Posted by joyinhome on December 28, 2010
As we say goodbye to 2010, YWM wants to share your fav misbehavin’ moments.
10. Remembering a Woman Who Made History
9. Surviving Divorce by Becoming Your Own Best Friend
7. Cool Ways to Make Friends in Your New City
6. The Woman Protecting the Man of Steel
5. Womanism + Feminism= The Color Purple
3. Debunking the So-Called “Louisiana Purchase”
2. “Men, Babies, It Doesn’t Matter: We’re Soulmates”
Drum roll please…
Posted in Career Advancement, Divorce, Feminism, Friendship, Politics, Rant, Uncategorized, Woman Misbehavin', Worklife Balance | Leave a Comment »
Posted by gansie on November 4, 2010
Women try to balance a myriad of responsibilities. This new era of a 24/7 world makes it hard to physically, mentally and emotionally shut off. Burnout can be a serious condition that must be confronted and treated. Here are some ways to see if you are under too much stress.
Excerpt:
High-Octane Women: How Superachievers Can Avoid Burnout
by Dr. Sherrie Bourg Carter
The first test is to leave work on a Friday and commit to treating yourself to a relaxing, stress-free weekend (or to any two consecutive days off). Although relaxing can take on many forms, for the purposes of this exercise (and for what I suspect your level of exhaustion is if you’ve decided to do this exercise), let’s keep to a traditional relaxing, stress-free weekend. You cannot bring any work home. You can’t take any work-related calls or respond to any work-related emails or texts or any other new methods of communication the techies may develop. If your family is a source of stress, try to get away from them for the weekend. Basically, your “job” is to remove as many sources of stress from your life as possible and infuse as many stress-reducing elements (mostly in the form of rest) into your life for two and a half days.
Try to sleep in both days. Eat right. Occupy your time with relaxing activities that you rarely allow yourself to enjoy. If you like to read, read. If you like to cook, cook. If you like to write, write. If you don’t like to do anything, don’t do anything. Just don’t expose yourself to any stress for two and a half days.
If you awaken on Monday morning feeling tired and dreading your day, you are very likely suffering from burnout. If you want to determine the severity of your burnout, you can take a second test. But first, take a deep breath and remember to exhale, because it’s going to involve your taking some of that vacation time you’ve probably resisted using all these years.
So here’s the test. Take two weeks off from work to see if you can recover any of your strength and vitality. The same rules apply as for the first test. Remove stressors. Add stress reducers. Have fun. The whole nine yards for the entire two weeks. Because it’s two weeks, and I don’t want you pulling your hair out over a two-week period, you don’t have to stick with the traditional stress relievers. You can try a few of the high-octane stress relievers described in chapter 8. But don’t do anything too physically exhausting. Try to get at least eight hours of sleep each night and to eat at least three meals a day, preferably healthy ones.
After two weeks, if you don’t feel like you’ve recovered very much, your problems are very likely severe and you should consider making some significant changes in your lifestyle in order to return to a normal level of functioning.
REDISCOVERY
If the tests didn’t turn out the way you were hoping, it’s normal to feel upset. No one likes to hear that she’s burned out. But the good news is that burnout isn’t a terminal illness. There are things you can do to make changes, things that we’ll go over in the next section. The important thing to keep in mind is that you are still the same person you were when you entered the race, maybe a little wiser to the not-always-so-pleasant ways of the world, maybe a little older. But at your core, you are the same. Your drive, your enthusiasm, your passion, and your energy may have gotten buried under the weight of the stress you’ve been carrying around, but those qualities and all the other good ones are still inside you. You just need to find ways to reach inside and find the sparks that first ignited your engine so that you can climb back into the driver’s seat and reenter the race.
From High-Octane Women: How Superachievers Can Avoid Burnout (Prometheus Books, 2010). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Posted in Worklife Balance | Tagged: Dr. Sherrie Bourg Carter, From High-Octane Women: How Superachievers Can Avoid Burnout, stress | Leave a Comment »
Posted by joyinhome on October 20, 2010
Six am…I have no in-person meetings today so I can throw on sweats. 
Mornings in my house are never routine. Luckily, I don’t have a set time to begin my work day because I would have to wake at least an hour earlier, to handle the surprises.
Lunch was packed the night before, thank God. I have to get my toddler dressed and fight with him to brush his teeth. There is no time to fix breakfast for his lunchbox. Factor in 11 minutes to go to McDonalds’ drive-thru to get some “pon-cakes.”
