For those of you who have developed a successful local program and are now looking to take it global, here's a webinar you won't want to miss.  Catalyst has put together a panel of experts to help you in tailoring a women's initiative to fit within a local cultural context, which will be critical to the success of your new market. This webinar will touch on how to understand how the people, businesses, and cultures operating in the new geography, and how they differ from the “home” region. The session will also address important questions such as:  Read More

“The ceiling is about time. We call it the hour-glass ceiling. It's not about merit in that sense, it's whether you can put that time in and whether society allows you to do that or not. It is a profoundly more powerful barrier for a mother compared to a father.” - Dr Lyndall Strazdins, Australian National University Read More

In the US, dads are now approximately a quarter of the nations primary care givers to America’s 11.2 million preschoolers, while mum works. Almost 158,000 married fathers with kids under 15 left the labor force for at least a year to look after their kids.  Read More

One definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result.  If we want more women in senior leadership positions we need to take a different approach. The current one isn’t working.  We’ve repeatedly called on Board Directors and C-suite executives to act on the strong business case for appointing more female colleagues, with minimal impact.  The 2009 Catalyst Census of Fortune 500 Women Board Directors revealed that less than one fifth of companies have three or more women on their boards, and more than 40 percent have no women directors whatsoever. Read More

Following on from my earlier post introducing Ghulam Fatima and the Plan GirlsFund, I received a link to this clip from Danielle (yes Danielle - you're right - I love it!).  Every one of you should take a look... it is definitely food for thought. And I dare you to watch this clip and not be spurred into action...  Read More

Last Friday I attended the AIM Great Debate in Sydney, which sphinxx was proud to sponsor.  The topic of the debate was “Nice Girls Finish Second” and involved a swag of celeb speakers including Mia Freedman, Peter FitzSimons and Wendy Machin arguing in the affirmative and Catherine Fox, Lisa Wilkinson and Dr Cathy Foley arguing against.  I laughed so hard at the tit for tats from side to side, and really it was refreshing to see everyone having some fun with what is usually a pretty hard slog: trying to decipher why so few women make it to the top in business. Read More

The woeful state of Australia’s female representation at executive and board level and lack of real action to improve this issue creates a lot of conversation and study about what programs are working overseas. Read More

Elizabeth Broderick, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner has released a report that outlines the inquiries, investments and initiatives to rectify a wide range gendered imbalances Australian face. The issues fall into five priority areas: balancing paid work and family/caring responsibilities, ensuring women’s lifetime economic security, promoting women in leadership, preventing violence against women and sexual harassment and strengthening national gender equality laws, agencies and monitoring.  I had a closer look at the Blue Print report and it has big things in store for working women. Read More

The pay gap between men and women workers isn’t getting better, but women are getting more active and better coordinated to tackle this issue head on. Pay disparity is one of the issues, like many in employing women that has many causes but one of them is definitely the lack of scrutiny applied to the issue.  If you’re in Sydney, and want to see women paid equally to men, meet stacks of people and get 18% off, you should come along to “Unhappy hour” at the Mean Fiddler hotel at Rouse Hill.
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"Until the Government looks like the society it seeks to govern there will be an imbalance in the decision making process."  Why has the number of female political leaders dropped? Partly because 9 out of 20 of the sitting members who did not seek re election were women, but also because women make up less then 2% of the Liberal National Party of Queensland, which reaped the rewards of the Labor backswing. Read More