Designing Women

Metropolis Magazine

Do you think we’ll ever be able to have just “people in modernism” panels? Or is sexism just always going to be de rigueur? In other words, is there hope?

I think it goes far beyond architecture. When will we be beyond the period of identity politics? I suppose in the way you initially think about the conference, there’s a little bit of a sense of exhaustion about it, even if in many cases the work is not completely done. And I do think that discussing gender issues or race issues or anything at all independent of the economics issues is a little bit artificial.

There’s another taboo, which I don’t know how much it will be discussed but it’s the question of when architects—men or women—already have enormous personal resources, and when they don’t.

Will Enough Men Stand by This Woman?

Hillary Clinton's Fight for the White House Reflects the Battle of the Sexes
By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2007; C01

Watching Hillary run is making me nervous. What is she wins? What if she doesn't? What if its really true that this country isn't ready for a female president? What if we still don't see women as capable leaders? I've been reading a lot lately about this issue of gender equality being dead or over discussed. If it weren't still an issue would we still be talking about it?

"Women's rights advocates attribute male skepticism about Clinton to long-ingrained sexism -- and a sense that men, no matter what they say, just aren't ready for a female president. And political conservatives have exploited those often-unspoken fears of female power to caricature Clinton for years. But in several interviews with Democratic men across the country, the stated reasons for their aversion to Clinton seem more complicated, and in many cases, far more visceral than substantive.

They just don't like her, some say. They don't know what she stands for. They believe her word is no good, that she doesn't believe that she can be held accountable. They see her as intellectual snob who lets you know she's smarter. They say she sounds like everybody's ex-wife. They can't tell if she's the loyal, traditional wife who stayed with her husband for love after his humiliating extramarital affair -- or a canny politician who stayed because it was politically expedient. Even: Is she a Yankees or a Cubs fan?"

A Poison Kiss: The Problem of Lead in Lipstick

Anyone know if this is for real?

"While you may not be able to test for lead by rubbing a gold ring on your lipstick as some urban legends suggest, laboratory testing initiated by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has found that some lipsticks from top brands do contain lead.

Lead is a potent neurotoxin and linked to numerous other health and reproductive problems—and it doesn't belong in lipstick.

For more information, read our press release or download a copy of "A Poison Kiss," our report on lead in lipstick with a complete list of products tested. Then take action by writing a letter to L'Oreal, the brand with the highest lead results in our sample."

Building a Brand

How architecture firms name themselve
By Witold Rybczynski
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007, at 7:34 AM ET
Slate

While most architectural firms are known simply as John Doe & Partners (or John Doe + Partners, plus signs having replaced ampersands among the smart set), over the last several decades architectural practices with names such as Mecanoo, UNStudio, and OMA have appeared—and that's just in Holland. What's going on?
When the American Institute of Architects was founded in 1857, architecture was not yet considered a profession—it was one step up from carpentry and contracting. To be taken seriously by clients, architects followed the practice of law firms—a well-established profession—and strung together the names of the principal partners. This produced Adler & Sullivan, Burnham & Root, Carrère & Hastings, and that powerhouse, McKim, Mead & White. It sounded a bit stodgy, but also reliable and, above all, respectable.
Sometime in the 1950s, a few larger architectural firms started using initials instead of names. Streamlined initials carried the cachet of efficiency and no-nonsense, just like—well, IBM. I don't know which architectural firm first used initials, but the best-known was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, or SOM. During the 1950s, SOM was the leading corporate architectural practice in the country, and its offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco produced outstanding buildings such as Lever House, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the John Hancock Center in Chicago. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill began in 1936, but over time the original founders were replaced by a later generation—Gordon Bunshaft, Walter Netsch, Bruce Graham—and using initials neatly solved the delicate issue of succession. The faceless initials underline the collective and collaborative nature of large-scale architectural practices. URS, HOK, and RTKL—to name only a few of the country's largest firms—are no longer individual offices but international organizations.

During the swinging '60s, particularly in Europe, another naming fashion took hold. You read about these firms in Domus and Architectural Design: Archigram in London, Superstudio and Archizoom in Florence, Haus-Rucker-Co in Vienna. The trendy monikers made up for the fact that these fledgling firms created more drawings than actual buildings. Impatient to make a name for themselves, the young designers did the next best thing—they made up names, usually names that made them sound both arty and avant-garde. One of the first American architectural firms—certainly the most prominent—to adopt a fanciful name was Morphosis, founded by Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi in Los Angeles in 1972. It sounded a bit like one of those bands of the '60s—Procol Harum or Iron Butterfly.
Fanciful firm names have become de riguer for young architects who want to be seen as being on the cutting edge of design: Asymptote, Allied Works, Office dA, Studio/Gang, and, one of my favorites, a Brooklyn firm called noroof architects. The irrepressible Rem Koolhaas actually has it both ways; he has adopted a serious-sounding organizational name, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, whose corporate initials—OMA—sound like a Buddhist mantra (and the German for grandma). What's going on? Another shift. Not satisfied with being perceived as respectable or corporate professionals, these architects want to be seen as subversive artists, bad boys—and girls—with laser cutters.

