No Power? No Excuses.
First there was Hillary Clinton’s groundbreaking campaign for President. Then Kathryn Bigelow became the first female to win an Oscar for Best Director (for the Best Picture), The Hurt Locker. This year’s Forbes celebrity power list included women in three of the top five spots: the first in the list was, of course, Oprah Winfrey, who earned an estimated $315 million dollars from June 2009 to June 2010. So, is there still a sexism problem?
Yes. Women hold only 18 percent of top leadership roles at work and only 3 percent of positions of clout in mainstream media. A mere 7 percent of the traffic circles in Washington, D.C. are named after women. There’s never been a woman’s face on paper money and the gender division of household responsibilities is still largely unequal.
Feminist icon and author of four books, Gloria Feldt, speaks to women in her new book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change the Way We Think About Power and Leadership, published by the women-run publisher, Seal Press. “No law or structural barrier is holding us women back now, except ourselves,” said Feldt. “I’ve been thrilled to see women break open so many doors during my decades of activism, but we still have a long way to go.” Read more