"Legitimate Rape" = Disdain for Women

I try to stay out of politics in this blog, but yesterday's comments by Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin have me incensed. He's a republican. I would be equally incensed if I heard such disdain for women from the mouth of a democrat.

His original statement was this piece of inanity that has no basis in medical fact, "First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

His unapology did further damage, “In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview, and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year...Those who perpetrate these crimes are the lowest of the low in our society and their victims will have no stronger advocate in the Senate to help ensure they have the justice they deserve....I recognize that abortion, and particularly in the case of rape, is a very emotionally charged issue. But I believe deeply in the protection of all life and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action."

I'm fuming. Here's why:
Akin's depth of disdain for women is crystal clear.

1. he has empathy for the woman
2. the rapist should be punished,
3. the "innocent zygote/fetus" protected.

What's wrong with this thinking?

1. The woman is nothing but a vessel for the "innocent victim" - mean zygote/fetus. But the woman is so much more. She is a living human being who is the real innocent victim. And so I ask:
2. What about the punishment that the innocent woman goes through for 9 months - knowing that she carries the spawn of a violent violation/attack - surely the work of the devil (if you believe in such things which he purports to)?
3. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through each time the fetus kicks or turns and she's reminded of the devil's attack?
4. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through each time she has to take time off of work to visit a doctor - possibly losing income?
5. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through each time she has to consider what to do about the fetus?
6. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through each time she has to meet with agencies if she decides to adopt - possibly losing income?
7. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through each time she's debased when people think she's an "unwed mother."
8. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through when on top of dealing with the long-term mental health consequences of a devil's attack/rape, she is also dealing with the mental health consequences of an unwanted pregnancy?
9. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through when the pregnancy itself could cause her death? (A 2010 study notes that the lifetime risk of maternal deaths is greater in the United States than in 40 other countries, including virtually all industrialized nations.)
10. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through when the delivery itself could cause her death? (see above)
11. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through explaining to loved ones what happened to her and their daily reminder (through her pregnancy) of the devil's act/rape?
12. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through when she incurs the out of pocket medical expenses associated with the pregnancy and birth brought about by the devil's act/rape?
13. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through when she has to stop work at some point and the U.S. has no paid maternal leave.
14. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through if she loses her job because of her pregnancy?
15. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through when she has to spend hard earned money to accommodate the changes her body goes through during a pregnancy that she did not want brought upon by the devil's attack/rape?
16. What about the punishment the innocent woman goes through each morning that she has morning sickness or suffers from other pregnancy-related problems brought upon by the devil's attack/rape?
17. What about the innocent woman who along with a pregnancy has to deal with the debasing legal system in order to take advantage of Akin's  promise to make sure the devil/rapists get the "justice they deserve?"
18. Please add yours in the comments...

All of this applies equally to women who are victims of incest.

This has me absolutely furious and committed to bring women back into the discussion about contraceptive decisions and access to abortion - which has focused for WAY too long on the "innocent" zygote/fetus.

In Sisterhood,
Susan

Curiosity, Mars and the Final Frontier for Women's Advancement

Curiosity Exploring Mars

In the past 40 years, corporations have tackled the challenge of women's advancement by working diligently on two fronts.

1. They have worked on the women. They help women set career goals and tell them what skills they need to enhance in order to get ahead - leadership, self-promotion, negotiation and more. 
2. They have worked on corporate practices and policies. Instituting open job posting, mentoring programs, flexible work, day care options, maternity leave options and more.

And they've gotten each of these areas about 66% right. As a result, women have made great strides into middle management. But they have not made great strides into senior leadership. One reason is what I call The Missing 33%™.

The Final Frontier

This week's landing on Mars by the ship Curiosity suggests this fitting metaphor for what hasn't happened in organizations since the early years of the feminist movement. Companies have shied away from the final frontier - i.e. helping/requiring managers to understand how the mindsets they hold can negatively influence talent decisions about women. And to take action to stop the negative consequences of their mindsets. 