Calculating the Carbon Footprint of Wine

"My previous postings on the carbon footprint of wine made me want to determine just how much carbon is involved in the making and transporting of our favorite beverage. So I collaborated with Pablo Paster, a sustainability metrics specialist, and we ran the numbers. Our findings have just been published as a working paper for the American Association of Wine Economists, available here as a pdf."

Full post.

The Feminine Critique

By LISA BELKIN Published: November 1, 2007 The New York Times

DON’T get angry. But do take charge. Be nice. But not too nice. Speak up. But don’t seem like you talk too much. Never, ever dress sexy. Make sure to inspire your colleagues — unless you work in Norway, in which case, focus on delegating instead.

Skip to next paragraphWriting about life and work means receiving a steady stream of research on how women in the workplace are viewed differently from men. These are academic and professional studies, not whimsical online polls, and each time I read one I feel deflated. What are women supposed to do with this information? Transform overnight? And if so, into what? How are we supposed to be assertive, but not, at the same time?

“It’s enough to make you dizzy,” said Ilene H. Lang, the president of Catalyst, an organization that studies women in the workplace. “Women are dizzy, men are dizzy, and we still don’t have a simple straightforward answer as to why there just aren’t enough women in positions of leadership.”

Catalyst’s research is often an exploration of why, 30 years after women entered the work force in large numbers, the default mental image of a leader is still male. Most recent is the report titled “Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t,” which surveyed 1,231 senior executives from the United States and Europe. It found that women who act in ways that are consistent with gender stereotypes — defined as focusing “on work relationships” and expressing “concern for other people’s perspectives” — are considered less competent. But if they act in ways that are seen as more “male” — like “act assertively, focus on work task, display ambition” — they are seen as “too tough” and “unfeminine.”

Women can’t win.

In 2006, Catalyst looked at stereotypes across cultures (surveying 935 alumni of the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland) and found that while the view of an ideal leader varied from place to place — in some regions the ideal leader was a team builder, in others the most valued skill was problem-solving. But whatever was most valued, women were seen as lacking it.

Respondents in the United States and England, for instance, listed “inspiring others” as a most important leadership quality, and then rated women as less adept at this than men. In Nordic countries, women were seen as perfectly inspirational, but it was “delegating” that was of higher value there, and women were not seen as good delegators.

Other researchers have reached similar conclusions. Joan Williams runs the Center for WorkLife Law, part of the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. She wrote the book “Unbending Gender” and she, too, has found that women are held to a different standard at work.

They are expected to be nurturing, but seen as ineffective if they are too feminine, she said in a speech last week at Cornell. They are expected to be strong, but tend to be labeled as strident or abrasive when acting as leaders. “Women have to choose between being liked but not respected, or respected but not liked,” she said.

While some researchers, like those at Catalyst and WorkLife Law, tend to paint the sweeping global picture — women don’t advance as much as men because they don’t act like men — other researchers narrow their focus.

Victoria Brescoll, a researcher at Yale, made headlines this August with her findings that while men gain stature and clout by expressing anger, women who express it are seen as being out of control, and lose stature. Study participants were shown videos of a job interview, after which they were asked to rate the applicant and choose their salary. The videos were identical but for two variables — in some the applicants were male and others female, and the applicant expressed either anger or sadness about having lost an account after a colleague arrived late to an important meeting.

The participants were most impressed with the angry man, followed by the sad woman, then the sad man, and finally, at the bottom of the list, the angry woman. The average salary assigned to the angry man was nearly $38,000 while the angry woman received an average of only $23,000.

When the scenario was tweaked and the applicant went on to expand upon his or her anger — explaining that the co-worker had lied and said he had directions to the meeting — participants were somewhat forgiving, giving women who explained their anger more money than those who had no excuse (but still less money than comparative men).

Also this summer, Linda C. Babcock, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, looked at gender and salary in a novel way. She recruited volunteers to play Boggle and told them beforehand that they would receive $2 to $10 for their time. When it came time for payment, each participant was given $3 and asked if that was enough.

