On air: Do women need to better promote themselves in the workplace?

CLAY SHIRKY IS OUR GUEST TODAY AND HE’S WRITTEN THIS POST FOR YOU TO RESPOND TO…

I wrote “A Rant About Women” for several reasons, but mostly because I see my great female students go out into the world and under-promote themselves. For me, the key idea in that essay is that women should get better at “behaving like arrogant, self-aggrandizing jerks”, as I put it then.

Clay Shirky’s ‘Rant About Women’

I saw a blogger responding to a Clay Shirky post the other day. Nothing unusual in that, but the more I looked, the most the particular issue he’d raised had struck a nerve. I’ve been burned so many times paraphrasing people that I’ll not even try this time, but he addresses the reasons why women don’t make the same progress as men in the work place. He’ll be on Tuesday’s show – and you can read his post in full here.

On air: Do women need extra help to succeed?

A law that has been reintroduced in India which would reserve a third of all seats in the national parliament and state legislatures for women. Its progress is being delayed by protests today in the upper house. It again raises the issue of whether women require this kind of assistance to achieve the same success and power as men. (And an interesting bit of context to this story is that it was original proposed back in 1996 and 14 years in clearly some Indians still feel it’s very necessary.)

On air: Should women serve on the front line?

When it comes to women serving on the front-lines of conflicts, rules vary. In Israel, women are conscripted and serve along side men in combat roles.

In the Canadian armed forces women, too, serve on the front-lines and have risen the ranks to become officers in combat units.

Do you want fantasy or reality in women’s magazines?

 

Are “ordinary” women now fashionable?

Karl Lagerfeld, the German fashion designer has added his views on whether ordinary women should appear in magazines. He says that fashion is about dreams and illusions, and nobody wants to look at chubby women. Here’s the previous post we wrote last week:

Is the Niqab un-Islamic?

Grand Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi the dean of Al-Azhar University and one of the highest Islamic authorities in Egypt and the Muslim world says so. He told a young female student to take the Niqab off when he was on a visit to one of the schools affiliated to Al Azhar (one of the most prestigious Islamic institutions)

What’s happening to women’s happiness?

Well, according to Marcus Buckingham, women are just getting more and more miserable. His new book suggests that women have been on a downward trend since the 1970s. Men on the other hand are getting happier. The book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, lays out the argument that that women just can’t handle choice. Have a read of  Ruth Sutherland’s take on this, he doesn’t seem to have won many fans. Here’s Bonnie Fuller.  Are women too afraid to admit that life was simpler when they didn’t have as much choice?

On air: Is sexism holding Africa back?

On Tuesday’s show we discussed Burma and Hillary Clinton. Michael was our last caller. He said: ‘This is typical of men in the developing world. Their attitude towards women is holding their countries back?’ Then George emailed who describes himself as an African living in Portland, Oregon. ‘The question was not only wrong, it shows the mindset of most men in African. We Africans are very chauvinistic. Next to the Middle East, African males shows the least respect to there women and usually don’t take women seriously. I’m glad Hilary put this person in his place.’

The power of women protesters

As riot and paramilitary police flood the city of Urumqi in China’s Xinjiang region, Uighur women took to the streets in to protest the imprisonment of their husbands and loved ones.