{"id":6582,"date":"2017-10-22T16:50:16","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T20:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=6582"},"modified":"2017-10-22T21:19:59","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T01:19:59","slug":"the-challenges-of-women-in-the-workplace-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=6582","title":{"rendered":"The Challenges for Women in the Workplace Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>An ocean separates Chupi Sweetman-Durney, who lives in Dublin, and Lea Giovanniello of Vienna, Va., and they have never met. Yet their workplace experiences and career paths \u2014 at a time when women still struggle with both \u2014 are a testament to what\u2019s possible. Here are their stories.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Chupi Sweetman-Durney ran away from home when she was 6. She wisely took along the duvet cover from her bed, her doll and a book. She found a nesting spot under a tree, about a half-mile from her home in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland. While her parents tracked her down in short order, it was her first overt action of independence.<\/p>\n

But it was not her last.<\/p>\n

Read on The New York Times<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

After working as a women\u2019s clothing designer for the British retailer Topshop for six years, Ms. Sweetman-Durney realized at 27 that she \u201cjust wasn\u2019t in love with it anymore,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed crazy to quit, but I wanted to create something that would last and celebrate Ireland\u2019s design history and craftsmanship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting her own business making jewelry wasn\u2019t as easy as a march down the lane to a nearby tree. \u201cThe big challenges were being young and a woman,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t taken seriously at first.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAlthough I was brought up in a family where I did not have much experience with discrimination,\u201d Ms. Sweetman-Durney said, \u201cI had faced it after landing my contract with Topshop to design women\u2019s dresses in 2005. I was refused a credit card with 500 euros of available credit, even though I had gone to the bank and shown them the contract.\u201d At the same time, her boyfriend (now her husband, Brian) was a student and was accepted for a card with a credit line five times that amount.<\/p>\n

Now 33, she runs her own successful Dublin-based jewelry business,\u00a0Chupi,<\/a>\u00a0started four years ago.<\/p>\n

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Chupi Sweetman-Durney, Photo courtesy of Chupi.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ms. Sweetman-Durney was fortunate to have a role model in her mother,\u00a0Rosita Sweetman<\/a>, an author and feminist, who was part of the\u00a0Irish Women\u2019s Liberation Movement\u00a0<\/a>in the 1970s, and raised her to believe in her ability to create. \u201cShe taught me that I could be anything I wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, Chupi expects to sell 17,000 pieces of jewelry in 64 countries, has doubled sales annually for the last three years and has grown to a staff of 22.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the business is profitable and carries no debt. \u201cWhen I was starting out, there were few people who believed that I could be creative and also be skilled at marketing, selling and running a business,\u201d Ms. Sweetman-Durney said. \u201cBut I love the business side of things. My dad\u2019s an economist, so I got the best of both worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An increasing number of women, like Ms. Sweetman-Durney, are starting businesses as a way to take control of their careers.<\/p>\n

In part female entrepreneurship is on the rise because gender equality efforts in the workplace to address issues like the salary gap and advancement to positions on corporate boards have stalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s advancement in workplaces has flatlined,\u201d said Ellen Galinsky, the president and a founder of the\u00a0Families and Work Institute<\/a>. \u201cIn the 2016 National Study of Employers<\/a>, there are fewer U.S. companies providing paid family leave, and when you look at flexibility over all, there is less part-time work than in previous reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The frustrations of the traditional workplace are palpable for women. The study\u00a0Route to t<\/a>he Top 2017<\/a>, by the executive search firm\u00a0Heidrick & Struggles<\/a>, examined the number of female chief executives in the United States, Britain, France and Germany. Of those, the United States, the study found, had the largest share of female chiefs, with about 8 percent of the top spots held by women.<\/p>\n

However, that number declined by 1 percentage point from 2015 to 2016, according to the study. The percentage rose in Britain, from 5 percent to 6 percent. France remained the same at 2 percent and Germany stayed at 1 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen have made little notable progress toward the top job in any country we studied since the inception of this research in 2011,\u201d the report\u2019s authors said.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0Global Gender Gap Report 2016<\/a>, the World Economic Forum declared that \u201cgiven the widening economic gender gap,\u201d parity between sexes \u201cwill not be closed for another 170 years,\u201d even though, in 95 countries, women attend\u00a0universities<\/a>\u00a0in equal or higher numbers than men.<\/p>\n

Time out of the work force to raise children continues to be a major barrier. A\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0from Visier, a work force analytics firm, found the gender wage gap at large United States employers widens at age 32 because that\u2019s when many women leave work to have and care for children; it\u2019s also around the age workers start to advance up the corporate ladder. While men and women hold about the same number of management positions throughout their 20s, once workers hit the age of 32, men hold a notably higher proportion of those positions. And managers earn, on average, double what nonmanagers do, according to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe discrimination is so deeply ingrained that it\u2019s very hard to dislodge whatever the realities are,\u201d Ms. Galinsky said. \u201cEducation has improved so people come in with more equality, but when they begin to have family responsibilities, even though men are taking on more, there\u2019s the attitude that if you have a family you are not committed, or you are a slacker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other workplace experts agree. \u201cThe advancement of women in business is stalled out or worse, in certain areas moving backward,\u201d said Sallie Krawcheck, chief executive of Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women; chairwoman of\u00a0Ellevate Network<\/a>; and the author of \u201cOwn It: The Power of Women at Work.\u201d \u201cAnd it has been for a period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Companies that are run by women tend to be free of the gap, Ms. Krawcheck said. For women who take time out for child rearing, or need flexibility, the problem often is not with their employer\u2019s family leave policy, she said. \u201cIt comes down to the middle manager who is making the individual miserable. When I had children, I had fantastic bosses who never questioned that I was coming back and helped me navigate through it,\u201d she said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t see gender.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the challenge of returning to work is even greater for women who stay out of the work force for extended periods of time, or who take frequent breaks to raise children. That was the case for Lea Giovanniello, 59, the Virginia woman who found that resuming a full-time job in the technology sector two years ago required hitting the books for a new degree.<\/p>\n

