New Girls' Network

Kudos to The New York Times for commissioning an article on why there are so few women in science. Author Eileen Pollack suggests two reasons. Citing her own experience as an undergraduate at Yale, she argues that women doubt themselves, and need to be encouraged more to pursue science careers: “The most powerful determinant of whether a woman goes […]

Earlier this week, I was in a meeting with a professor when the issue of women’s advancement in the professional world came up. I was in the process of making some vague, general statement when she suddenly asked: “Have things gotten worse?” It turned out that she had recently spoken with a student who was worried […]

Co-written with Katherine Ullman. So you or your partner is pregnant. There are plenty of important decisions to consider: what will be the little one’s name? Will you share the name with friends and family or keep it a secret? What about gender? Do you want to know? Do you want others to know? Will […]

Expectant mothers risk losing their jobs, their babies, or both when employers deny them pregnancy accommodations at work – accommodations as modest as the right to carry a water bottle due to persistent pregnancy-related urinary tract infections or the right to take more frequent bathroom breaks due to nausea. “We don’t pay you to pee,” […]

Three cheers for Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues in Congress, who rolled out their new economic agenda for women and families on Thursday! Children’s storybook characters “often inhabit a bygone, male breadwinner-female homemaker era.” Eager to appeal to women voters, male politicians are shooting campaign ads in their kitchens. The results? Mixed. Techies and attorneys, […]

I’m fortunate to work at a company that offers flexible working arrangements, and since the birth of my first child, I’ve worked from home part-time. I’m still a committed employee producing high caliber work, but I’m being given less challenging assignments, and my supervisor no longer discusses the possibility of advancement with me. I really […]

Steve Tobak, a Silicon Valley consultant, reassured his Fox Business audience that “The Gender Pay Gap is a Myth,” recycling a 2009 report commissioned by the Bush Department of Labor arguing that women’s choices, not discrimination, account for the wage gap between men and women. Next week is the anniversary of the signing of the […]

On April 4, 2013, the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis hosted the inaugural New Girls’ Network event, “Finding Your Voice.” The event included an interview with famed opera star Renée Fleming, a panel discussion with Vernā Myers, Sheli Rosenberg, and Michele Coleman Mayes, and an interview of Pfizer Inc. General Counsel Amy Schulman and Pfizer Inc. […]

In a snarky article, the newspaper of record confirms what we already know: Kate Middleton is pregnant. She’s so nauseated that she’s in the hospital on an intravenous drip. She’s just lucky she’s not an American gal. U.S. employers regularly fire pregnant women when they need modest accommodations to keep doing their jobs. When women become […]

Advice literature for women is a crowded field and a predictable one. Most advice falls into one of two camps. Man up! The most common advice assumes that women’s problem is that they need to act more like men. Men tend to negotiate harder, act more confident, and go after plum assignments that will require them to stretch and swagger. […]