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DDP Talks To

"The Devil Ties My Tongue" by Amy Seiwert performed for the SKETCH Series, 2013. Photo by David DeSilva. Courtesy of Amy Seiwert's Imagery

Examining other art forms with historic issues in hiring women: theater, symphonic/classical music, opera. Also including more contemporary fields: lack of women in country music, hip hop, contemporary pop music, and other genres.

Who’s Fighting for Gender Equity in Classical Music?

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By ELIZABETH NONEMAKER

August 2019

Data on the gender split among professional orchestra performers offers a more complex view of the situation. At first glance, the numbers are encouraging: In 2018, 48 percent of players in orchestras represented by the League of American Orchestras were women, a vast improvement from orchestras of the past. However, positions for brass, percussion and some wind instruments – not to mention principal positions – are disproportionately occupied by men. 

But we can also look to those numbers for encouragement: They show us that gender parity can at least be improved. One reason for the increase of women in orchestras since the 1970s has been the implementation of blind auditions. Another? Increased social acceptance and visibility of women in roles from which they have been historically excluded. 

Making classical music a more equitable place demands a cultural change – and cultural changes don’t happen without conversation and action. Just in the past five or so years, there has been an explosion in initiatives working to address the gender disparity in classical music. Here are some of our favorites.

Read the full article on DePauw POP Picks.

New York Times: In the #MeToo Era, Museums Celebrate Women

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By Kerry Hannon

23 October 2019

WASHINGTON — Her somber gaze is direct, and in her lap, she firmly holds a book.

The circa 1855 daguerreotype portrait of Lucy Stone, the suffragist and abolitionist, is powerful in its simplicity. Not surprisingly, Ms. Stone’s mission was incited by the inequality in a society that discouraged women from becoming educated.

The image is part of “Women of Progress: Early Camera Portraits,” an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, one of several major exhibitions in the nation’s capital that celebrate women — from the battle for voting rights, spurred by the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, to artworks by feminist icons who embody the challenging issues of their epochs.

“Considering the longstanding imbalance in museum prerogatives, a convergence of exhibitions addressing women — as artists, as activists, as historical figures — is notable,” said Susan Fisher Sterling, the director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Wall Street Journal: Where Women Fall Behind at Work: The First Step Into Management

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By Vanessa Fuhrmans

15 October 2019

The conventional narrative of the ambitious woman at work goes something like this: Woman joins the workforce with big dreams. Over the years, she advances in her career alongside male colleagues. Yet on the way to the top, she hits an invisible barrier to the highest corridors of power.

Long before bumping into any glass ceiling, many women run into obstacles trying to grasp the very first rung of the management ladder—and not because they are pausing their careers to raise children—a new, five-year landmark study shows. As a result, it’s early in many women’s careers, not later, when they fall dramatically behind men in promotions, blowing open a gender gap that then widens every step up the chain.

The numbers tell a stark story: Though women and men enter the workforce in roughly equal numbers, men outnumber women nearly 2 to 1 when they reach that first step up—the manager jobs that are the bridge to more senior leadership roles. In real numbers, that will translate to more than one million women across the U.S. corporate landscape getting left behind at the entry level over the next five years as their male peers move on and upward, perpetuating a shortage of women in leadership positions.

Few efforts are likely to remedy the problem as much as tackling the gender imbalance in initial promotions into management, says Lareina Yee, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co., which co-led the research with LeanIn.Org. If companies in the U.S. continue to make the same, tiny gains in the numbers of women they promote and hire into management every year, it will be another 30 years before the gap between first-level male and female managers closes, McKinsey estimates. But fix that broken bottom rung of the corporate ladder, and companies could reach near-parity all the way up to their top leadership roles within a generation.

Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.

Photo by Liza Voll. Courtesy of Boston Ballet.

Boston Ballet Continues Its ChoreograpHER Initiative Next Week

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The Opening Night of Boston Ballet’s 2019 ChoreograpHER initiative showing will be next Wednesday, October 23 at the Boston Ballet Headquarters.

DDP Founder Liza Yntema will be in Boston to celebrate this special program dedicated to showcasing and championing the work of emerging female choreographers (for the second year in a row).

In early 2019, DDP featured Boston Ballet principal dancer and inaugural ChoreograpHER artist Lia Cirio on our blog. This would be Lia’s first attempt at creating a work. Her piece, Sta(i)r(e)s, was well-received by the Boston audience, and its creation signified a leader among dancers stepping into a role often encouraged only for men at other companies.

To The Globe, artistic director Mikko Nissinen said, “’The best way to help is to provide an opportunity.” The initial showings last year were sold out with, for the first time ever, six women choreographers featured in a performance.

Learn more about ChoreograpHER here.

DDP Founder and President Liza Yntema is a Lead Sponsor of ChoreograpHER.

Chicago Sun Times: Women are having a greater impact on NBA than ever before

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17 October 2019

Practice is over and Boston Celtics assistant coach Kara Lawson is still working.

She stands under the basket rebounding and giving feedback to rookie guard Carsen Edwards as he shoots from different spots on the court. After swishing his final three attempts he jogs over to her.

“Thanks, coach,” Edwards says before exchanging a high-five with Lawson.

Welcome to the new-look NBA, in which women’s footprints are directly impacting every aspect of the game — from broadcasting booths, to officiating, coaching on the sidelines, front-office executives to ownership.

Lawson is one of a record 11 women serving as assistant coaches in the NBA this season. While former WNBA star Swin Cash and Sue Bird are working in NBA front offices.

