaut, a military spouse and veteran, conceived the idea in 2009 and then took it to Donna Huneycutt and Lauren Weiner, owners of a consulting firm focused on hiring veterans and their spouses. They helped her make the vision a reality. Although headquartered in Tampa, Florida, In Gear Career has more than 2,000 members in 22 chapters across the country, from Texas to Tennessee.
“The biggest issue we saw facing military spouses was the lack of a professional network — you don’t get that when you move every two or three years,” says Weiner. “We want to help military spouses stay employed, because big gaps on a resume are a red flag. And ultimately, if we get the spouses engaged, we’re going to keep our best and brightest in the military. It’s a military readiness issue at heart.”
Last October, during the government shutdown, Huneycutt and Weiner were in Washington, D.C. for a conference, watching C-Span during a break between sessions. Sitting with a member from Military Spouse JD Network, a group that helps military spouses maintain their legal careers amid relocations, Huneycutt and Weiner became increasingly frustrated listening to politicians on the screen blame their opposing party for the shutdown.
“Enough already!” one of them screamed.
“Fix it!” another one yelled.
“Forget about these politicians,” one finally said. “I’m sick of everyone telling me to call my congressman. I want to be my congressman.”
Looking back, it was a light bulb moment.
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Just one fifth of those who serve in Congress have any military experience, according to a September 2013 Pew Research Center survey. And the voices of military spouses have even less representation. “The number of veterans in Congress is only dropping,” says Amanda Patterson Crowe, executive director of In Gear Career. “And for spouses, that’s hard because we’re living the life that Congress makes decisions on, from child care to military pay. We had to figure out how to make our voices heard too, how to get into politics.”
So after the conference, In Gear Career teamed up with Military Spouse JD Network to create Homefront Rising, a nonpartisan initiative aimed at getting military spouses more involved in the political process, from volunteering for campaigns to running for office. “Many people don’t realize that military spouses are uniquely qualified to represent us,” says Weiner. “They’ve lived in small town America and cities, rural areas and overseas. They understand a slice of America that most people who stay in one place don’t.”
Homefront Rising launched this February with an event in D.C. and recently held its second gathering this June in Tampa. The daylong events are packed with seminars and sessions from elected officials, former service members and other leaders on topics like “Building a Public Image” and “How Extraordinary People Lead.”
Homefront Rising’s two events have already inspired several members, including Katie Lopez, to volunteer with local campaigns such as state-level House and Senate races. “I’ve found that when I approach campaigns, their leadership tells me it’s exactly what they want to hear — military spouses having an opinion and getting involved,” Lopez says. Even though she couldn’t attend, learning about the D.C. event motivated military spouse Susan Reynolds to begin writing a column in her local newspaper, the Fayetteville Observer, on military families. And Angelina Bradley was so inspired by the inaugural Homefront Rising event that she successfully lobbied the D.C. Public Schools’ Chancellor’s Parent Cabinet to add an additional seat for the nearby Bolling Air Force Base, where she is currently stationed, giving military families a voice in education that they previously didn’t have.
When the Shovels and Pitchforks Weren’t Quite Right, These Savvy Female Farmers Designed New Versions
Ladies, does using your shovel leave you with an aching back and quivering biceps?
No, you’re not weak, as some might claim. Instead, the problem is probably that not all garden and farm tools are created equal and just about all of them are created by — and for — men.
If you’re tired of this inequality, you’re not alone.
That’s where Ann Adams and Liz Brensinger come in. Twenty-year veteran farmers, they started their company, Green Heron Tools, back in 2008 after talking to several of their female farming counterparts. Adams says, “At the farmers markets, we got together with other women producers or couples farming, and the topic of tools constantly came up.”
“Some of the tools didn’t work because they were designed for men,” Adams explained to Modern Farmer. “We saw a need for a place where women could go for tools that work for their bodies.”
Using a USDA grant, Adams and Brensinger took this idea to occupational therapy and engineering experts to help design their line of tools (which aren’t pink, by the way), which includes a wide variety of equipment useful for anything from simple gardening to serious farming. Their HERS shovel, for example, has a handle designed for smaller hands, and the tweaked design — including an enlarged blade with tread — helps women take advantage of their lower body muscles.
While not all items sold through Green Heron Tools are designed by the company, all have been tested and recommended by women.
