Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office

From The New York Times authored by Lisa Damour:

“From elementary school through college, girls are more disciplinedabout their schoolwork than boys; they study harder and get better grades. Girls consistently outperform boys academically. And yet, men nonetheless hold a staggering 95 percent of the top positions in the largest public companies.

What if those same habits that propel girls to the top of their class — their hyper-conscientiousness about schoolwork — also hold them back in the work force?

When investigating what deters professional advancement for women, the journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman found that a shortage of competence is less likely to be an obstacle than a shortage of confidence. When it comes to work-related confidence, they found men are far ahead. “Underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in,” they wrote. ‘Overqualified and overprepared, too many women still hold back. Women feel confident only when they are perfect.’”

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Why You Should Embrace Your Impostor Syndrome

From Medium authored by Kristin Wong:

“Once, earlier in my career, I was invited to an elegant media event in Los Angeles. As I walked around the room, full of journalists from some of the biggest publications in the world, I felt so out of place that I hid in the bathroom until my best friend arrived.

I look back on that incident as one of my worst attacks of impostor syndrome, that ubiquitous if not slightly overused term to describe the insecurity, vulnerability, and discomfort that comes with moving forward in your career — like when you finally get your dream job and convince yourself you just got lucky or that you somehow scammed the hiring manager. Or you get a prestigious new title on your business card and laugh because it seems ridiculous to think of yourself that way.

Some of the most prominent people I’ve interviewed or talked to about impostor syndrome — business owners, research scientists, TV writers — said that it only gets worse with success. The more you achieve, the more you feel like a fraud. But as awful as that may seem, impostor syndrome isn’t all bad. The key is to use this so-called syndrome to your advantage.”

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Sexual harassment rife in the legal profession

From CBS News authored by Kate Gibson:

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Cornell Law Review’s New All-Women Board Speaks Volumes, Editor Says

From The New York Law Journal authored by Karen Sloan:

“The Cornell Law Review made a splash this weekend when it elected an all-female executive board—believed to be a first for a flagship journal at a top law school.

Like most other areas of the legal profession, men have long dominated law review participation and the leadership of those journals—which are key stepping-stones to judicial clerkships, prestigious law firms jobs and powerful government positions. A 2010 survey of law review participation found that women made up 44 percent of law review staffers and 33 percent of those in leadership roles.

But times are changing. After dipping below the 50 percent mark in the early half of the decade, female enrollment at American Bar Association-accredited law schools hit 52 percent this fall. And women are especially well represented at the top 20 law schools.”

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Navy To Launch First All-Female Flyover To Honor Pioneer Fighter Pilot Rosemary Mariner

From The Huffington Post authored by Carla Herrira:

“For the first time in military history, the Navy is deploying a ceremonial flyover with only female jet pilots to honor the death of retired Capt. Rosemary Mariner, the Navy’s first woman to fly a tactical fighter jet.

The flyover will take place during Mariner’s funeral service in Maynardville, Tennessee, on Saturday. The aeronautic display is known as a missing man flyover traditionally held in honor of pilots or military personnel.

Mariner, 65, died Jan. 24 after a five-year fight against ovarian cancer.”

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I.V.F. Coverage Is the Benefit Everyone Wants

From The New York Times authored by Vanessa Grigoriadis:

“A little over a year ago, Haley Burns, 29, was trying to get pregnant and was also becoming restless in her job. An information technology specialist for Sharp HealthCare in San Diego, she began searching for another position (while trying to get pregnant), and checking out the benefits of Sharp’s competitors (while also trying to get pregnant).

The last time she had been on the job market, Ms. Burns said, “I wanted the ability to work remotely, and of course I wanted the biggest paycheck I could get.” Now she had a different priority: fertility coverage.

Ms. Burns had prepared well for a baby, even moving to a master-planned community in San Marcos, Calif. “We moved to this neighborhood specifically for the great schools and the extra bedrooms to put the kids in,” she said. “It’s completely suburbia.”

