Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we think Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• According to The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything, 40% of families mothers are the major breadwinners. Some other fun facts - 32 women have served as governors, 38 have served as senators, and 4 out of 8 Ivy League presidents are now women. Despite these stats, NY Times contributor Joanne Lipman argues that women's gains in the working world have stalled.
• Do career women make bad wives? According to a 2006 article in Forbes Magazine, research suggests that yes they. The author, Michael Noer, pointed out research that suggested that "career women" aka women who work more than 35 hours a week are "more likely to divorce, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, are more likely to be unhappy about it". A new article by Suzanne Venker revisits this research in an article here.
• The face of home economics in high schools is changing to become more career focused. The subject which used to prep future housewives has started to veer towards prepping all students with "contemporary world skills". At a high school outside Houston, students can take teach training classes or architectural design. At a school in Wisconsin, students take advanced food science class while a school in Florida has a fashion design option. [Associated Press]
• Is the recession harder on women or men? Some argue men since men have lost more jobs than women, but some experts say women are getting the brunt of it since working women are delaying have children or planning for smaller families because of financial burdens created by the recession. A study conducted by Citi revealed that 53% of working women indiciated that they work longer hours now to make ends meet and while women may make up 45% of the workforce, they only collect 38% of the wages paid. [Reuters]