What A Badass Olympic Skier Can Teach Us About Work-Life Balance

From Five Thirty Eight authored by Christie Aschwanden:

“Team USA has sent 20 fathers to Pyeongchang, but only one mother: Kikkan Randall. A three-time winner of cross-country skiing’s World Cup sprint title, Randall was part of a baby boom that happened after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, when four of the sport’s top athletes took time off from racing to give birth.1

These women didn’t just return to work — they came back to the highest level of a demanding sport, and all four are expected to compete in Pyeongchang. But Randall is doing so without the same safety net that her European colleagues have. And that’s left her facing the same challenge that many other American women experience: how to balance a grueling career with the demands of new motherhood. A job as arduous as being a professional athlete (or, say, director of policy planning at the State Department) has little room for compromise or scaling back, and that means that much of the parenting must fall to a spouse or outside help.

The 2018 Games will be the fifth Olympic appearance for Randall, a 35-year-old cross-country skier from Alaska.2 In 2008, Randall, nicknamed Kikkanimal, made history by becoming the first American woman to win a World Cup in cross-country skiing. And in Pyeongchang, she has a legitimate shot at a medal.”

 

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Apple Is Partnering With Malala’s Non-Profit to Educate More Than 100,000 Girls

From TIME authored by Katie Reilly:

“Apple is partnering with Malala Fund to educate more than 100,000 girls around the world, the company announced Monday.

Malala Fund — the nonprofit founded by education activist and Nobel Peace Prizewinner Malala Yousafzai — aims to ensure that girls around the world have access to 12 years of education. Yousafzai, now a student at Oxford University, was shot by the Taliban for going to school in Pakistan when she was 15.

Apple has not specified how much money the company will invest, but said the new partnership will expand Malala Fund’s work to India and Latin America. Apple plans to contribute money and technology, assisting with curriculum and policy research.”

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How To Block Out Negativity During Bar Prep

From Above the Law authored by Kerriann Stout:

“When it comes to bar prep concerns, everyone worries about finding time to learn all the law. For once, I will skip the opportunity to lecture you on the importance of practice questions. Just kidding. Practice questions are the single most important thing you can do to pass the bar exam. However, this article isn’t about building the hard skills you need to pass the bar exam. Rather, this article is about how to protect your mental clarity and brain space so that you have the time, attention, and energy necessary to prepare for the bar exam. Put these tips into effect ASAP to preserve your precious mental resources and revisit them if you feel yourself getting drained.”

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She’s Not Laughing’: In Davos, Taking on Sexual Harassment

From The New York Times authored by Tiffany Hsu:

“Looking back on nearly three decades in the tech sector, Peggy Johnson recalled how she and other women used to steer clear of leering colleagues by taking the long way to their desks, and how they felt pressured to laugh at inappropriate jokes in the office.

But during a panel discussion on sexual harassment and the role of gender in workplace power, held on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Ms. Johnson, an executive vice president at Microsoft, recounted with emotion how her daughter, who recently entered the tech industry, has a different attitude.

“She’s not laughing,” Ms. Johnson said.”

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Sen. Tammy Duckworth is pregnant; would be first senator to give birth in office

From CNN authored by Daniella Diaz:

“Sen. Tammy Duckworth will make history when she becomes the first sitting senator in history to give birth later this year, her office said Tuesday.

The Illinois Democrat announced she is expecting her second child in the spring.
“Bryan and I are thrilled that our family is getting a little bit bigger, and Abigail is ecstatic to welcome her baby sister home this spring,” she said in a statement. “As tough as juggling the demands of motherhood and being a Senator can be, I’m hardly alone or unique as a working parent, and Abigail has only made me more committed to doing my job and standing up for hardworking families everywhere.”
She is one of only 10 women who have given birth while serving in Congress. Her office told CNN she is due in late April.”

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Traveling lawyers get new protections in device searches at border

From ABA Journal authored by Lee Rawles:

“Hundreds of American lawyers will be traveling to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the upcoming ABA Midyear Meeting. As they pass through U.S. and Canadian customs, they and their electronic devices can be searched.

But through the efforts of the ABA, the Department of Homeland Security has recently clarified its policies on how it intends to protect privileged information during its searches.

The ABA contacted Homeland Security in May with its concerns about the potential for violations of attorney-client privilege at the nation’s borders in a letter written by then-ABA President Linda Klein.

Klein said the ABA was concerned about the breadth of the authority given to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to search lawyers’ electronic devices “without any showing of reasonable suspicion.” She asked that DHS clarify the directive on electronic device search and seizure, originally written in 2009, to protect attorneys and their clients.”

