This week in our WiC roundup: Vodafone takes the cake for most positive campaigns for women under one roof; International Women's Day and A Day Without a Woman coincide; flexibility and mentorship reign supreme; and more.

Eryn Leavens, Special Features & Copy Editor

March 10, 2017

5 Min Read
WiCipedia: Vodafone Rules, A Day Without a Woman & Reclaiming Ambition

This week in our WiCipedia roundup: Vodafone takes the cake for most positive campaigns for women under one roof; International Women's Day and A Day Without a Woman coincide; flexibility and mentorship reign supreme; and more.

Women in Comms will be hosting its first networking breakfast and panel discussion on Wednesday, March 22, in Denver, Colo., ahead of day two of the Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies conference. Register here and join us!

  • Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) stole the headlines this week with a bevy of news all in a decidedly pro-women stance. In India, The Economic Times announced that in 2016, Vodafone India hired 50% women, up from 38% three years ago. Also in India, along with 25 other countries, Vodafone has committed to hiring 1,000 women over the next three years, all of whom have taken a leave of absence from the workplace, Telecom Lead explains. In Ghana, Vodafone is on a mission to help 3,000 pregnant women in need of medical support through the Vodafone Ghana Foundation, Telecompaper says. And lastly, Vodafone Italy is celebrating International Women's Day with 4GB of free data. This is one company doing an impressive amount of good! (See Vodafone Americas Lays Foundation for Social Change.)

    • We celebrated International Women's Day this Wednesday with a range of activities, from celebrating to protesting. What stood out most this year was that the day coincided with A Day Without a Woman, a political event encouraging women not to go to work, girls not to go to school, to boycott male-owned businesses and only support businesses that are small and women and minority owned; basically, a day to show the world what a mess it would be if women weren't around. Social media exploded with announcements of school closures and images of women taking to the streets with signs and slogans. The jury is still out on the mass effects of this major strike, but we'd say the message was loud and clear. (See Happy Women's Day: How Are You Being Bold for Change?) Figure 1: Protesters in San Francisco This might be one of our favorite signs. (Source: SF Gate) This might be one of our favorite signs.
      (Source: SF Gate)

    • What do women want? Flexibility. Computer Weekly analyzes a UK study that finds that "76% of women in tech believe flexible working encourages staff to stay with a firm longer." While this is no big surprise, many companies are slow to implement work-from-home and flexible hours arrangements. The article states that a current skills shortage may encourage more companies to make the flexibility plunge. Computer Weekly also reports that those same women craving flexibility were once girls looking for mentorship. The article states that "More than 60% of girls have admitted they would like to see more encouragement from women who are coders, developers and lab scientists," from a study by Microsoft. We heard about one excellent way to do that this week in the form of free housing for undergrad women in tech in Seattle. "The TUNE house is in its third year and offers eight women free housing, laptops and weekly grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh. The company also provides mentorships with the women living in the house." Count us in! (See Making Mentoring a Priority and WiCipedia: The Case for Grit, Don't Call It Quits & Lawless Politics.)

    • In the wake of Uber's sexual harassment case heard around the world, Tesla is stirring up dust with its own discrimination suit. The Guardian reports that the fancy electric car company is being sued by current female employee AJ Vandermeyden for gender discrimination, including lower pay, being passed over for promotions and ignoring concerns that were raised. "Currently, all chief executive positions are held by men at Tesla, and out of more than 30 vice-presidents, only two are women. 'It's shocking in this day and age that this is still a fight we have to have,'" Vandermeyden added. This is just one of many lawsuits as of late, spurring USA Today to title a new article about the widespread scandals "Silicon Valley's dirty little secret: The way it treats women." (See Uber Engineering SVP Out as Probe Continues and Uber's HR Nightmare: Company Investigates Sexual Harassment Claims.)

    • The new hot word is "ambitious," or so says Hollywood. The New York Times ran a piece this week about fashion designer Tory Burch's "Embrace Ambition" campaign, which features a cadre of notable women, including tech mover-and-shaker Melinda Gates. The campaign aims to dismantle gender bias and reclaim the word ambition as something that women can and should embrace. Actress Reese Witherspoon, a spokeswoman for the brand, said, "I can think of a lot of dirty words. Ambition is not one of them." In a similar article on Well + Good, actress Sarah Jessica Parker also promotes the word ambition in "an all-female panel of documentary filmmakers and subjects at last week's #ActuallySheCan Film Series premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival." SJP says, "There's so much about success in our culture, there's such a white hot spotlight on money and arrival, but this process [of development] is one of the most gratifying parts of the work... [It's] the quiet period of learning and making mistakes." Share your thoughts in the comments to let us know if "ambition" needs some reclaiming to rebrand the word in a positive light.

      — Eryn Leavens, Special Features & Copy Editor, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Eryn Leavens

Special Features & Copy Editor

Eryn Leavens, who joined Light Reading in January 2015, attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before earning her BA in creative writing and studio arts from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. She also completed UC Berkeley Extension's Professional Sequence in Editing.

She stumbled into tech copy editing after red-penning her way through several Bay Area book publishers, including Chronicle Books, Counterpoint Press/Soft Skull Press and Seal Press. She spends her free time lifting heavy things, growing her own food, animal wrangling and throwing bowls on the pottery wheel. She lives in Alameda, Calif., with two cats and two greyhounds.

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