Ms. Giovanniello stepped away from a fast-track information technology job with Northrop Corporation. Over the course of more than two decades after she left, she taught math and science in public schools and worked in various I.T. positions at embassies and consulates where her husband was posted with the foreign service.<\/p>\n

When her children headed to college, she decided to restart her career. \u201cThe problem is that the tech field keeps moving on at a brisk pace, and my skills were out of date,\u201d Ms. Giovanniello said. \u201cWhen I started looking at the job listings, it just felt so futile. I probably sent out maybe a dozen r\u00e9sum\u00e9s and never got back so much as an automatic response.\u201d<\/p>\n

She earned a master of science degree in computer forensics from George Mason University in 2014. Then, through\u00a0FlexProfessionals<\/a>, a part-time job staffing firm, she was hired by Corsec Security, an I.T. security consulting company in Herndon, Va., as a part-time computer security engineer. Today, she\u2019s on staff as a certifications analyst.<\/p>\n

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Gwenn Rosener, co-founder of FlexProfessionals. Photo courtesy of Flexprofessionals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FlexProfessionals, based in the Washington, D.C.-metro area, was co-founded by\u00a0Gwenn Rosener<\/a>, a former $160,000-a-year Ernst & Young senior manager with an M.B.A. from Harvard who couldn\u2019t land even a decent part-time job in 2010 when she decided to stop being a stay-at-home mother. So she and two other women, who had also stepped out of the work force, started a company to help people like themselves find work.<\/p>\n

The agency appeals to the working woman \u201cwho doesn\u2019t want extremes,\u201d Ms. Rosener said. \u201cWhen talking about the working options for women, it\u2019s either the stay-at-home mom who gives up her career, or the working mom trying to juggle family and 40-plus-hour weeks. But the part-time option keeps them engaged in the work force, keeps their skills current and allows them to scale back when they need to and then scale back up when the time is right. It\u2019s is a good transition option and can be empowering for women in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurship can also be the right move for many women, as it was for Debra Dixon, 52, of Washington, who left a government position at the Education Department to start her own consulting business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say embracing change and having a passion for what I\u2019m doing has allowed me to stay as vibrant in my career as I was 10 years ago,\u201d Ms. Dixon said. \u201cThe workplace is a very competitive environment, so you have to stay ahead of the competition, look around corners and think about what the future might hold. Thinking about what I might want to be doing next, a couple of steps ahead, has always helped. You never know where the opportunities will present themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, there were an estimated 11.3 million women-owned businesses in the United States \u2014 a 45 percent increase since 2007, according to the 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses\u00a0Report<\/a>\u00a0from American Express.<\/p>\n

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Joanne Hession, owner and founder of the Entrepreneurs Academy; Photo courtesy of Entrepreneurs Academy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And the trend both in the United States and around the world shows no signs of letting up. \u201cIt has been really interesting to be involved in female entrepreneurship in Europe,\u201d said Joanne Hession, founder of the Dublin-based\u00a0Entrepreneurs Academy<\/a>. \u201cThere is no question that I have seen an explosion in terms of female entrepreneurship in Ireland and Europe more generally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong European women in their 20s, women are actively searching for a path to what they want to achieve professionally and are looking to shape their own futures \u2014 and for these women, starting their own businesses is seen as a completely acceptable solution,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One big factor is a rise in female entrepreneurship role models across Europe, according to Ms. Hession, citing Ireland\u2019s Dr. Sarah Bourke (co-founder of the space technology company Skytek) and Anne Heraty (founder of the international recruitment company Cpl Resources); Britain\u2019s Sara Murray (founder of the insurance comparison website Confused.com); France\u2019s Catherine Barba (of Cashstore and Malinea) and Germany\u2019s Delia Fischer (founder of the home furnishing website Westwing). All, she said are \u201cvisible public examples of what can be achieved by women. I don\u2019t think it is possible to overestimate the importance of having this kind of role model.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further evidence of the power to change the workplace reality for women: Two-thirds of female entrepreneurs feel they have broken through the glass ceiling but feel their challenges to achieving success are more considerable than those of their male counterparts, according to a 2017 BNP Paribas Global Entrepreneur\u00a0Report<\/a>. The ability to pursue their passions through entrepreneurial activities is a core characteristic of the women entrepreneurs interviewed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFemale entrepreneurs, particularly those over age 50, are igniting intergenerational entrepreneurship partnerships and collaborations among women of all ages,\u201d said Elizabeth Isele, founder and chief executive of the\u00a0Global Institute for Experienced Entrepreneurship<\/a>. \u201cIntergenerational partnerships between women dispel age-related stereotypes and build strong bonds across age, race and ethnicity in our increasingly diverse workplaces,\u201d Ms. Isele said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a matter of autonomy. \u201cFor me, and I think many women today, there\u2019s a need to have control over your destiny,\u201d said Ms. Sweetman-Durney, the Irish jeweler. \u201cLife is precious. It\u2019s easy to think you\u2019re not smart enough, or creative enough, to start your own business, but if I stopped every time I thought I had failed, I wouldn\u2019t have made it this far.\u201d<\/p>\n

By\u00a0KERRY HANNON<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n