The Fix

Technology adoption could displace millions from their jobs; many others will need to change the way they work. Globally, 40 million to 160 million women may need to transition between occupations by 2030, often into higher-skilled roles. If they make these transitions, women could find more productive, better paid work; if they don’t, they could face a growing wage gap or leaving the labor market...

More women and girls are experiencing stress, anxiety, and other mental health impacts as a result of the pandemic. Experts warn that this could have devastating long-term impacts. In September, the nonprofit organization Care released findings from a study investigating 10,000 men and women's experiences of mental health across 40 countries. The findings show that 27% of women had reported increa...

The number of people incarcerated in America today is more than four times larger than it was in 1980. The criminal justice system disproportionately impacts poor and Black men and women. The experiences of women — as well as trans and nonbinary people — are too often lost, because men comprise the vast majority of the incarcerated population. Research is shedding light on the injustices faced by...

According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, four times more women than men dropped out of the labor force in September 2020. This is having a detrimental impact on women’s financial health. Research shows that the gender savings gap has widened as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic with women now having a third less saved. More women than men are relying on previous savings to cover e...

When millions of U.S. office workers were sent to work from home in March to curb the spread of the coronavirus, employers did something few have done successfully at scale — they sent corporate culture home with them. For several weeks in the spring, office professionals banded together to adjust to a new way of living and working online. But as weeks of remote work have stretched into months, it...

Last weekend, Kamala Harris made history when she became America's first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president-elect, representing a new face of political power. The California senator's history-making win also represents the millions of women in the demographics -- often overlooked, historically underrepresented, and systematically ignored -- who are now the recipients of that...

Americans – Generation Z (“Gen Z”). Born after 1996, most members of this generation are not yet old enough to vote, but as the oldest among them turn 23 this year, roughly 24 million will have the opportunity to cast a ballot in November. And their political clout will continue to grow steadily in the coming years, as more and more of them reach voting age. Members of Gen Z are more racially and...

A survey released this month by Women Who Tech, which includes responses from 1,003 tech employees, founders, and investors, globally found that nearly 50% of women founders and women working in tech have experienced harassment — a statistic that has barely budged since 2017. When asked what kind of sexual harassment, 65% of women founders said they were propositioned for sex. In addition: • 59% o...

If you are committed to tackling inequality, racism, sexism, classism, ableism, at some point in undertaking this work, you will realize that the work begins with each of us. We have to address our own racist and sexist beliefs on a daily basis, with the curiosity and compassion needed to transform these beliefs. Today’s episode is a special one that features Benjamin Mertz, a composer, performer,...

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, emerging data and reports from those on the front lines, have shown that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified. Isolation makes the situation worse, as women and girls are more vulnerable, because of a lack of established social support systems. The temporary shutdown of non-essential businesses has led to une...

There is growing research demonstrating how ineffective unconscious bias training is. A longitudinal study found that traditional diversity trainings are the least effective efforts in increasing numbers of underrepresented minorities, while experimental research has shown that presenting evidence that people commonly rely on stereotypes — information often found in diversity trainings — isn’t hel...

Imposter syndrome was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes. In their paper, they theorized that women were uniquely affected by imposter syndrome. Since then, research has shown that both men and women experience imposter feelings, and Clance published a later paper acknowledging that impostor syndrome is not limited to women. On this episode, Rita Clifton...

Today, employees must manage both a virtual workplace and a work environment at home. This takes different types of skills, like online collaboration, delegation, and time management. For leaders, the primary concern is how to ensure engagement, wellbeing, and inclusion in a virtual work environment. Employee engagement is critical to enabling creativity, innovation, problem-solving, productivity,...

In 2018, Uber Founder Travis Kalanick stepped down as CEO following a number of public scandals, which revealed the toxic organizational culture. Studies show that 40% of women with engineering degrees quit or never enter the profession, with the vast majority leaving due to hostile work environments. But how do so many young tech companies develop these types of toxic atmospheres and what can we...

Women who might have been considered for leadership roles often find that their dedication and capability are called into question as they approach motherhood. Simply being at a point in life where society assumes that women might want to have children can stall their career progression. Motherhood is a clear sign women are betraying the ideal worker standard. When women go on maternity leave, ret...

Today, companies want you to believe that they are not just selling a car, shampoo, or a pair of jeans, but rather they are fighting for gender and racial equality in an attempt to connect with millennials who are willing to spend more money on socially conscious products. Brands have started using progressive values as a marketing ploy and are appropriating social activism as a form of advertisin...

Perfectionism, the need to look, act and be perceived in an ideal way is on the rise. As many as two in five kids and adolescents are perfectionists. But, perfectionism is not so much about how you behave and more about how you think about yourself. The beauty industry has traditionally been one of the worst offenders for embellishing reality and selling women idealised and restrictive forms of pe...

The first unemployment wave in the United States due to the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women. When the pandemic first hit in March, over 700,000 people lost their jobs and nearly 60% of them were women, according to the United States Labor Department. Not much has changed since then. More than 36 million Americans are now unemployed, and women and minorities have been the ha...

The deaths and disappearances of women and girls in Juarez, which sits adjacent to El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, and in other parts of Mexico had once dominated international headlines. But in recent years, attention had evaporated. That all changed earlier this year with the murder of Isabel Cabanillas, a young female artist and activist in the Mexican border city of Juarez. Isabel w...

People are disabled by the barriers they encounter in society, and not by their differences. By viewing it in this way, we can begin to tackle ableism and start to identify all the barriers that prevent people with impairments from having equal opportunities in life. Creating equality and valuing each other in the same way begins with how we view the problem. On today’s episode, we will be hearing...

We all know that the COVID-19 virus is spreading at an alarming rate, but fear and panic can spread even faster. Fortunately, there are steps we can take right now to boost our emotional response to the never ending anxiety, fear and panic created by this pandemic. Research finds that we tend to be influenced by other peoples’ behaviors and emotions and we might even copy them. While this might no...

In order to break down systemic barriers that exist in the technology and venture capital industry, it is important to understand the core challenges that ultimately set the stage for why Black founders receive less than 1% of venture capital.  This week’s guest is Dave Jakubowski, co-founder of Ureeka, an online community that connects small to mid-sized underrepresented business owners to peers,...

In the United States, women make up 47% of the total workforce. But professional female pilots constitute five percent of the piloting workforce, a statistic that has remained unmoved in four decades. Compared to other STEM fields and “traditionally” male-dominated industries, aviation has one of the lowest percentages of women. There are mentors, scholarships, conferences, magazines and organizat...

Managing a remote workforce is not as simple as telling everyone they can work from home. In fact, companies have been trying this for a long time and failing badly. Jodi Geddes co-founder of Circle In, which helps companies to support working parents, will be joining us on this episode to discuss results from a new online global survey her company undertook. The study finds that COVID-19 has chan...

Despite glaring evidence that diversity and inclusion (D&I) should be a priority amidst the global pandemic, the latest McKinsey Report "Diversity wins: How Inclusion Matters" report finds that some organizations and leaders have pulled back their efforts, stating that diversity and inclusion is a “luxury they cannot afford.” This kind of logic makes it clear that some leaders still fail to unders...