My 13 year-old knows that she has PE twice a week; the days don’t change, yet we are waiting for the dryer to buzz producing a clean PE uniform before we leave. I also need her to be sure she has her student ID so she doesn’t accumulate yet ANOTHER detention. All this, however, every hair is in place on her head.
Attention, Little Man: There will never be fruit snacks for breakfast! He is unhappy and not cooperating to get out of the house.
I just remember, the tank is on E. I have to stop to get gas…
Posted in Families, girls, Rant, Worklife Balance | Leave a Comment »
Posted by gansie on October 4, 2010
The workplace flexibility movement has two things going for it: one, it’s not going away, and two, just like the word itself, it can adapt and change to fit any organizational culture.
Business and Professional Women’s Foundation is a non-profit research and education organization that supports workforce development programs and workplace policies that recognize the diverse needs of working women, communities and businesses. That is not only how we fulfill our mission, but also how we conduct our operations internally. Through our own research, BPW Foundation recognized the empowering, productive and profitable qualities residing in a flexible, virtual office environment.
In May 2010, BPW Foundation went virtual. But not only did we leave our brick and mortar office behind, we also started operating under ROWE–Results Only Work Environment–originally created by Best Buy. This approach rebuffs rewarding presence over performance. Under ROWE, productivity is no longer measured by hours worked, but by deliverables and outputs. National Work & Family Month is a perfect time to reevaluate what business operations can be modified so employers can profit and employees can thrive.
If an employee can get her work done from 9am-1pm, why should she sit at her desk for the rest of the day? And in fact, why should she even have to be at her desk? If the focus is on results, then why can’t she work when, where and how she works best? Can’t she check her iPhone from a football game, the Jersey Shore or a coffee shop?
Previously on Huffington Post
Posted in Families, Successful Workplaces, Virtual Office, Worklife Balance | Tagged: Business and Professional Women's Foundation, Deborah L. Frett, Huffington Post, Jersey Shore, National Work & Family Month, ROWE | 1 Comment »
Posted by sherrysaunders on August 20, 2010
A break through for GOP: more women running [Time]
19th Amendment: how far have women come since 1920? [Christian Science Monitor]
As workers choose to stay on the job longer who benefits, who pays? [Denver Post]
Caregivers fight employers on discrimination [HBR]
Norfolk Navy base gets first female commander [Hampton Roads]
Most highly paid women athletes [Forbes]
Kathleen Rogers, Earth Day Network President: women and climate change [Your Daily Journal]
Without the vote of women, these laws might not exist [LubbockOnline]
US Chamber says women to blame for pay gap. We need to choose right job and right partner [Think Progress]
New white collar job juggle [Wall Street Journal]
Examining work schedules, gender and marital quality [ScienceBlog]
Watching the gender wage gap [HBR]
What women want is important [Cascade Business News]
The female factor: Counting the cost of machismo [New York Times]
Yes you can get fired after taking maternity leave [Slate.Com]
Newsweek ranking the countries of the world [Newsweek]
Working mothers, forget time off [Salon]
Federal job funding opens doors for single mothers [Womens E-News]
Editorial: Maternity leave ruling shows how little childrearing matters to society [Boston Globe]
For every woman challenger running for a seat in the WI Legislature, six men are running [jsonline]
Why shouldn’t women shape the political agenda? Interview with new executive director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy, at Chatham University [Post Gazette]
Social media a new tool for work life balance? [AFL-CIO Blog]
Harris Poll: Most Americans agree that US has long way to go to achieve gender equality [KXVO]
Unmarried women hurt more by recession – make up 63 percent of unemployed women [Infozine]
Working women redefine success [MSNBC]
Why girly jobs don’t pay well [New York Times]
Posted in Economy, Environment, Families, Feminism, Link Love, mature workers, Pay Equity, sports, Uncategorized, Worklife Balance | Tagged: Career Advancement, Economy, environment, equal pay day, equality, News, Pay Equity, Successful Workplaces, women, work-life balance | Leave a Comment »
Posted by egehl on August 16, 2010
I don’t have kids and love my career, but that doesn’t prevent me from thinking about the future and how it would be nice someday to take time off to focus on a family. However already I have doubts about whether I would ever make that decision for fear of inevitable career and salary reprecussions.
No matter how much you love your job and career the grind and intensity of it can get wearing, and what’s important gets clearer as you get older. It’s the relationships you create and build, both family and friendships, over a lifetime that matter and to get the most out of them you need the space to devote adequate time and energy. 
