Closing the Gender Gap

The media frenzy over the naming of YGL Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo drew attention to the challenges women leaders face, as personal decisions become fodder for other people’s agendas. It also set the stage for the second Silicon Valley Summit July 24-27, in which I participated with about 100 other World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders.

Discussions on two panel sessions and throughout the gathering took up the challenge of closing the gender gap –a particularly salient issue in the tech industry. Not just a women’s issue, the gender gap affects business competitiveness and the health and success of every single man, woman, and child everywhere in the world.

Read more on the World Economic Forum blog

Jezebel.com -citizenship and women’s rights

Latoya Peterson interviewed me on Jezebel.com yesterday. Here’s the link:

Does The Struggle For Women’s Rights Extend To Citizenship?

Interview excerpt: “The largest issues facing women around the world are in many ways the same as the ones facing men: basic questions of human security and having a voice in solving problems that affect you. Literacy, education, jobs, and health are all part of this, of course, but they all come down to the question of whether women have the rights to pursue those things, and a way to influence the governments, organizations, companies, and people who affect whether and how women get what we need. In so many parts of the world —including in wealthy countries like the United States— women have a harder time meeting some of those needs than men do, but it’s important not to see this as a women-versus-men issue. The places where women have the least rights also tend to be the places where men have the least rights. If we’re all going to move forward together, we need to be sure that men also support the idea that improving women’s rights leaves men better off too. It’s “win-win” not “zero-sum.” I just saw this great new Turkish movie, “Bliss,” about a man charged with carrying out an honor killing of his cousin. During the course of the movie, he comes to the realization that the horrible infractions of her rights don’t leave either one of them better off.”

I met Latoya in the 2008 Progressive Women’s Voices program at the Women’s Media Center. She’s smart, young, and going places, and writes about the intersection between race and pop culture. Check out her website, www.racialicious.com.