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Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

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Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders
Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

In the TED presentation “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders” presenter Sheryl Sandberg describes why women do not reach the top in any profession around the world. She begins the presentation by admitting that the women now are lucky because they did not live in the world our mothers and grandmothers experienced in the past. Shortly after, Sheryl reports some numbers and data to describe the problem clearly. For example, in the U.S. just nine women are head of state, another example is that women in parliament around the world constitute 13%, and about 16% of women are in board seats in the corporate sector. In short, just 20% of women are in the top profession. Also, she reported study about married senior managers, which showed that two thirds of married men had children, and only one third of the married women had children. Moreover, she tells the story of when she went to New York to pitch a deal and the director did not know where the location of the women’s restroom was because he did not work with any women in his office. Thereafter, Sheryl sent three letters for women who wanted to stay in workforce. The first message was “sit at the table”. She thinks that women are underestimating their own abilities and do not have self-confidence. Sandberg highlighted that when she was a college student, her brother did not attend classes and did not want to study. On the other side, her roommate studied a lot and attended all her classes, but when they finished the test of their class, her brother said that the test was easy and her roommate was not sure about what she did. So, she says to all women “believe in yourself and negotiate for yourself. Own your own success”. The second message was “make your partner a real partner”. She thinks that if one woman and man work full time and have children, it means a woman does twice the amount of house work than the man does, and the woman does three times the amount of childcare than the

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