Inventions by Women
(Thanks to Peter Hart)
The Car Heater
We all owe our thanks to Margaret A Wilcox who invented the car heater in 1893. (Margaret also invented a combined clothes washer/dishwasher.)
Monopoly
This popular board game was designed by Elizabeth Magie in 1904, originally called the Landlord’s Game. The purpose of this game was to expose the injustices of unchecked capitalism. Her game was ripped off by Charles Darrow who sold it to Parker Brother’s 30 years later. However, Parker Brothers later paid Elizabeth $500 for her game.
The Fire Escape
The fire escape was invented by Anna Connelly in 1887.
865,000 women left the workforce last month compared to 216,000 men. Of the women who dropped out of work last month, 324,000 were Latinas and 58,000 were Black women.
For more than a decade, women have represented about 55% of the total number of college graduates. [19th News 10/2/20]
A study was conducted of medical conference programs from March 2017 to November 2018 across 20 specialties in Australasia, Canada, Europe, the UK, and the United States.
A total of 8535 sessions (panels and invited lectures) with 23,400 speakers across 98 conferences were identified. Women accounted for 7064 (30.1%) of speakers. 1981 of 5409 panels (36.6%) consisted of men only and 363 (6.7%) consisted of women only. The proportion of women speakers varied by region and specialty from 5.8% to 74.5%. [JAMA Network 9/28/20]
Women are leaving the workforce at higher rates than men largely because of the ongoing caregiving crisis women face. Mothers are twice as likely as fathers to be responsible for a majority of housework and childcare during Covid-10. Many senior-level women, who are more likely than women at other levels in corporate America to be mothers, are feeling burned out from the overwhelming demands at work and at home.
According to Sheryl Sandberg, “…mothers are spending 20 more hours a week on household and childcare during coronavirus than fathers. Twenty more hours a week is half of a full-time job.”
For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 85 women are promoted at the same rate. For Latina and Black women, this disparity is even larger with just 58 Black women and 71 Latinas being promoted to manager for every 100 men. [Make it – CNBC.com 9/30/2020]
At the start of 2020, the representation of women in corporate America was trending in the right direction. Between January 2015 and January 2020, representation of women in senior vice president positions grew from 23 to 28% and representation in the C-suite grew from 17 to 21%.
Since the pandemic, mothers who are part of a dual-career couple are twice as likely as fathers in a dual-career couple to spend five more hours a day on chores.
Mothers, and particularly mothers with young children, are far more likely to consider leaving the workforce entirely.
Senior-level women are under the same pressure to perform right now as senior-level men, and then some. Women are often held to higher performance standards then men and they may be more likely to take the blame for failure – so when the stakes are high, as they are now, senior-level women could face higher criticism and harsher judgement.
38% of senior-level women currently mentor or sponsor one or more women of color, compared to 23% of senior-level men.
Senior-level women are nearly twice as likely as women overall to be “onlys”, the only or one of the only women in the room at work. Women who are “onlys” are more likely than women who work with other women to feel pressure to work more and more likely to experience microaggressions, including needing to provide additional evidence of their competence. [Women in the Workplace 2020/McKinsey & Company 9/30/20]
Compared to 2016, in 2020 city leaders in America’s 100 largest cities are less likely to be white men.
19% of the population of in America’s largest 100 cities are white men. In 2016, they held 42% of city elected offices. In 2020, they hold 36% of city elected offices.
There has been 17% increase in the number of women holding elected public office.
Women increased their share of elected office in 49 of the 100 largest cities.
51% of the population, women, are fairly reflected in the governments of 23 of America’s largest cities. In 77 of these cities, men dominate government.
In 45 of America’s largest cities, men hold two-thirds of elected seats. Cities included in this group are Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. [Reflective Democracy Campaign, WhoLeads.Us 9/20]