But as time ticked by without a bundle of occasionally shrieking joy tucked into one of those extra bedrooms, she felt discouraged. She cut out caffeine, took long walks with her rescue dog, Blu, and focused on reducing her stress, which was hard to do because the main reason she was stressed was that she couldn’t get pregnant.

The way this story, euphemistically called a “fertility journey,” usually goes is that Ms. Burns would dig into her savings in pursuit of her goal. Conceiving the unnatural way has never been more widespread, with around one in 65 babies in America born after fertility treatments. Michelle Obama recently revealed that neither Sasha nor Malia came into this life after just a romantic date with Barack.

But in 2019, perhaps surprisingly given the general attenuation of benefits like vacations and pensions to the American worker, more employees at the country’s largest and most prominent companies are finding that their companies’ health care plans include fertility coverage.”

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Sheriff’s use of courtroom camera to view juror’s notebook, lawyer’s notes sparks dismissal of criminal case

From The Seattle Times authored by Mike Carter:

“Some defense attorneys in San Juan County worry that Sheriff Ron Krebs has a finger on the scales of justice after learning he used a courtroom security camera to surreptitiously zoom in on defense documents and a juror’s notebook during a criminal trial last week.

The incident has drawn outrage from criminal and civil-rights attorneys and frustration from the county prosecutor, and prompted a rare weekend hearing during which a judge dismissed misdemeanor assault and trespass charges against a Lopez Island man after finding the incident amounted to government misconduct that had violated his right to a fair trial.

“I’m flabbergasted,” said San Juan Public Defender Colleen Kenimond, the attorney whose notes were targeted. ‘This was a court of law. You are supposed to be safe there, and the proceedings are supposed to be fair. Here, the sheriff used the courtroom to violate my client’s rights. Outrageous hardly covers it.’”

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Two-Thirds of Breastfeeding Discrimination Cases Led Nursing Moms to Lose Their Jobs

From Fortune authored by Emma Hinchliffe:

“We’ve long known that when employers fail to provide adequate accommodations for breastfeeding, it creates health risks and headaches for nursing employees. But according to a new, first-of-its kind study, the damages can actually extend to mothers’ livelihoods: A whopping two-thirds of cases alleging breastfeeding discrimination over the past decade led to the employee losing her job, the researchers discovered.

“We’re experts in the field, and we were shocked by what we found,” says Liz Morris, a co-author of the report and leader of the Nursing Mothers Law Project through the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law.”

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‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’ Is Inadvertently About Women’s Invisible Labor

From Vice authored by Nicole Clark:

“…The truth is, while we’ve all been taught to buy things, few of us have really been taught how to own things, to manage them, nor the consequences for accumulating an excess of them, what we would kindly call “clutter.” Well, that’s somewhat simplistic; it’s not as much that we have not been taught how to own things as much as women in particular have been burdened with the expectation of managing the things we own. Things are the dominion of women, and the place where these things are stored are the dominion of women too. Women store things, organize things, clean things, order things, schedule things. We not only do these chores, we keep a mental bank of what, how, and when these chores need to be done.

It’s called the “mental load” or “third shift”—the shift following full-time employment and the actual completion of chores themselves. And, yes, the “mental load” is different from the act of doing the chores themselves. Think of it as a project management task in the household. Mononymous French comic artist Emma explained it succinctly in a viral comic for The Guardian, which begins with an overworked mom, preparing dinner for guests and for her children. When the pot boils over and spills onto the floor, her husband gets mad, telling her ‘you should’ve asked! I would’ve helped!’”

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Minority Women Are More Ambitious. Why Aren’t They Getting Ahead?

From The American Lawyer authored by Vivia Chen:

“How ironic: Despite their low status as minorities among minorities, women of color are resolute in their determination to get ahead. In fact, minority women tend to be much more ambitious than their white sisters and, in some cases, more than white men.

That ambition seems counterintuitive, considering how few minority women make it to equity partnership in Big Law (2.81 percent) or the C-suite of major corporations (3.9 percent). Yet that’s the revelation in the latest McKinsey & Co. and LeanIn.Org study on women in the workplace.”

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