Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Lipstick LobbyList 7.23.2013

Massachusetts State Senate Prez Therese Murray features in the "Women Up" column of the Boston Business Journal.  This question was particularly awesome:
Did you ever experience discrimination in what was considered a male-dominated field?
"I still go to events or meetings, particularly out of state or in a place where people don’t know me, where they will turn to the male staffer next to me, shake their hand and say, 'Senator,' or 'President.' That continues to happen."
The New York Times has a profile of  Silda Wall Spitzer as the real life “Good Wife”:
"Much has changed for Ms. Wall Spitzer, a former corporate lawyer, since her husband resigned in 2008. She has grown more independent, relishing a return to her corporate career and working 60-hour weeks at a private equity firm where she helps guide investments in clean energy. She oversees her children’s charity, generationOn, which earlier this year honored Chelsea Clinton, and has pursued new business ventures, including an e-commerce Web site, New York States of Mind, that highlights products from businesses in the state."
With Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer doing well in recent polls, WaPo’s She the People Blog asks: “Could a former stripper be elected president?”

Ann Friedman writes for Elle magazine a profile of freshman Arizona Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema, the first openly bisexual member of Congress. At only 36 years old, Kyrsten is changing the face of Congress and blazing a new path for women in office.  From the article: "12 of the last 18 presidents kicked off their political careers before age 35. Sinema is part of the first generation of women to follow that timetable, and at 36 has already been in public office for almost a decade. Consider this: At her age, Nancy Pelosi was 11 years away from winning her first election, Hillary Clinton 17."

The Atlantic has a great overview of recent campaign ads that feature male politicians in the kitchen. It’s great to see some of my favorite Massachusetts women and organizations getting some air time on this topic (Barbara Lee Family Foundation, former Massachusetts state treasurer Shannon O’Brien, and the Center for Women in Politics and Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston).

The special election primary date is set for the 5th Congressional seat recently vacated by now Senator Ed Markey: October 15th. The general election will be on December 10th. In related (& exciting!) news, Melrose state Senator Katherine Clark hosted her official campaign kick-off on Saturday. Katherine is facing off against two Democratic state Senate colleagues, William Brownsberger and Karen Spilka, Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian and state Rep. Carl Sciortino.

Boards Snap Up Female CFOs  "Female chief financial officers may be relatively few in number, but they are trumping their male peers by a wide margin in at least one career achievement: winning outside board seats. Women account for just 12% of CFOs at the 500 large public companies tracked by executive-recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International. But more than half of those women serve as directors at another company.  That makes female CFOs about three times as likely to serve on an outside board as their far-more-numerous male counterparts. CFOs rarely serve on their own company’s board, in part because they are considered to be at the board’s beck and call as part of their regular job."
 
Guilty Pleasure: Emily Nussbaum in the New Yorker on Sex and the City

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