Men asked for more money at eight times the rate of women. In a second round of testing, where participants were told directly that the sum was negotiable, 50 percent of women asked for more money, but that still did not compare with 83 percent of men. It would follow, Professor Babcock concluded, that women are equally poor at negotiating their salaries and raises.

There are practical nuggets of advice in all this data. Don’t be shy about negotiating. If you blow your stack, explain (or try). “Some of what we are learning is directly helpful, and tells women that they are acting in ways they might not even be aware of, and that is harming them and they can change,” said Peter Glick, a psychology professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.

He is the author of one such study, in which he showed respondents a video of a woman wearing a sexy low-cut blouse with a tight skirt or a skirt and blouse that were conservatively cut. The woman recited the same lines in both, and the viewer was either told she was a secretary or an executive. Being more provocatively dressed had no effect on the perceived competence of the secretary, but it lowered the perceived competence of the executive dramatically. (Sexy men don’t have that disconnect, Professor Glick said. While they might lose respect for wearing tight pants and unbuttoned shirts to the office, the attributes considered most sexy in men — power, status, salary — are in keeping with an executive image at work.)

But Professor Glick also concedes that much of this data — like his 2000 study showing that women were penalized more than men when not perceived as being nice or having social skills — gives women absolutely no way to “fight back.” “Most of what we learn shows that the problem is with the perception, not with the woman,” he said, “and that it is not the problem of an individual, it’s a problem of a corporation.”

Ms. Lang, at Catalyst, agreed. This accumulation of data will be of value only when companies act on it, she said, noting that some are already making changes. At Goldman Sachs, she said, the policy on performance reviews now tries to eliminate bias. A red flag is expected to go up if a woman is described as “having sharp elbows or being brusque,” she said. “The statement should not just stand,” she said. “Examples should be asked for, the context should be considered, would the same actions be cause for comment if it was a man?”

In fact, Catalyst’s next large project is to advise companies on ways they can combat stereotypical bias. And Professor Glick has some upcoming projects, too. One looks at whether women do better in sales if they show more cleavage. A second will look at the flip side of gender stereotypes at work: hostility toward men.

Edit

Scratch what I said before about using a Nalgene...they are No. 7s and that's no good for any of us. Go buy something stainless steel to drink out of or pick a nicer plastic:
The Green Guide
Thanks National Geographic!

Live Smaller

A beautiful book, beautifully written and beautifully photographed with a beautiful introduction and a beautiful message.
Little House on a Small Planet

Is There Anything Good About Men? And Other Tricky Questions

New York Times
August 20, 2007, 10:56 pm
By John Tierney

What percentage of your ancestors were men?

No, it’s not 50 percent, as I’ll explain shortly. But first let me credit the source, Roy F. Baumeister, who answered that question – and a lot of other ones – in an address on Friday at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco. I recommend reading the whole speech: “Is There Anything Good About Men?”

As you might expect, he did find something good to say about men, but the speech wasn’t an apologia for the gender, or a whine about the abuse heaped on men. Rather, it was a shrewd and provocative look at the motivational differences between men and women – and at some of the topics (like the gender imbalance on science faculties) that got Larry Summers in so much trouble at Harvard. Dr. Baumeister, a prominent social psychologist who teaches at Florida State University, began by asking gender warriors to go home.

“I’m certainly not denying that culture has exploited women,” he said. “But rather than seeing culture as patriarchy, which is to say a conspiracy by men to exploit women, I think it’s more accurate to understand culture (e.g., a country, a religion) as an abstract system that competes against rival systems — and that uses both men and women, often in different ways, to advance its cause.”

The “single most underappreciated fact about gender,” he said, is the ratio of our male to female ancestors. While it’s true that about half of all the people who ever lived were men, the typical male was much more likely than the typical woman to die without reproducing. Citing recent DNA research, Dr. Baumeister explained that today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men. Maybe 80 percent of women reproduced, whereas only 40 percent of men did.

“It would be shocking if these vastly different reproductive odds for men and women failed to produce some personality differences,” he said, and continued:

For women throughout history (and prehistory), the odds of reproducing have been pretty good. Later in this talk we will ponder things like, why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe.

For men, the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd and play it safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever lived did not have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead ends. Hence it was necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative, explore other possibilities.

The second big motivational difference between the genders, he went on, involves the kind of social relationships sought by each sex. While other researcher have argued that women are more “social” than men – more helpful and less aggressive towards others — Dr. Baumeister argued that women can be plenty aggressive in the relationships that matter most to them, which are intimate relationships. Men are more aggressive when it comes to dealing with strangers, because they’re more interested than women are in a wider network of shallow relationships.