According to Grist, the number of women in agriculture is on the rise, so there’s a growing market for female friendly farm tools. And thanks to some smart thinking, now there are implements just for them.
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These Computer Science Programs Have Just What Women Want
The likes of Marie Curie and Jane Goodall may have set great examples for future female scientists, and it’s time that more women follow in their footsteps — especially when it comes to computer science.
For all the jobs available in the industry and programs to train workers for it, a mere 18 percent of computer science graduates in the United States are women. Can we balance out the gender gap amongst computer scientists? Some of the top institutions of higher learning have already started, according to The New York Times.
At Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, 40 percent of incoming freshmen are women, and almost a third of computer science graduates this year were women at the University of Washington. And that’s not all. Harvey Mudd College in California boasts that 40 percent of their computer science program enrollees are female and this year, more than half of their engineering school graduates were women — a first for the school.
As promising as these numbers are, these three schools represent only a fraction of the computer science programs in the country. The question remains – what’s their secret, and how can it spread to every school?
Unsurprisingly, there is no cure-all, but one general trend is helping out everywhere: With so many professional opportunities for computer science majors, the field in general is attracting more students — regardless of gender.
But what sets Carnegie Mellon, University of Washington, and Harvey Mudd apart is that they are grabbing potential students when they’re younger by promoting computer science at an earlier age. By hosting summer camps and training high school teachers to teach computer science, girls are more likely to gain exposure to the discipline and develop a lifelong interest in it.
Another tactic used by these schools is revamping their marketing and support systems. Harvey Mudd, for example, has featured female students in their brochures to show that it’s normal for girls to study science. “We made it very clear that being a female scientist, that’s normal,” said Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd. Plus, the school now talks about computer science as a way to problem solve (as opposed to it simply being about technical coding), putting an emphasis on its practical applications.
At Carnegie Mellon, the requirement to have prior experience in order to enter the major was eliminated and an official student mentorship program was established. By removing barriers and easing the process of becoming a computer science major, more women are showing interest.
Good news is, this can be easily replicated elsewhere.
As Lenore Blum, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon told The New York Times, “I don’t think we’re doing anything that nobody else could do, but it has to be sustained and institutionalized.”
If other schools picked up some tips from this trend-setting trio, America could be well on its way to unlocking a whole new set of minds for computer science.
MORE: Can Google Crack the Code for More Female Computer Scientists?
Why You’ll Never Use ‘Like a Girl’ As An Insult Ever Again
It’s a seemingly innocent phrase we’ve all heard—or even used—before: “You run like a girl,” “You fight like a girl,” or “You throw like a girl.”
But what does that even mean? In the video below, award-winning filmmaker Lauren Greenfield asked a group of adults to act out those exact commands, and what you see is a whole lot of flailing limbs, bouncing hair and giggling.
If you get an uncomfortable feeling in your stomach after watching it, then that’s the point. Society has ingrained “like a girl” to mean the same as weak, cutesy or clumsy.
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In the next scene, the director asks prepubescent girls to do the same actions, and what you see is athleticism, strength and power. When Greenfield asks a young subject what it means to “run like a girl,” she responds, “It means run as fast as you can.”
The video is part of the #LikeAGirl campaign from Procter & Gamble brand Always that aims to redefine the phrase, similar to Facebook COO and “Lean In” author Sheryl Sandberg’s quest to #BanBossy.
“In my work as a documentarian, I have witnessed the confidence crisis among girls and the negative impact of stereotypes first-hand,” said Greenfield. “When the words ‘like a girl’ are used to mean something bad, it is profoundly disempowering. I am proud to partner with Always to shed light on how this simple phrase can have a significant and long-lasting impact on girls and women. I am excited to be a part of the movement to redefine ‘like a girl’ into a positive affirmation.”
ALSO: Will Banning the Word “Bossy” Lead to More Women in the Boardroom?
We’ve mentioned before, there are subtle verbal cues that girls often hear from a young age that can sound discouraging. As girls get older, their conception of what it means to be a feminine changes.
“Brand-commissioned research found half of girls report a drop in confidence after their first period. We felt strongly we needed to do something about it,” said Procter’s Amanda Hill.
