As someone who has been in the business world for most of my career, I am always interested in the topic of why there are so few women running companies or starting high-growth companies. So this article in Business Week, about the dearth of women entrepreneurs, caught my attention.

The author cites a few non-surprising statistics:

No woman has ever been CEO of a Wall Street firm.

Women were primary owners of only 19% of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004.

I say non-surprising because I am well aware of how few women hold top positions in business and finance. During my five years in venture capital, I ran across very few women who held senior positions in other firms and got used to scanning networking events for one or two women in the sea of make suits.

When people talk or write about why more women aren’t don’t hold top positions in business, there are common themes that emerge:
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A friend sent me a link to this great articlewritten by a busy working mom who goes out to try and test out a theory that working mothers have 30 hours of leisure time each week. Apparently John Robinson, a sociologist who has made a career of time studies, claims that even though many more moms now work than a few decades ago, we still have 30 hours of leisure time each week.

This sounded insanely wrong to me when I read it and (sorry to give away the punch line) the article’s author didn’t find her 30 weekly hours either, even aftertracking how she spends her time. It was funny to read some of her observations and realize that many of us crazy busy working moms think of things similarly. For example, she described her 30 minutes of exercise a day as leisure time. I do the same for my time at the gym. But c’mon, is it really leisure? John Robinson disagrees, and if I am honest about it, so do I. It IS something I am doing for me, but it’s not relaxing in the same way that a leisurely walk or a few hours reading can be.
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I was fascinated to read this article in the New York Times suggesting that the rise of women breadwinners has led to happier and more stable marriages. According to the Pew Research Center report, in 22% of couples women are now the main breadwinners, up from 7% in 1970. And in 1/3 of all couples women are better educated than their husbands.

First of all, wow. Second of all, according to the New York Times article, this gender role reversal is having a surprising effect — it’s making marriages happier.

Here are some interesting points from the article that support the idea that when both the wife and the husband work, their marriage is more stable:
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When my daughter was born I was determined to breastfeed her for at least six months. I’d read that this is what’s recommended and that there is some good evidence that it will help build up her defenses against some unpleasant stuff later, like ear infections and meningitis. So even though breastfeeding turned out to be painful and rather unpleasant for me, I stuck to it for the first three months. (No, it didn’t help that too many people, including my wonderful but not extremely understanding mom claimed to be shocked that breastfeeding could be unpleasant, making me feel like I was missing out on some magic bonding experience with my kiddo.)

After three months my maternity leave was over and I went back to work. By this time I’d already been using the breast pump so I decided to give regular breast pumping a go to see if I could make it to my six month mark. It was really annoying and really challenging — by the end, each pumping session was taking more than half an hour for me to get enough milk for a feeding — but I made it.

I felt really proud of myself but I was also fully aware that I was in a privileged situation. My company paid for a three-month maternity leave, which is not common by any means in the US. At work, I had a large private office in which I could pump, instead of having to do it in the bathroom, as many of my friends were forced to do. I had a schedule flexible enough to find time to pump and no one at work, including my boss, ever questioned why I needed three half hour breaks during the day.
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I don’t hate my job. But c’mon, it is a job, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t find something annoying or frustrating or tiring or boring or really depressing about their work. There are definitely days when I bitch endlessly or complain or envision myself in another work environment, minus anything that is annoying me at my job at the moment. We all do this.

Except lately I’ve been feeling really guilty and naive any time I think negatively about my job. With 10% unemployment, millions of people are out of work who would probably be very happy with my job or any job, for that matter. It feels petty to complain about a gossipy colleague when a friend has just been laid off or to wish I had a more creative work environment when another friend has been looking for work for a year.

But the reality is that those of us who are working often do dislike — or, in the most extreme cases, hate — our jobs. I’ve written here before about reasons why you might not want to quite a job you hate. And if you choose to stick it out, you have to find a way to survive without becoming completely miserable. Because spending a huge chunk of your day miserable is 1. horrible, 2. not productive, and 3. just not fun. Here’s an article I read recently with some helpful (although a bit simplistic, if you ask me) tips about how to survive a job you hate.