“We shouldn’t automatically see men as second-class human beings simply because they specialize in the less important, less satisfying kind of relationship,” he said. Men are social, too, he said, just in a different way, with more focus on larger groups: “If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth.”

There’s lots more in the speech, but I’ll leave you with Dr. Baumeister’s conclusion summarizing his argument:

A few lucky men are at the top of society and enjoy the culture’s best rewards. Others, less fortunate, have their lives chewed up by it. Culture uses both men and women, but most cultures use them in somewhat different ways. Most cultures see individual men as more expendable than individual women, and this difference is probably based on nature, in whose reproductive competition some men are the big losers and other men are the biggest winners. Hence it uses men for the many risky jobs it has.

Men go to extremes more than women, and this fits in well with culture using them to try out lots of different things, rewarding the winners and crushing the losers.

Culture is not about men against women. By and large, cultural progress emerged from groups of men working with and against other men. While women concentrated on the close relationships that enabled the species to survive, men created the bigger networks of shallow relationships, less necessary for survival but eventually enabling culture to flourish. The gradual creation of wealth, knowledge, and power in the men’s sphere was the source of gender inequality. Men created the big social structures that comprise society, and men still are mainly responsible for this, even though we now see that women can perform perfectly well in these large systems.

What seems to have worked best for cultures is to play off the men against each other, competing for respect and other rewards that end up distributed very unequally. Men have to prove themselves by producing things the society values. They have to prevail over rivals and enemies in cultural competitions, which is probably why they aren’t as lovable as women.

The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring.

The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.

Your thoughts?

Women are Leading a Quiet Green Revolution

Our wonderful friend who works for the non-profit Virginia Conservation Network sent us this article Women Are From Earth, Men Are From Terra Firma where the following statistics are highlighted:

Women are up to 15 percent more likely than men to rate the environment a high priority.
Women comprise up to two-thirds of voters who cast their ballots around environmental issues.
Women are more likely than men to volunteer for and give money to environmental causes, especially related to public health.
Women report both more support for environmental activists and more concern that government isn't doing enough.
Women support increased government spending for the environment, while men favor spending cuts.

Seriously?!

According to a headline on msn.com today, Americans are spending more money on BOTTLED WATER than on iPods and movie tickets. What?! Plastic is bad for us all! For pete's sake, buy a nalgene and a brita!

Thoughts on Retirement

Women & Co a company created by Citigroup came to our office to speak to a group of young female designers about financial planning and taking control of their finances. Also on the panel were Heidi Blau, a principal of the 175 person architecture firm FX Fowle and Sarah Caples, a partner of Caples Jefferson Architects. They shared with us their experiences as women who have been in the architecture profession for the last 30 years.

Average Age of Widowhood: 55 Years
Average Age of Retirement, Women:
Average Lifespan, Women: 81 Years
Average Lifespan, Men: 73 Years
Average Years out of the Workforce, Men: 1 Year
Average Years out of the Workforce, Women: 11.5 Years
Projected Retirement Income: 90% of Pre-Retirement Income

For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor

The New York Times
August 2, 2007

Young women in New York and several of the nation’s other largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of recent census data.

The shift has occurred in New York since 2000 and even earlier in Los Angeles, Dallas and a few other cities.

Economists consider it striking because the wage gap between men and women nationally has narrowed more slowly and has even widened in recent years among one part of that group: college-educated women in their 20s. But in New York, young college-educated women’s wages as a percentage of men’s rose slightly between 2000 and 2005.

The analysis was prepared by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, who first reported his findings in Gotham Gazette, published online by the Citizens Union Foundation. It shows that women of all educational levels from 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men’s wages, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent. Nationwide, that group of women made much less: 89 percent of the average full-time pay for men.

Just why young women at all educational levels in New York and other big cities have fared better than their peers elsewhere is a matter of some debate. But a major reason, experts say, is that women have been graduating from college in larger numbers than men, and that many of those women seem to be gravitating toward major urban areas.

In 2005, 53 percent of women in their 20s working in New York were college graduates, compared with only 38 percent of men of that age. And many of those women are not marrying right after college, leaving them freer to focus on building careers, experts said.

“Citified college-women are more likely to be nonmarried and childless, compared with their suburban sisters, so they can and do devote themselves to their careers,” said Andrew Hacker, a Queens College sociologist and the author of “Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between Men and Women.”

Kelly Kraft, 25, is one of those women. A native of Indiana, she came to New York after graduating from the University of Dayton, got a job in publishing and now works for an advertising agency. “I just felt New York had a lot more exciting opportunities in different industries than Indianapolis,” she said.

