Name: Broad Strokes for September 2, 2016: Hope Solo Ends Her Reign & Abedin Walks On Weiner
Uploaded: 2016-09-02
Duration: 6 min 32 s
Description: We discuss Accenture's new study on boardrooms, Hope Solo's recent au revoir, and the media's coverage on the Abedin-Weiner split. Tune in!

[ MUSIC ] Today on Broad Strokes, Fortune's new show where we talk about the news that matters to women, we have a ton of ground to cover. First of all there's Huma Abedin who came out to say that she is separating from Anthony Weiner, women on boards have more tech experience then their male counterparts, and Hope Solo said that she will not be returning to the Seattle rain this Season. So let's get right into it. [ MUSIC ] This week, Anthony Weiner got busted for his third sexting scandal and unlike the past two times, his wife Huma Abedin is saying She's done. The couple are separating. There's one sort of new wrinkle to this particular scandal, which is basically that, we were tweeted this one photo of him in bed, and the couple's young son is next to him. Him. And the press is just kinda having a field day with this. It was on the front page of every major website. And for me, it brings up two questions. 1. Should we be covering this marriage basically falling apart? And 2. What is the way that the press has been covering it say about what we think about working women? So I'm gonna tackle your first question, which is whether or not we should be covering this. You know, as nice as it would be to say, this is a family this is none of our business. Huma is Hilary Clinton's top aide. She's been refered to as her second daughter. Anthony Weiner is a former New York congressman so you know, these are public figures and Huma hasn't shied away from the spotlight either. There was a documentary made about her and Anthony Weiner this year. She appeared in a huge Vogue profile this year when she talked about everything from working for Hillary, to her family, to her marriage. So obviously, they are public figures. This is in the public domain, so to speak. Now, one thing that we shouldn't be doing is treating this as a political issue as Donald Trump is doing. Donald Trump came out this week basically saying that this is a matter of national security. That the fact that Anthony Weiner had a [ UNKNOWN ] connection to Hillary Clinton is a huge issue and that this reflects poorly on both Huma and Hillary as leaders of this country. Yeah, I think one thing that it made me think about Are some of the questions that have been raised about Melania Trump's immigration status, and I don't really feel like that has reflected back on Donald Trump the same way that Anthony Weiner's behavior reflected on Huma. I want to go back to the Vogue profile for a second. So in that profile she talked about how Anthony Weiner has basically become like the primary caretaker of their son because Of the demands of her job. And this has been something that the media really latched onto with this scandal. I mean, the Washington Post ran a story where they talked about what does this say about Huma's parenting that she would leave her son in a dangerous situation? This is just insane. She left her son with his father There's no evidence that he's in a dangerous situation, or that Anthony Weiner is a bad dad. And it really reminds me that, when we think about who is responsible for child care, we think about the woman. [ MUSIC ] Another interesting piece of news this week was that study released by Eccentric. And so Eccentric found that women on boards were twice as likely as men to have tech experience. Now Eccentric defined tech experience as. You know, having either current of former CIO or CTO role. Or as being a senior level executive in a tech company. Now, I thought that this was really interesting because we typically think of tech as being not female friendly at all. We think of STEM education as being a huge problem for girls and for women. Excentra didn't really go into the reasons behind it, but I think that there are kind of a few possible explanations. Yeah, I mean, I think there are two that really jump out for me and actually thought it was really interesting. I hate to be the cynic but my first response was this just shows that women have to do twice as much to get on a board. I mean every company wants tech experience right now. So you see that the women that are getting these seats. Have that background whereas men are still able to land on a corporate board without having that real important experience. But on the flip side, I was talking to one of our colleagues and he said, " You know, to me this says that tech is more egalitarian. That It's actually producing a lot of women with these great backgrounds. And women are rising to these positions like CTO in companies where it's really acknowledging their skill. I mean, I think both are interesting. I tend to go with the former, but [ MUSIC ] So this week, Hope Solo came out and said that she's not returning to the Seattle Reign this season. This actually goes back to some news that broke last week when US Soccer suspended her. And also said that they are ending her contract in the US national team. Right after this happened, the player's union came out and said this was a sexist decision. And definitely some sports writer's have agreed with that. Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really kind of complicated subject. Hope Solo has been involved in some domestic abuse scandals actually. And so I think. One thing I don't want to do is say, she shouldn't have punished as harshly as she's been, because there is a history of domestic abuse there. And I think that any player with a history of violence should have their contract terminated. But I think there is a double standard here to some extent between the treatment of Hope Solo and other male athletes. A few years ago, Clint Dempsey, who is another U. S. soccer player, accosted a referee. And he was barred from three games and he went on to play for the national team and everything kind of went back to normal. And most people don't even know that this has happened. What's really happening here is that We're kind of punishing Solo for violent behavior, but we're not doing the same thing with male athletes. Yeah, I mean there's no apple to apples comparison here, but let's just think about the NFL for a minute and how many players in that sport had been involved in violent incidents and specifically violence against women And are still playing. So for me this makes me think about how basically in America female athletes are considered perfect good girls and if they step out the line then the hammer comes down and that's whats happening here and the punishment doesn't seem like it's a crime to me. Unfortunately that's all the time we have this week on Broad Strokes. Come back next Friday for another episode on fortune. com. [ MUSIC ]

We discuss Accenture's new study on boardrooms, Hope Solo's recent au revoir, and the media's coverage on the Abedin-Weiner split. Tune in!

Broad Strokes for September 2, 2016: Hope Solo Ends Her Reign &amp; Abedin Walks On Weiner

Broad Strokes for September 2, 2016: Hope Solo Ends Her Reign & Abedin Walks On Weiner