Most companies have avoided doing this work in spite of repeated studies such as the recent McKinsey report that said,

“Of all the forces that hold women back…none are as powerful as entrenched beliefs. While companies have worked hard to eliminate overt discrimination, women still face the pernicious force of mindsets that limit opportunity…."

In other words, the mindsets that people managers hold have a subtle and gradual negative effect on women’s careers. 

We've been tracking over a dozen mindsets that wreck havoc with women's careers. Many of them (such as the culture of merit versus culture of self-promotion) have been turned into advice for women to change (e.g. get better at self-promotion). But this is only half of the solution - and we've seen after decades of this advice handed out generously that it hasn't solved the problem. The other half of the solution is to ensure that managers understand how their seemingly neutral (and in some cases benevolent) mindsets negatively impact women. Even though barriers to women's advancement are now semi-permeable membranes as opposed to glass ceilings, mindsets act to filter men through much more easily than women. 

Exploring the Final Frontier

Here's an example of what I mean. I worked with an executive team responsible for over 30,000 employees worldwide facilitating a discussion about actions they could take to minimize the adverse impact of mindsets on women's advancement. During the discussion, one of the women made the point that trust was very important to her in selecting candidates. A few minutes later, one of the men made this observation,

"Trust is very important for me, too. Trust is earned when I've known someone over time. What I just realized is that when I was in engineering school, there were no women in my classes. So that means that there are no women that I consider among the pool of trusted colleagues that I look to for candidates."

In his case, this seemingly neutral mindset - trust is important - has a substantially adverse impact on women's advancement. Luckily he realized it and will be able to consciously act to remedy the impact.

Recently Catalyst reported that a more inclusive culture can be achieved when white men are engaged as champions of inclusion. At Leading Women, we've begun to see the concrete impact of the gender dynamics work we're doing with women and men from around the globe. If the feedback from the diverse executive team cited above is any indication, their exploration of mindsets/gender dynamics will make a significant difference.

Is your company curious about or exploring the final frontier of women's advancement? Or, do you have similar initiatives underway? Please let me know.

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls and Make the Most of Mentoring.
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New Zealand Ahead...and Yet So Far to Go

During my recent trip to New Zealand, Jennifer, a senior HR executive said, “The U.S. is definitely ahead of where we are as far as women in senior leadership and business." And her comment is typical. Not long ago the NZ Census of Women’s Participation wrote,

"The corporate sector remains an embarrassment for New Zealand in terms of diversity of governance, at a time when women are increasingly consumers, customers, clients, employers, employees and investors," the report says…It is perplexing that boardroom doors are shut to women at a time when global business requires transformation."

When I talked with businesswomen in New Zealand they told me that women in the U.S. are ahead of them in terms of access to senior positions. This raised for me this interesting question, how did the country that was first in giving women the vote not rocket ahead on women in business? It’s especially intriguing because the nation has twice elected women to the position of prime minister.

Through the efforts of Kate Sheppard (image above), New Zealand became the first self-governing country to give women the vote. It happened in 1893!  Approximately 100 years later, the nation was led by two women - from 1997 when Jennifer Mary Shipley was elected as Prime Minister until November 2008 when Helen Clark stepped down. In the early 21st century New Zealand women have held other of the country’s key constitutional positions: governor-general, speaker of the House of Representatives, attorney-general and chief justice.

Today, the idea that women could not or should not be active in government is completely foreign to New Zealanders. In 2012, 32% of Members of Parliament are female, compared with 17% in today’s U.S. congress.

While they're far ahead of the U.S. in political representation, only 9.3% of companies listed on the NZX have women on their boards. That’s not the percentage of women on boards, it’s the percent of companies with women on their boards! 

As a contrast, nearly 85% of FORTUNE companies have women on their boards. A group of women (25%) and men who are high level corporate leaders have banded together in a bid to increase this number to 25 per cent by the end of 2015.

Women in each country have much to teach and much to learn about representation in positions of power.

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls and Make the Most of Mentoring.
Follow her on Twitter |  LittlePinkBook  |  Facebook  |  Google+  |  LinkedInGroup |  LinkedIn