“In women’s-studies courses you always heard that men were making more money, and it was a disadvantage being a woman,” Ms. Kraft said. “It’s great that it’s starting to turn around.”

New York may also be more attractive to college-educated women, some experts said, because many jobs in the city pay higher salaries than similar ones elsewhere in the country. “New York is an achievement-based city, and achievement here is based on how well you use your brain, not what you do with your back,” said Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.

In 1970, all New York women in their 20s made $7,000 less than men, on average, adjusted for inflation. By 2000, they were about even. In 2005, according to an analysis of the latest census results they were making about $5,000 more: a median wage of $35,653, or 117 percent of the $30,560 reported by men in that age group.

Women in their 20s also make more than men in Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and a few other big cities. But only in Dallas do young women’s wages surpass men’s by a larger amount than in New York. In Dallas, women make 120 percent of what men do, although their median wage there, $25,467, was much lower than that of women in New York.

Nationally, women in their 20s made a median income of $25,467, compared with $28,523 for men.

Diana Rhoten, a program director at the Social Science Research Council in New York, said well-educated women were migrating to urban centers where there are diverse professional opportunities and less gender discrimination than in smaller cities and suburbs. There may also be nonworkplace factors at play, she said.

“Previously, female migration patterns were determined primarily by their husband’s educational levels or employment needs, even if both were college-educated,” she said. “Today, highly qualified women are moving for their own professional opportunities and personal interests. It’s no longer an era of power couple migration to, but one of power couple formation in places like New York.”

Dr. Beveridge, based his findings of young women’s earning power on data from the census bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey used to analyze people working at least 35 hours a week 40 or more weeks a year.

It is not clear whether this is the front edge of a trend in which women will gradually move ahead of men in all age groups. Typically, women have fallen further behind men in earnings as they get older. That is because some women stop working altogether, work only part time or encounter a glass ceiling in promotions and raises.

But as women enrolled in college and graduate school continue to outnumber men, gender wage gaps among older workers may narrow, too, experts said. Even among New Yorkers in their 30s, women now make as much as men.

In New York, the pay gap between men and women varied by borough, profession, race and ethnicity, the analysis found.

Young women from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens make more than young men from those boroughs. Young women from Staten Island make the same as men. Among Manhattanites, the median wage for workers in their 20s was $46,859 for men and $45,840 for women.

The gender wage advantage for women in their 20s was widest among whites with some college education, blacks and Asians with advanced degrees and Hispanic women who were high school or college graduates.

Young men in the city still make more than young women in a number of jobs, including psychologist, registered nurse, high school teacher, bank teller and bartender. In high-paying Wall Street jobs, men heavily outnumber women, which is one reason that Martin Kohli, a regional economist with the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, described the women’s wage gains as “a surprising finding.”

But in jobs that were once defined as male preserves — including police officer and private investigator — where gender barriers are crumbling, young men and women in New York had the same median wages: a little more than $40,000. And women in their 20s now make more than men in a wide variety of other jobs: as doctors, personnel managers, architects, economists, lawyers, stock clerks, customer service representatives, editors and reporters.

Melissa J. Manfro, a 24-year-old lawyer who was raised in upstate New York, offered her own theory on why younger female lawyers are outearning their male peers: a desire to begin their careers earlier to prepare for starting families.

“It seems that women tend to take less time off between college and law school, and therefore become more senior, and, hence, make more money, at a younger age,” she said. “I would, of course, like to think that means that women know what they want sooner than men. But it probably has more to do with the unfortunate fact that women need to keep in mind biological time constraints and feel a great deal of pressure to build an entire career before refocusing on marriage and children.”

Though Dr. Beveridge’s analysis showed women making strides, it also showed that men were in some ways moving backward. Among all men — including those with college degrees — real wages, adjusted for inflation, have declined since 1970. And among full-time workers with advanced degrees, wages for men increased only marginally even as they soared for women. Nationally, men’s wages in general declined while women’s remained the same.

Several experts also said that rising income for women might affect marriage rates if women expect their mates to have at least equivalent salaries and education.

“When New York college women say there are few eligible men around, they’re right if they mean they’ll only settle for someone with an education akin to their own,” Professor Hacker said.

Cristina Maldonado contributed reporting.

Simple Reduce

some green questions from a professor of design at Simple Living Blog

Women in Web Design

I just learned a disturbing statistic in a blog I read today: The number of women in IT and Web Design is actually declining. How strange. Read about Jeffrey Zeldman's piece Women in Web Design: Just the Stats - it is full of good research and little-known facts.