I think instinctively most people know this yet somehow our society never changes when it comes to cultivating work-life balance opportunities, and having an open and supportive mind to those who have decided to take time away to raise children or tend to family needs.
A number of my female friends who are all working mothers have said they are scared to leave the workplace to stay at home for fear they could never find another job, or one that compliments their abilities, background and worth. If they felt safer and more assured to leave the workplace, they would take the leap because they want to spend more time with their young children.
A recent New York Times article entitled “A Labor Market Punishing to Mothers” builds on this notion by focusing on the ways the labor market pushes mothers out of good jobs. The author argues that the labor market is structured in ways that artificially penalizes mothers, and goes on to say that our economy extracts a terribly steep price for any time away from work in both pay and promotions. If you leave the workforce, people often cannot just pick up where they have left off. Entire career paths are closed off and the hit to earnings is permanent.
Therefore it isn’t just about whether worklife flexibility choices exist out there, but the choices women can’t make because they know how unsupportive our workforce, especially during this economy, will react. As the article argues, “the main barrier is the harsh price most workers pay for pursuing anything other than the old-fashioned career path.”
A 2004 study by Stephen Rose and Heidi Hartman with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that American women who took one year off lost 20% of their lifetime earnings, while women who took off two to three years lost 30%. These plummets in women’s earnings seem completely out of proportion to any subjective deterioration in experience based on time away from work.
Many women instinctively know the penalties they will face if they decide to leave their jobs for a career break, part-time work or to raise children. A flexibility stigma persists in our culture even though companies and workplaces talk about supporting it. The worklife dialogue and policy conversation needs to go beyond simply how to create more flexibility options in the workplace, but also ways to change our attitudes about taking advantage of them. Only then can a true cultural shift take place.
Otherwise it will not matter how many flexibility options and benefits exist if no one feels comfortable to take advantage of them.
The bottom line is that the flexibility stigma impacts everyone, not just women, because flexibility is important for the family as a whole. And nowadays with more men leaving their jobs either for a short-term break or to stay at home to oversee the household while their wives work, this stigma isn’t just a “woman’s issue”. With the burgeoning trend of “house husbands”, men need to equally care about how the labor market reacts to people who’ve chosen to take time off to care for their family.
The stubborn views regarding anything not full-time work related are outdated, and wrongfully judgmental about a person’s potential worth to an employer. Thankfully there are groups out there working to bust through this stigma by showcasing the value of women who’ve been out of the workplace. One in particular, Momentum, is educating employers about the advantages of hiring mothers and helping those mothers find part-time work that best suits their talents, skills and schedule.
With groups like Momentum and a concerted effort by women, men and policymakers, hopefully barriers and attitudes will continue to break down and finally shift.
Posted in Career Advancement, Economy, Families, Successful Workplaces, Workforce Development/HR, Worklife Balance | Tagged: worklife balance | Leave a Comment »
Posted by sherrysaunders on August 13, 2010
Women’s sports need more TV attention [Washington Post]
Annie Oakley would be 150 [Smithsonian]
Cathy Guisewite to end working woman “Cathy” comic strip [AllVoices]
Social media a new tool for work life balance? [AFL-CIO]
Cracking the business casual code [Forbes]
Maternity leave quandary [Boston.Com]
The flexibility stigma [Huffington Post]
Auto IRAs can shore up retirement security [Washington Times]
MA court says only 8 weeks of maternity leave [Boston Herald]
Corporate Voices for Working Families and Working Mother Media announce best of Congress 2010 [Corporate Voices]
Do kids kill a career? [Huffington Post]
Work Life policy debate [WorkLifeNation]
Some law firms accommodating work life balance [USA Today]
How women can get ahead [CIO]
Gender discrimination in the workplace hurts [Live Science]
Feminists at fault? Thoughtful essay [Economix NYTimes]
First woman to head major US intelligence organization [Huffington Post]]
America’s parent trap [Washington Post]
Separate but equal schools based on gender? [Washington Post]
Social Security: don’t fear the boomers [OurFuture]
Women are paid less but more likely to be rehired first [Courier Post]
Are there jobs women are too attractive for? [Science Daily]
How will the recession impact women [OCRegister]
Unmarried women, economic well being and the great depression [Amercian Progress]
Posted in Career Advancement, Economy, Education, Families, Feminism, Financial Security, Link Love, Pay Equity, sports, Worklife Balance | Tagged: Career Advancement, equality, family, Successful Workplaces, women, work-life balance | Leave a Comment »
Posted by egehl on August 12, 2010
Times certainly are changing. While stay-at-home wives have historically played the main role as caregivers for their husbands and families, a societal reverse is happening as more professional women are depending on their “house husbands” to run the household.