 

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Fired for being pregnant: Another kind of discrimination women face at work

From CNN authored by Elissa Strauss:

“In June, Whitney Tomlinson felt nauseated at work. She was pregnant at the time and was experiencing the condition commonly, and misleadingly, known as morning sickness. Hormone-induced nausea doesn’t know what time of day it is.

Tomlinson, a 30-year-old single mother and packer at a Walmart Distribution Center in Atlanta, told her supervisor that she wasn’t feeling well. In response, he explained that in order for him to give her a break, she would need a note from her doctor. So off to her doctor she went.
The doctor didn’t identify any worrisome pregnancy complications but did suggest that Tomlinson avoid heavy lifting while at work and wrote a note suggesting as much. Tomlinson didn’t think this would be much of a problem, as she often got help with heavy lifting, including before becoming pregnant.
Upon her return to work that afternoon, Tomlinson handed her supervisor the note. He read it and then told her to take it to human resources. She would be getting a break, yes, but it wasn’t the one she had hoped for. It also wasn’t legal, according to a new complaint filed on Tomlinson’s behalf with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”

 

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Moms are punished in the workplace, even when we own the business

From The Washington Post authored by Amy Nelson:

“It is 11 p.m. My phone battery is dying. I am sitting at Gate A10 at San Francisco International Airport holding my 9-week-old baby, surrounded by a laptop and a breast pump. A voice overhead announces that my flight will take off two hours and 10 minutes late. I know immediately how I will use the time. I recently started a company that provides shared workspaces and events targeted to women, and the work is endless; eight months after launch, I have 15 employees and an entire business to grow and manage. But there is also the issue of the baby in my lap. I compromise and dictate a to-do list into my phone.

The average age of a tech entrepreneur at their company’s founding is 39. This is an inconvenient age for a family’s primary caretaker, particularly for a caretaker also tasked with gestation, birth and nursing. Take me, for example: I had three daughters in the span of three years and 12 days. But what I found even more challenging than starting a company while surviving a toddler’s sleep regression and my first-trimester morning sickness was my attempt to somehow “have it all” in today’s outdated, inflexible corporate America.”

 

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What the Data on Women Laterals Can Teach About Retention

From TheAmerican Lawyer authored by Hugh A. Simmons and Paola Cecchi-Dimegilo:

“It’s perplexing. Women comprise 45 percent of Big Law associates but only 22 percent of partners. Why are they leaving in such numbers? Are they underperforming and thus being outplaced? Are they ineffective at the profession’s upper echelons? A comparison of how female and male partners move laterally answers these questions with a resounding “No!” The data show women partners are less likely to depart involuntarily, are more successful when they move to higher profitability firms and are more effective as senior partners.

What then gives rise to the dearth of women partners? Our review of the 2,353 partners who moved between the 100 most-profitable firms within the Am Law 200 in 2010 through 2012 provides some insight. These data show that women are more likely to move earlier in their partner careers and to go to lower-profitability firms when they do so. We know from the psychology literature that women exhibit higher risk aversion than men and that this difference is amplified under stress. This yields a hypothesis, consistent with the data, that younger women partners, under the twin stresses of establishing a thriving practice and, in many cases, playing the socio-normative greater role in child rearing, perceive the risks of failing to progress professionally at their current firms as higher than do their brethren. In consequence, they are choosing what they perceive as lower-risk career paths. The implication for firm leaders is that there’s enormous partner talent to be harnessed by getting past antiquated ideas that women partners can’t perform or don’t want to have high-powered careers and instead focusing on how to mitigate the perceived risk of not progressing professionally early in their partner careers.”

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Shine Theory: Why Powerful Women Make the Greatest Friends

From The Cut authored by Ann Friedman:

“Kelly Rowland has done okay for herself since her days with Destiny’s Child. More than okay, really. She’s had a handful of solo hits, is embarking on a short tour this summer, and has just signed on to be a judge on The X Factor. But all of this only looks good until you compare Rowland to her former bandmate Beyoncé — which, apparently, Rowland has been doing for quite awhile. Rowland’s new single, “Dirty Laundry,” is about how she was resentful of Beyoncé’s success in the wake of Destiny’s Child. “When my sister was onstage killin’ it like a motherfucker,” Rowland sings, “I was enraged, feelin’ it like a motherfucker.” She recently had an emotional breakdownonstage in D.C. when she performed the song.

Few women are unlucky enough to have their successes measured against Beyoncé’s. But that feeling of resentment rather than joy at the personal and professional achievements of another woman is something most of us can relate to.”

 

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