Workplace Generation Gap

I work in an office that is more or less an engineering firm - a field in which women comprise no more than 15% of the industry. In other words, I work with a whole bunch of men. A great majority of these men have seen the feminist revolution wax and wane, they respect their spouses and daughters, receptionists and marketers, but a few were simply born too early to get it.

My supervisor (a female) is an amazingly inspired person with a sunny demeanor and a lot of ambition. She is the head of business development and marketing here at our quickly growing firm. She sits on the board of a regional marketing organization. She travels extensively with the owner of our company in order to make connections and bring in new business. She is working with a business development aid in order to draw up a more organized business plan that will expand the company to double its size in the next few years. All of this she does because she believes this company has greater potential than what it shows today. And she puts in her long hours and personal time all with a guilty conscience over leaving her 3 year old daughter in day care.

Recently, my supervisor was called upon by a coworker (read as: not a superior) to help out with a presentation for a project we were shortlisted on. Great! That is what we marketers are here for - we can be available to come up with content, make sure it is well edited, has all the appropriate logos and catch phrases, and that no Power Point slides are missing or out of order. We are great proofreaders and are full of ideas. However, this was a different sort of "help out" situation. We were teamed with a larger company on this project and they were in charge of the actual organization and content of the Power Point presentation. My supervisor was a little confused as to what she would be doing at this presentation, since there was very little to take care of on our end. The coworker informed her that he had been put in charge of advancing the slides - pushing the button to move forward in the presentation. He didn't like his assignment and enlisted her help because she was a woman in a position he considered below his own. He was too good for that. Instead, he would be sitting on his ass during the presentation, looking like a very important person while she advanced the slides.

At first, I saw this as clearly a male/female issue - he had his idea of a woman's position in the workplace as a servant of sorts. But I've been giving it some thought and my inner feminist has backed down a bit. I'm thinking this is more of a generational issue - he is about 30 years her senior. My feeling is that he is refusing to learn this new-fangled technology in favor of bossing someone else into doing it for him. We are all his assistants - and the "we" just happens to be a handful of females.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the workplace these days is made up of four generations of individuals (traditionalists, baby boomers, gen-Xers and millenials) which takes the possible tension in the office from simply male/female to a whole new level - males and females of all ages competing. This article from CNN.com highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each of the four age groups and offers a few tips on how to get along: Workplace Generation Gap

The Case of the Disappearing Bee

Having nothing to do with design, women or the like, this article from the Washington Post should be concerning for all of us: Honey, I'm Gone

The Cost of War

Having little to nothing to do with women or design, this was a slideshow article posted on boston.com that I found interesting, highlighting alternative ways the government could be using the money funding the war in Iraq.

The Cost of War

For Women, Equal Pay? No Way.

Time Magazine May 7, 2007

A college degree can't stop the gender pay gap. A revealing study by the American Association of University Women found that even just one year after college graduation, women earn only 80% of what men do. And overall, the gap just widens over time. Louisiana has the biggest pay disparity, as college-educated women over 25 earn just 64% of their male counterparts, while West Virginia boasts the best Þgure: 89%.

Light Green

A la our lovely friend Melissa the Med Student, here is a nice "bite size" bit of greening for your daily life: Ideal Bite

Sea of People

www.seaofpeople.org
Flickr Group
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What is Sea Of People?
New York City’s coastal location makes it particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and more powerful storm events that will result from unabated warming. In combination, these factors could result in the periodic flooding of coastal parts of our city later on in this century. Permanent inundation could result with the collapse of either the Greenland or Antarctic ice shelves, which would lead to a 10 to 20 foot rise in sea level. Such a rise would greatly reconfigure the map of our city, sinking much of lower Manhattan beneath the water. While this may be several generations off, action to avoid such an outcome must begin now.

The Sea Of People project combines the dynamics of a mass rally with the expressive power of an interactive artistic installation. Following a 12 Noon Rally in Battery Park on Saturday, April 14, thousands of participants, dressed in blue, will stretch north in two columns along the projected eastern and western 10-foot waterlines that may one day redefine lower Manhattan under the ten-foot sea level rise scenario.

Photos of American Mass Consumption

In honor of Earth Week.
www.chrisjordan.com

wine is nice

i like wine. this wine is a good idea:
french rabbit

For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too

"And, for all their accomplishments and ambitions, the amazing girls, as their teachers and classmates call them, are not immune to the third message: While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart.

You still have to be pretty, thin and, as one of Esther’s classmates, Kat Jiang, a go-to stage manager for student theater who has a perfect 2400 score on her SATs, wrote in an e-mail message, “It’s out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart.”