It seriously just takes a little bit of awareness and education to change the status quo. Case in point: When Greenfield asks the adult subjects to try again, their movements remove the gendered stigma of the phrase. As one woman tells the camera, “I am a girl, and that is not something that I should be ashamed of.”
So what does “like a girl” mean to you? You can use the hastag #LikeAGirl to participate in the conversation.
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4 Takeaways from the Summit on Working Families
During the Summit on Working Families on Monday, First Lady Michelle Obama recalled once bringing her youngest daughter to a job interview.
“Who I was at that time was a breastfeeding mother of a four-month-old, I didn’t have a babysitter, so I took Sasha to the interview with me,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Look, this is — this is who I am; I got a husband who’s away; I got two little babies, they are my priority. If you want me to do the job, you gotta pay me to do the job, and you’ve gotta give me flexibility.”
Echoing the struggle many Americans face in striking a balance between work and home life, the First Lady joined her husband President Barack Obama, the White House, the Department of Labor, and the Center for American Progress in hosting a day-long discussion directed at creating better workplace policies for parents.
Business leaders (including CEOs from Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs), lawmakers, working families, and White House officials participated in the all-day summit, as well as Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden.
At Monday afternoon’s remarks, Obama announced a presidential memorandum requiring federal agencies to provide employees more flexibility to take time off to take care of ill family members, to nurse, or to be able to work from home without suffering repercussions. Though the president did not offer up a plan requiring paid leave, he outlined four major themes that could help create a better life for American workers.
Flexible workplaces
The White House argues that more flexible schedules lead to happier employees, boosts productivity, and reduces turnaround rates, as Bloomberg Businessweek points out. As a part of the president’s executive order, federal agencies are required to review their policies on flexibilities as a part of the Office of Personnel Management’s plan to create a Workplace Flexibility Index, which will be updated annually to measure success, according to a White House fact sheet.
Obama also urged lawmakers to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would require employers to accommodate pregnant women with flexibility that would allow them to keep their jobs.
Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks also spoke, illustrating the point that U.S. workplace policies were outdated. Using her character on the AMC series, a single mom and professional, Hendricks said, “In the 21st century the only place for a story like Joan’s should be on TV.”
Paid family leave
Obama also pointed out that the U.S. is the only developed country without mandated paid maternity leave. Women now comprise half the American workforce while men are increasingly playing the role of caregivers more than ever before.
“Many women can’t even get a paid day off to give birth,” Obama said. “That’s a pretty low bar.”
Obama also urged Congress to pass the FAMILY Act, which would annually provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave to qualifying workers for personal illness, to take care of a sick family member, or for the birth or adoption of a child. While current federal policy allows up to three months of unpaid leave for newborns or sick family members for some employees, the law only covers about 60 percent of the American labor force—leaving almost half of all workers without the ability take leave sans a paycheck, the president argues.
Child Care
Child care was also mentioned at the summit. As a part of his initiative for better work policies, Obama will ask Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to set aside $25 million towards childcare for employees who want to attend job-training programs. Today, more than 60 percent of families with children live in a dual-income household, compared to only 40 percent of households with two working parents in 1965, according to U.S Council of Economic Advisors report.
“One study shows that nearly half of all parents, women and men, report that they’ve said no to a job, not because they didn’t want it, but because it would be too hard on their families,” Obama said. “When that many talented, hard-working people are forced to choose between work and family, something’s wrong. Other countries are making it easier for people to have both. We should too, if we want American businesses to compete and win in the global economy.”
Equal pay and raising the minimum wage
The president also emphasized pay equality and increasing the minimum wage as part of setting a 21st century workplace agenda. While females are more likely to work in low-wage and minimum-wage jobs than men, more than 40 percent of mothers are their family’s primary breadwinner yet they earn just 77 cents to every dollar, on average, compared to their male counterparts, according to White House economic advisers.
The President argued that by limiting the female labor force the U.S. is hindering its global edge. The U.S. ranks 17th in female labor participation among the world’s richest countries, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Back in 1990, the U.S. placed sixth.
These four narratives underscored a greater message from the White House: supporting families through better workplace policies is not just a women’s issue.
“At a time when women are nearly half of our workforce,” Obama said, “anything that makes life harder for women, makes life harder for families, and makes life harder for children. There’s no such thing as a women’s issue; this is a family issue. This is an American issue.”