Good morning and happy 2015, Broadsheet readers. Do you have a friend with a New Year’s resolution to find a great job, be more engaged in the office or tackle that next big life challenge? Forward this email, or send them here to share with them daily news, inspiration and advice from female leaders and executives. Have a great Monday!
EVERYONE'S TALKING
• Harvard's violation. Despite faculty protests, Harvard Law School will be forced to implement a new sexual harassment policy. The move follows a U.S. Department of Education finding that Harvard Law administrators violated Title IX by failing to respond appropriately to two student complaints. Businessweek
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
• Gender doesn't matter. On Sunday's Meet The Press, D.C. Chief of Police Cathy Lanier said she doesn't think she is treated differently by colleagues because of her gender. "Cops really don't care if you're male or female or black or white and nor does the community," she said. NBC
• Floppy technology. U.S. chief technology officer Megan Smith is updating the Obama Administration's tech system, which is still run on floppy disks and outdated computers. Fun fact: Within President Obama's Office of Science and Technology Policy, four out of the five of the divisions are headed by women. NYTimes
• Microsoft comes clean...quietly. The tech company came forward before the holidays with its employee diversity data. More than 75% of its overall staff is male and over 87% of executives, senior officials and managers are men as well. Puget Sound Business Journal
• Where's Janet Yellen? The Economist did not include the Federal Reserve head in its annual list of the 25 most influential economists. In fact, not a single woman made the cut. "Hopefully, next year influence will be measured in terms of actual impact that people have on the world, a measure that would certainly include Janet Yellen," writes Amanda Marcotte of Slate. Slate
• No change soon. Despite a shortage of women in leadership positions in the private equity industry, executives can't bring themselves to admit the risk of having such a homogenous pool of leaders, writes Fortune's Dan Primack. Fortune
• Top power players. Fortune's Pattie Sellers rounded up the top business moves made by women last year. Her list includes Mary Barra defending GM, Meg Whitman splitting up HP and 13-year-old Little Leaguer Mo'ne Davis pitching a shutout game. Click over to see the power play that made No. 1. Fortune
• 2014's biggest movers and shakers. In the three months since Fortune published its Most Powerful Women list, eight of the 50 women either lost their jobs, got new ones or have had dramatic changes in responsibility, writes Fortune's Jennifer Reingold. Fortune
THE BROADVIEW
Have it all? Don't ask
Last Thursday, Jennifer Szalai of The New York Times explored the origins of the phrase "having it all." She traced much of it back to a 1982 book by Helen Gurley Brown titled Having It All: Love, Success, Sex, Money . . . Even if You’re Starting With Nothing. Since then, the phrase persistently comes up in discussions revolving around the pressures women face in their careers as well as at home.
I tend to shy away from asking female leaders what they think about "having it all," yet I find it is brought up natrually in interviews. Perhaps this means that the phrase is not devoid of meaning as I sometimes feel, but is just evolving alongside work/life dynamics. Here are three of my favorite takeaways from interviews with female leaders on the topic:
You can have it all, but not at the same time. I heard from execs as diverse as Trump Organization EVP Ivanka Trump and Dee Dee Myers, the former White House press secretary who is now the head of corporate communication for Warner Bros, that it's a losing battle to think that you can have it all in every moment of the day. There will be periods where work will be the top priority and other periods where children will come into sharp focus, they say. Yet women can have it all throughout the course of their lives.
What exactly are we 'having'? My favorite interview on this topic last year is when Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told TIME's Nancy Gibbs why she hates the phrase. “I think it’s insulting,” she said “What are you ‘having?’ A party? Another slice of pie?” Gillibrand's remark gets at one big point: Having it all means entirely different things to different women.
Having it all may be overrated. And on that note, it could be entirely possible that removing yourself from the pressures of having it all could be the best thing to happen to some women. “The choice not to have it all, far from being defeatist, is extremely liberating,” Melanie Healey, Procter & Gamble’s group president for North America, told Fortune's Jennifer Reingold after announcing that she was retiring. “Slugging through a decade of work but losing touch with your family and friends or with your community creates its own sense of failure."
To share the Broadview, click here.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
• Who's behind 'No More'? The viral video campaign featuring NFL football players standing up against sexual assault is spearheaded by No More, a five-year-old organization with just four part-time consultants. NYTimes
• No women. In 2014, the works of famous artists such as Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso spurred $16 billion in art sales. But none of the top 10 selling artists last year were women. Bloomberg
• Rethinking abortion. While it is conventional wisdom that men are more pro-life than women, conservative women represent America's most fervent pro-life demographic. NYTimes
ON MY RADAR
The best things written about women last year Slate
How will women in the Middle East fare in 2015? WSJ
6 things you can do for gender equality in 2015 LinkedIn
Hillary Clinton -- Person of the Year? Bloomberg
14 tips to make 2015 your most productive year ever Fast Company
QUOTE
Yeah, it shouldn’t be some sort of sensational news item, it’s something I think all people should say about themselves.
Actress Leighton Meester in a recent interview after being asked if she considers herself a feminist.