It’s increasingly evident that more husbands are staying at home to take care of their children and do the everyday chores while their wives or partners are at work. A number of factors can explain this growing societal shift and it’s working well for many families, even if it still raises eyebrows and bucks “the norm”.
In the recent recession three men lost their jobs for every one woman that did, and as a result women now make up the majority of the workforce. Four in 10 mothers are now their households’ primary breadwinners, and an estimated 143,000 unemployed fathers of children under 15 are caring for the kids full-time while their wives work. As a result of these shifting factors families have had to rearrange their lifestyles and schedules to accommodate the spouse who has a job, or a better paying one.
For a driven, career-oriented woman having her partner stay at home to take charge of the children and household can not only be a godsend, but also make her feel quite empowered. Not only does she become the breadwinner with a great job, but she’s also got this highly evolved man in her life—a feminist, father, and husband who dismisses historic gender roles and stereotypes.
As more women are needed to enter into the workforce and climb the professional ladder, the qualities women value in a partner will shift to meet these evolving demands. And for a working wife and mother, a husband who’s willing to take up the lion’s share at home is an appreciated lifestyle option.
However while this shift may be welcomed by women, it still can be a tough transition for men to go through. As men become better-rounded at home with daily chores, cooking and taking care of the children it does change the dynamics of relationships.
Despite the increase of enlightened viewpoints and congratulatory comments from hip, modernized peers, the stay-at-home dad can live a life filled with big existential questions about his family role and face tiny daily indignities like shrugging off incredulous looks at dinner parties.
Many men exhibit doubts about the new situation they find themselves in however often it happens for pragmatic reasons. Men may grow to hate their job, get laid off or make less money while their wives not only love their positions, are making more money, have better benefits or overall have a more stable career. While the decision may be easy and clear on which parent should take on which role, the adjustment can be hard.
Experts agree that when switching roles, as with any relationship upheaval, communication is paramount. Couples should evaluate things as they progress and monitor how the role reversal is unfolding. Most couples will adapt and many men feel great rewards for playing such a large role in their children’s lives.
There’s no doubt the 21st century will continue to bring more shifts and surprises to the modern family and more adjustments will need to be made. However that’s not a bad thing, especially for working women who love their careers and are open to a role reversal in their relationship. As long as lines of communication stay open and both parents feel empowered this new stay-at-home dad set up can work well for everyone.
Posted in Career Advancement, Families, Successful Workplaces, Worklife Balance | Tagged: modern family, stay-at-home dad | 2 Comments »
Posted by joyinhome on August 10, 2010
Since I work for an organization that advocates for w/l balance, you’d think I’d be better at it.
We went virtual and transitioned to ROWE and I’m still not flexin as Stef would say…I’m workin’ on it…
Posted in Families, Mental health, Successful Workplaces, Worklife Balance | 2 Comments »
Posted by sherrysaunders on August 6, 2010
5 ways to improve gender diversity at your company [The Glass Hammer]
Gender-bais impacts women physicists [Physorg.com]
Why working mothers fall behind [The Atlantic]
Do working mothers still need to justify themselves? [Doublex.com]
Hard won workplace advice for my daughter – dealing with continued inequality [Forbes]
Justice Ginsburg Considers Kagan’s Likely Confirmation ‘Exhilarating’ [Huffington Post]
Women and the uneasy embrace of power [Harvard Business Review]
Economic odds stacked against mothers [msnbc]
Commonwealth Fund Study: 30 million women could benefit from health care reform. [Commonwealthfund]
Different benefits keep men and women on the job [Money]
How employers can start loving maternity leave [Worklifefit]
First women takes command of carrier strike group [WTKR]
California court says affirmative action ban is not unconstitutional [Jewish World Review]
How to break the glass ceiling [More]
Screw work life balance, we need a work life policy [Huffington Post]
Women out vote men but men still in charge [ Free Republic]
2010 Project hopes to recruit new generation of female candidates [Washington Post]
Health jobs reliance on women calls for more flexibility [Ithaca Education]
British Study: Working mother’s children don’t suffer [Guardian]
Housewives of DC gives women a black eye [Washington Post]
Posted in Career Advancement, Families, Feminism, Link Love, Worklife Balance | Tagged: Diversity, equality, Pay Equity, women, work-life balance | Leave a Comment »