Some highlights:
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Over the past few months I’ve had many conversations with friends about where we are in our careers and there seems to be a consistent theme for everyone: Uncertainty. Some are not sure they are doing what they really care or are interested about. Some are questioning the intensity of their work schedules. A few of my friends are completely re-envisioning what they want to be doing with their lives, including dramatically changing careers. I think partly this is due to age — we’re all in our mid 30s/40s and it’s the time to re-evaluate where we are in life and career. I also think the economic crisis of the last year is giving lots of people pause about what it means to have a job and what type of job they want to have.

As for me, it’s a little tough to describe where I am, career-wise, but for the sake of full disclosure, I will try. I’ve been working for almost 12 years now (wow, that seems kind of long) and have had tried three different — but very much related — career paths: Consulting, venture capital, and small tech start-ups. Each one taught me a ton and each one had things about it that I absolutely loved and absolutely hated. Overall, I do feel that I’ve discovered several things that I love to do, professionally, and that in itself I consider lucky since I know many older people who still say they are not sure what they’d like to do, job-wise.
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I’ve stopped making New Year’s resolutions a while ago but this year I am changing my mind and making one. Just one.

It has nothing to do with fitting into a smaller jean size or eating less sugar (although I’m proud to say that I significantly cut down on my sugar consumption in 2009 and now even drink my lattes without any sweetner or sugar and love them). It is a rather selfish resolution because it doesn’t involve working towards world peace or saving the environment. But at the same time, one of the reasons I am making it is that I am pretty sure that it will hugely benefit my family, my friends, and other people around me.

My resolution has to do with something we all do, every single day, so partly it feels silly to even be making it. But I’ve failed miserably at sticking to it for the past several years and I can think of nothing better than to write about it so it can stare me in the face and remind me that it’s something I need to do.

So here goes, my one and only resolution for 2010:
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Many of my colleagues are taking the next two weeks off. After all, for just a few vacation days you get two full weeks off, including the holidays. I was thinking whether it was a mistake to not do this myself since I am fairly certain that disconnecting from work and de-compressing for a while would be a very good idea.

But you know what? As weird as this might sound, I actually like being at work during these two weeks. It’s not like a real vacation, of course, but there is naturally a lot less intense work and I find that I can be a lot more productive since it’s quiet and there are less emails, meetings and phone calls. I get to finally cross things off my to-do list which are not urgent enough to get done when it’s filled with many to-dos screaming to get done first. I get to catch up with colleagues who are also in the office and actually have a real conversation without having to rush to a meeting.

And yes, I get to have luxuriously long lunches that don’t involve scarfing down something at my desk while catching up on emails and even go out for an afternoon latte without bringing my phone along. I know, I know, I have a fairly low bar for what I find relaxing, but compared to the usual daily insanity the workdays during the holiday weeks are just what the doctor ordered. Especially because these two work weeks are wonderfully short.

So, what about you: Are you taking the next two weeks off or are you working? If you have to work, do you find that this time is more relaxed and less intense than usual or do you hate having to work? Any fun things you’re planning to sneak into your work days during the holidays?

My dad’s and grandma’s birthdays are during the first week of December, so our gift-finding and gift-giving frenzy starts really early every holiday season. (It’s all pretty stressful, if you ask me, even with the few ways in which I’ve decided to fight holiday-related stress this year.)

My husband and I have this agreement — which we break pretty often — to go light on gifts for each other. We figured this removes at least some stress from the whole December insanity and we usually get things for each other during the year, so it’s not like we have to concentrate all gift giving in December. But this year I am getting some extra gifts… from myself. Yes, you read that right. I’ve decided that I deserve a few small things that I really enjoy and there’s no better way to get them than to get them for myself. Frankly, I think every woman should buy herself gifts more often, but especially while we’re running around and getting gifts for everyone else.

So here are some things on my list of small treats just for me:
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If you have a few minutes, you should check out the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce from the Families and Work Institute. It has some pretty awesome and interesting statistics about the roles men and women play at work and in their families and how their various perceptions of traditional gender roles have shifted (and in some cases, changed dramatically) in the past decade.

First the good news: There is decreasing disparity between what men and women get paid for doing the same work. Many fewer men and women than ten years ago think that the best way for a family to function is for the woman to stay home. Fathers are spending more time with their children (and so are mothers, although the difference is less dramatic) and they are taking more responsibility for the care of their children (according to them and their wives).

This all pretty much rocks.
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