Autoreply: Out of Office, Returning September 2024

Greetings!

After an extended sabbatical from paid work where I honed my skills in both crisis and change management, advanced negotiation (with healthcare providers, Medicaid, and the elderly), and multitasking (sometimes juggling more than just metaphorical plates), I'm gearing up for my next professional chapter starting this September!

To Americans, whose retirement age, as John Oliver quipped, is “No.”, the idea of wide-scale protests over an increase in retirement eligibility from 62 to 64 may seem laughable. But the ongoing protests in France are being fueled in large part by women who already receive, on average, 40% lower pensions than their male counterparts, and stand to be the most impacted by Macron's new law. While the protests may be uniquely French, the underlying problem, sadly, is not. We’ve marched, we’ve voted, we’ve put women in positions of leadership all to no avail. What is it going to take to finally ignite real change for all women?

Last week I reshared a great post by the Female Quotient that asked people to introduce themselves with the wildest feedback they’d ever received. Women overwhelmingly responded and reader, the feedback they've received IS wild. Here I take a moment to break it down and share the patterns I observed in their responses.

Lately I’ve become fascinated by exploring societies (both real and fictional) that are created and led by women. In case you share my curiosity, or find yourself craving a world where, you know, women matter — here are a few of the books I’ve been reading:

For whatever reason, there is a generally held misconception that gamers are all male. Ever contrary, I’m part of the 48% of American women who love to play.

During the pandemic, more than 54M women worldwide left the job force to focus on caregiving responsibilities. Now they may face a new challenge as they start to return: biased artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

We may not talk about Bruno, but we have to talk about the elephant in the room for women in the workplace right now