“Effortlessly hot,” Kat added."

Article here.

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opens at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to much debate about how to define feminst art and whether it should exist separately from other art created by women. Some believe the label only belongs to women who were making politically charged work in the 60s and 70s others believe the definition should be much more inclusive.

Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939). The Dinner Party, 1974–79. Mixed media: ceramic, porcelain, textile. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago. (Photo: © Aislinn Weidele for Polshek Partnership Architects)

The Dinner Party, an important icon of 1970s feminist art and a milestone in twentieth-century art, is presented as the centerpiece around which the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is organized. The Dinner Party comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history. The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored. The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table. This permanent installation is enhanced by rotating biographical gallery shows relating to the 1,038 women honored at the table. Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses is the first such exhibition.

A New Light on Tiffany

Long unacknowledged designer Clara Driscoll is honored at the The New-York Historical Society, the city's 1st museum and cultural institution, is proud to present A New Light on Tiffany, a ground-breaking exhibition exploring the turn-of-the-century New York women who created many of Tiffany Studios' celebrated decorative objects. The exhibition, which will include over 50 Tiffany lamps, windows, mosaics, enamels, and ceramics, as well as pages of newly discovered correspondence written by designer Clara Driscoll, will be on view from February 23, 2007 through Memorial Day.

Stained and Tainted

Sa'Dia Rehman
Stained and Tainted, 2001

plaster, tea, and ink

"As a dedication piece to my female relatives, Stained and Tainted offers a placement and seating for each of my female relatives to give them an opportunity to gather together and break a tradition. The tea cups vary from the perfectly shaped cups that distinguish those women who follow the tradition of serving tea to the dusty remains of some teacups to identify those who loathe the tradition."

At the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons Arts Center

A Year Without Toilet Paper!

Could you do it?!

The Year Without Toilet Paper
By PENELOPE GREEN
Published: March 22, 2007
To reduce their impact on the environment, two New Yorkers give up what most take for granted.

"Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation." Their blog here.

The Women’s War

The Women’s War New York Times March 18, 2007 By SARA CORBETT.
Women return from the war in Iraq to face unique and diffent ordeals than their male counterparts.

In Tehran Stadium, Women Out of Bounds
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: March 23, 2007
The Iranian film “Offside,” about women who fight for their right to watch a soccer game, celebrates the guile and toughness of its heroines.

0.2%

Architect Magazine March 1, 2007 By Hannah Mccann
The number of black women architects has quadrupled in 15 years. but four times a fraction of a percent doesn't amount to much. (Get a free subscription on the website.)

Interviewee 26 year old Yamini Hernandez blogs about being a young African-American woman and an architect.

"They didn't mention anything I said in my email interview, only my blog, and even from my blog entries that i referred them to (apparently a bad move and duly noted), they didn't mention any of the solutions I mentioned to the atrocious underrepresentation of people of color in the field. Nor did the article mention how my present position positively impacts the profession by preparing young people of color to be ,architects and builders with an environmental and social conscious."

The Green Guide

National Geographic The Green Guide.

As part of its ongoing mission to inspire people to care about the planet, National Geographic today announced the acquisition of The Green Guide, a comprehensive website and bi-monthly newsletter that offers practical advice for people on how to lead a more environmentally sensitive life.

Just for Fun

condom couture by Adriana Bertini

ecobabes!

ecobabes
i think the name says it all.

Congrats Patti

Op Ed Piece: Ain't It Strange By Patti Smith. Sound like familiar ground?

"The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented."

The Gardasil Debate

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 80% of women have HPV. Of these 10,000 will develop cervical cancer and 3,700 will die. The CDC is now recommending that all women between 9 and 26 receive the new Gardasil HPV vaccine. Men are often unwitting carriers of the disease. However, the CDC will not be require males to receive the same shots.

The debate rages: Will the vaccine will promote underage sex? Violate parental rights? Is this a Big Pharma conspiracy aiming to angle $4 billion per year on an unecessary treatment? Or is this a major step forward in protecting women's health?

Who's Afraid of Gardasil? By Karen Houppert

Generation Next

From The Pew Research Center

A Portrait of "Generation Next"
How Young People View Their Lives, Futures and Politics
For the purpose of this report Generation Next is made up of 18-25 year olds born between 1981 and 1988.

As a result of this report here's an article from today's New York Times Beyond the Pleasure Principle By ANN HULBERT:

"Gen Nexters aren't getting the credit that they deserve for being ---as many of them told pollsters they felt they were --- unique and distinct. It is not easy carving out your niche in the shadow of parents who still can't get over what an exceptional generation they belong to."

