Name: Broad Strokes for August 19, 2016: Gabby Douglas Vs. the Twitter Trolls and Equal Pay in MA
Uploaded: 2016-08-18
Duration: 4 min 13 s
Description: We talk about the latest news from Rio, Massachusetts's recent attempt to close the pay gap, and activist investors targeting female CEOs.

Welcome to Broad Strokes. I'm Kristen Bellstrom. And I'm Valentina Zarya. And this is Fortune's new show where we talk about the news that matters to women. Today we're gonna be talking about the Olympics, Activist Investors and a really interesting new law that just passed in Massachusetts. Let's go to Rio to start, Gabby Douglas, who's an Olympic gymnast was attacked on Twitter about, basically, everything. People were unhappy that she didn't put her hand over her heart on the podium, they're unhappy that she wasn't smiling. Enough and cheering enough for her teammates when they're competing. And they're just straight up attacking her about her looks, her hair, her skin. Yeah, I mean, if this is feeling repetitive, that's because it is. This is happening over and over, especially for black women. Most Most recently, Leslie Jones, who was one of the lead actresses in Ghostbusters, was attacked by thousands and thousands of people because a Breitbart tech editor named Milo Yiannopoulos kind of called everyone and said, attack this woman. And Twitter actually kicked Milo off the platform, but they haven't really done anything about Gabby. So Leslie took it upon herself to create a hashtag, Love for Gabby USA. And you had Chelsea Clinton, Carrie Washington, Shonda Rhymes all Tweeting in support of Gaby. I mean I'm happy to see people in support of Gaby but like this is just so frustrating. So sexist and so incredibly racist. So this is really like the stereotype of the angry black woman that's being thrust upon Gabbie because she's not smiling and cheering. I mean, she's a olympic competitor. It's not her job to be smiling. And let's compare her to Michael Phelps for a minute. Before the race he was like mean mugging his competitor and everybody thought it was great. He didn't get any of this kind of response. One of the other super uplifting stories this week was a study done about female CEOs in activist protesters, and basically what they found was that if you are a woman, you have a 27 % chance of being targeted by activists. If you're a man, your chance of being targeted is basically 0. Yeah, I mean there are so many theories about this. And, honestly, I'm not quite sure which one I subscribe to. But one that sounds true to me is basically this idea that women are known for having a more collaborative leadership technique or are willing to work with people. And so there's this idea that activists feel like that's something they can take advantage of and sort of push to get their way. There's also this Concept of the glass cliff which we've talked about before and it's basically just that if a woman becomes CEO of a company chances are the company's in trouble and that maybe that's sort of a red flag for activists. So another story that I've been paying a lot of attention to is a law that passed in Massachusetts recently and it's basically groundbreaking equal pay law. The part that people are really excited Excited about is this provision that says if you're an employer now you can no longer ask your potential employee how much money they're making. And the idea is that this could potentially close the pay gab because women and minorities tend to make less and then they go to their next job and they make less. And it's just like this really horrible perpetuating cycle that goes on throughout their entire careers. Yeah, and I think you know as a woman, kind of early on in my career I'm so excited about this, I know it's only gonna be passed in 2018 in Massachusetts and like who knows when in New York. But I just feel like this will really make such a difference in the pay gap. You walk into that room, you get that question like how much are you making? And you're like I'm making this much. But I really deserve this one. You know as a woman you're not asking for enough and you don't know how to ask for more so I mean, I think this is gonna be huge. Huge for women, huge for minorities. I'm really excited. Yeah, I mean the great thing about this law is it really has teeth, it's very specific, and so people know exactly how it would apply to them in real life. But at the same time, the gender wage gaps are actually really complicated. When people have been studying it for years, and we don't really understand it. So to me, that says no single laws ever gonna close it, but this might narrow it, which is a great start. We'd love to know if this is a law that you would like to see instituted in your state, if you think this is gonna make a difference for women. Tweet at us and let us know. That's all the time we have this week, but come back next Friday for another episode of Broad Strokes on Fortune. com. [ MUSIC ]

We talk about the latest news from Rio, Massachusetts's recent attempt to close the pay gap, and activist investors targeting female CEOs.