“It’s not a fad,” said Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman. “It’s opportunities going to very accomplished women who have given their life to the game.”

While it may not be a fad, it is a recent trend.

Read the full article in The Chicago Sun Times.

ABC News: How Australian theatre rebalanced its gender disparity

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By Jane Howard

12 April 2019

In 2009, director Neil Armfield stood on the stage at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre and announced, for his swansong season as artistic director of the company he co-founded, a season of shows almost exclusively written and directed by men.

It was a moment that prompted considerable scrutiny of industry-wide gender disparity.

In that year, at the eight best-funded Australian theatre companies — members of the Major Performing Arts Group (MPAG) — just 24 per cent of plays were written by women, and 24 per cent were directed by women. A staggering 86 per cent of productions had at least one man as writer or director.

But in the decade since, something remarkable has happened. The balance has shifted.

In 2019, women will make up 47 per cent of playwrights and 58 per cent of directors at MPAG theatre companies. And, for the first time ever, more of these productions will have at least one woman in a lead creative role (67 per cent) than at least one man (60 per cent).

Read more in ABC Arts.

DW: #MeToo and more — five hashtags for equality

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1. #MeToo — accusations overrun Hollywood

On October 5, 2017, film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment in a New York Times article. 10 days later, US actress Alyssa Milano urged women to write “me too” in answer to her post on Twitter if they, too, had experienced sexual harassment. This was the birth of the #MeToo movement, a worldwide debate about the sexual abuse of power.

2. #Aufschrei — Germany discusses sexism

Germany was in the midst of a heated debate on sexism as early as 2013, when a journalist wrote about an encounter with a German politician who stared at her breasts, and told her she could easily “fill a dirndl.” A German feminist immediately started the hashtag #aufschrei (outcry), and tens of thousands of women responded, sharing their experiences with everyday sexism. The issue found its way into the established media and politics, the first time ever that a hastag has had such clout in Germany.

Read the full list on DW.

Ruling Our Experiences: RESEARCH RELEASED TODAY SHOWS: GIRLS’ UNDERREPRESENTATION IN STEM CAREERS IS DRIVEN BY A LACK OF CONFIDENCE

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COLUMBUS (October 11, 2018) – On the International Day of the Girl, Ruling Our eXperiences, Inc. (ROX) reveals new findings related to adolescent girls and careers from a national survey of more than 10,000 girls. The largest study of its kind,  The Girls’ Index™: New Insights into the Complex World of Today’s Girls, provides a deeper understanding of the factors related to girls’ abilities, perceptions and aspirations for their futures.

The findings from this new report entitled, Girls, STEM and Careers: Decoding Girls’ Futures in an Age of Social Media, were released today at Intuit Headquarters in Mountain View, CA as part of this year’s International Day of the Girl celebration.

“The revelations contained in this research study effectively reframe the conversation and highlight the opportunities ahead as we empower the next generation of women leaders to take their seat at the table,” said Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit. “In a world where an understanding of STEM is quickly becoming table stakes, building confidence and capability in girls that their contributions measure up and matter is critical to their individual and our collective success. At Intuit, we have benefited greatly from talented women leading our company at every level, from the board room to our front lines, and we are champions of the important work that Ruling Our eXperiences (ROX) is driving to increase the pipeline of interested and capable girls in pursuit of their dreams.”

Learn more about this report on ROX.

New York Times: Countable on One Hand: The Women Leading Power Five Athletic Departments

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By Alan Blinder

13 September 2019

PITTSBURGH — The first three games of Pittsburgh’s football season wouldn’t seem like an exhibit of social change: a conference game against Virginia, a home matchup with Ohio and the 100th round of a rivalry with Penn State.

But when Heather Lyke, Pitt’s athletic director, scrutinized the schedule, she noticed something beyond big matchups: The Panthers’ first three opponents were Division I universities where women were in charge of sports.

“That will probably never happen again in my career,” Lyke said in her office last month, her tone at once elated and a little longing.

The coincidental scheduling streak is a sign of the begrudging progress made in elevating women into the executive suites of American sports. Its rarity is also a reminder of a sustained disparity: Of the 65 colleges in the nation’s five wealthiest and most powerful sports conferences, only four have women leading the athletic department.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Metrics Matter: How You Select Determines Outcome – Forbes Should Listen to Its Own Reporters

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UPWORTHY: Forbes’ 100 Most Innovative Leaders list includes 99 men. Here’s how their methodology was flawed

By Annie Reneau

12 September 2019

The fine folks at Forbes are currently falling all over themselves trying to clean up the mess they created by publishing their 2019 list of 100 Most Innovative Leaders.

via Twitter/Forbes

The problem: The list included 99 men and one woman. For those not so good with the math, that means according to Forbes, only 1% of the country’s most innovative leaders are female.

Have you ever watched a movie that’s so abysmally bad that you wonder how it ever even got made? Where you think, “Hundreds and hundreds of people had to have been directly involved in the production of this film. Did any of them ever think to say, ‘Hey, maybe we should just scrap this idea altogether?”

That’s how it feels to see a list like this. So how did Forbes come up with these results?

Let’s start with the description at the top of the published list, synopsizing who compiled the list and how:

“Business school professors Jeff Dyer, Nathan Furr and Mike Hendron teamed up with consultant Curtis Lefrandt to measure four essential leadership qualities of top founders and CEOs: media reputation for innovation, social connections, track record for value creation and investor expectations for value creation. The researchers then ranked these visionaries in a high-powered selection of 100 innovators at top U.S. companies.”

Read the full article on Upworthy.