"There are signs that Gen Nexters are primed to do in the years ahead what their elders have so signally failed to manage: actually think beyond their own welfare to worry about --- of all things --- the next generation."

Break the Addiction

MTV on the Environment
[Calculate Your Carbon Footprint]

12 steps to breaking your addiction to carbon:
Step 1: Examine Yourself
Step 2: Choose Wisely
Step 3: Become Independent
Step 4: Re-Energize Your Space
Step 5: Transport Better
Step 6: Get Political
Step 7: Go Paperless
Step 8: Shop Smarter
Step 9: Go Healthy
Step 10: Love, Protect and Preserve
Step 11: Consider an Alternative

The Vote or Die Campaign failed to get the 18-24 get out to the polls. Does MTV still have the influence to motivate a new generation to grow up green?

Recycling is a Design Principal

How to Green Your Recycling from www.treehugger.com

"Almost four decades ago, a US paper company wanted a symbol to communicate its products’ recycled content to customers. The company held a design competition that was won by a young graphic designer from USC named Gary Anderson. His entry, based on the Mobius Strip, a shape with only one side and no end, is now universally recognized as the symbol for recycling. To many people, recycling conjures up blue plastic bins and bottle drives. But recycling is a design principal, a law of nature, a source of creativity, and a source of prosperity. For anyone looking to make recycling a more integral part of their lives, this guide is an overview of the basic legwork, as well as some of the finer and more accelerated concepts that have emerged in recent years."

National Geographic Women Photographers

photo by Jodi Cobb

I had the pleasure of seeing the traveling exhibit National Geographic Women Photographers at the Newseum in Washington, DC. The exhibit highlighted the works of Annie Griffiths Belt, Jodi Cobb, Maria Stenzel, Karen Kasmauski and Sisse Brimberg, each of whom has defied the odds and made a big name for themself in the world of field photography. These women have photographed stories on arab women, the arctic, modern medicine, geishas - always a bit controversial, and often focused on gender roles. You can see the online exhibit here.

creativity with a conscience

CREATIVITY WITH A CONSCIENCE
www.freerangegraphics.com

We know we could be using our talents to sell cheeseburgers or sneakers. But as message shapers and image makers, we choose to inspire, educate and move people toward action.

That’s why we concentrate on offering top-quality design, communication and strategy services to companies and organizations whose vision goes beyond turning the world into a strip mall. And while our clients range from world-wide activists like Amnesty International to corporations focused on sustainable business like Clif Bar, they all share our belief that in each of our actions there is potential for positive change.

Based in Washington DC and Berkeley, CA, our services include graphic design, web entertainment and campaign concepting and strategy.

Check out their most recent brainchild a spoof flash animation that illustrates how our health depends on biodiversity. The BioDaVersity Code

Buy Less Crap

Business Week posted an article about two years back about the rise in females as head of household and, in turn, the rise of females as dominant consumers. Read it here and then go read about how to Buy Less Crap. We could all use a little less crap.

paper v plastic. neither?

Some estimates put disposable plastic bag use at 1 million bags a day. If its true that women make 75% of all consumer decisions then what would happen if we all stopped using plastic bags?

How about these cuties from The Container Store.

More reusable bag alternatives.

the motherhood experiment

From the New York Times [March 4, 2007]

"Could it be, then, that easing a woman’s ability to hold a job and raise children simultaneously will nudge her toward having a bigger family? At least 45 countries in Europe and Asia are betting on it, having instituted government programs to maintain or raise their fertility rates."

The Motherhood Experiment

episiotomy

This seemed especially relevant since my co-worker is pregnant. 73% of episiotomies are performed without the women's consent. Is that really how pregnancy works these days?

Drugs, Knives, and Midwives
The U.S. maternity care system is in crisis. A grassroots movement to save it is under way.—By Elizabeth Larsen Utne Reader March / April 2007 Issue

Drugs, Knives and Midwives

dear hillary

the care crisis

Interesting article in this week's The Nation magazine. Don't know what to think or why this doesn't seem to be more politically relevant. I mean the 2008 election has already started right?
The Care Crisis

"...women's career demands still tend to collide with their most intensive child-rearing years. Many women end up feeling they have failed rather than struggled against a setup designed for a male worker with few family responsibilities. "

dear ira glass

breaking glass

This was a pretty telling article I read today entitled The Graphic Glass Ceiling. Even men who are supposed to be among the most free thinking humans are often caught up in generalizations.

A witty friend once said to me The ceiling isn't made of glass - it's made of men.

testing...

pssst... are you out there?