Ouch! The New Agenda put this amazing video together as a big fat wake up call to young women! And All women.
It was nice to report some good news a while back about companies that are doing good things to move women up the power ladder. But the news—of a global nature, that is—is not good for women. Women are moving backwards from gains in alpha positions. Below we list a few more sad facts from a few assorted places that will make your heart quail and hopefully stop the foolishness that is the Third wave of silly lipstick feminists who (yes, Feministing and Dalia Lithwick and Maureen Dowd all come to mind to name a few) oversaw this backward time for women. Now we must move forward and uplift young women to see that the time is now for the full embrace of the 4th Wave Feminists who don’t need to prove they are fuckable and don’t need Daddy’s approval to move forward and don’t need to tear other women down for the betterment of their self esteem and most important are not fatally conflicted about Bad Ass Power Grabbing women going for what has traditionally been Man Only domain.

Here goes so hold on to your crotches cause it is gonna burn bad:

First up from Ruth Marcus of WAPO:
Backsliding Under the Ceiling
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/04/06/backsliding_under_t...

the number of women in Congress fell this past year, although slightly. Perhaps more alarming, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, the number of women in state legislatures, a breeding ground for national politics, dropped by 81, a full percentage point.
AND
….a new report by Princeton University about the declining number of female students serving in leadership positions there (student body president, editor of the newspaper) or winning academic prizes and prestigious post-graduate fellowships.
"We had assumed ... that after the pioneering years of undergraduate coeducation at Princeton, women would have moved steadily into more and more prominence in campus leadership," concluded the report, ordered by President Shirley Tilghman. "In fact, this was true through the 1980s and 1990s. But ... there has been a pronounced drop-off in the representation of women in these prominent posts since around 2000."
During the 1990s, for instance, 22 women served in such resume-burnishing roles. In the following decade, that number fell by nearly half, to 12 -- even as the proportion of women in the class grew to nearly equal numbers. Only one woman has been elected president of the student government since 1994.
This backsliding is not a Princeton-specific phenomenon. Harvard hasn't had a woman head of its undergraduate council since 2003. Yale has elected one woman as student body president in the last decade. Despite the stellar credentials required for admission, women arrive at Princeton, as at similar colleges, reporting lower levels of self-confidence and less likely to think of themselves as leaders than equally qualified men.

Women don't win these offices because women don't run for them. They're more likely to do the behind-the-scenes grunt work.
This finding echoes a 2008 study by Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox concluding that "women perform as well as men when they do run for office." The problem occurs beforehand, with "a substantial gender gap in political ambition." The numbers of female candidates grew during the 1980s and 1990s but has since leveled off.
I can understand that women juggling work and family might be deterred from seeking the political life. But college students? Among the most accomplished college students in the country? If they're not pushing their way to the front now, what happens after graduation?

Now more from Catalyst:

Collectively, women…lost ground in America’s corporate boardrooms between 2004 and 2010, according to Missing Pieces: Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards―2010 Alliance for Board Diversity Census.
Key findings from this report include:
In the Fortune 100, between 2004 and 2010:
• Men still dominated boardrooms. In 2010 they held 82.0 percent of board seats; in 2004, 83.1 percent.
• Although women gained 16 board seats―7 occupied by minority women―the overall 1.1 percentage point increase over 6 years was not appreciable.
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In the Forture 500, in 2010
Men held close to 85 percent of all board seats

According to the 2010 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Board Directors and the 2010 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Executive Officers and Top Earners:
• Women held 15.7% of board seats in 2010—only a 0.5 percentage point gain over the 15.2% they held in 2009.
• In both 2009 and 2010, more than 50% of companies had at least two women board directors, yet more than 10% had no women serving on their boards. The percentage of companies with three or more women board directors also remained flat.
• In 2010, women held only 14.4% of Executive Officer positions, up from 13.5% in 2009.
• In 2010, women Executive Officers held only 7.6% of the top earner positions, as compared with 6.3% in 2009.
• In 2009, more than two-thirds of companies had at least one woman Executive Officer; this number did not change in 2010. The same held true for companies with no women Executive Officers.

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Other findings include:
• Men with mentors had starting salaries in their first post-MBA jobs that were, on average, $9,260 higher than the starting salaries of women with mentors.
• Men received more promotions than women, and their promotions came with greater salary increases—men received 21% more in compensation per promotion while women's compensation increased by only 2% per promotion.
• High potential women and men with senior-level mentors—those in a position to provide sponsorship—advanced further and earned more than those with less senior mentors, pointing to the need for career support from people with clout. Sponsorship is not a silver bullet, however. Men with senior-level mentors still had greater salary increases than women with senior-level mentors.

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Add this to what we reported last week from Catalyst that women MBAs are screwed by ~5K right out of the college starting gate and sheez Louise, are you goonna be sad. But there is much to be done to improve things.

A—ditch the 3rd wave lipstick BS. They are like burnt milk, better washed away that left to linger.
B—support women at work and home and socially for power positions
C—just say NO to sexism, even if you don’t agree with the positions a woman takes that differ from your own.
D—as the New Agenda promotes: mentor up!
E—never call a woman the c, b, s or w words. A nickel to the bad girl jar each time and then donate that to The NEW Agenda!
F—understand that you as well as all women are socialized to promote male for power. It is like AA, the first step must be recognition of a problem.

Or go to The New Agenda and see their fantastic formula (SOUL) for helping women overcome the backwards trajectory that is the female condition in the 2000s.
Join The New Agenda and move yourself, your daughters and sons forward into a future of happiness and opportunity for all. Remember that video took time and money to produce, so go and give to TNA and support the cause of forward.
http://www.thenewagenda.net/2011/05/20/they-raved-about-episode-4-at-men...