The Importance of the Mentoring Relationship

A recent highly-comprehensive study conducted by Communities In Schools and the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University (Dropout Risk Factors) identified a variety of predictive risk factors for dropping out.

The report states that while there is no single risk factor that causes dropping out, each additional risk factor an individual faces increases the likelihood of dropping out. Some of the risk factors that are controllable, as cited by the study, are:

×          teen parenthood;

×          substance abuse;

×          criminal behaviors;

×          lack of self-esteem;

×          poor school performance/grade retention;

×          absenteeism;

×          discipline problems at school;

×          low educational expectations/lack of plans for education beyond high school; and

×          lack of interaction with extracurricular activities.

Mentoring by a caring adult over a prolonged period of time has been shown to be effective in combating these risk factors.  Research by the National Mentoring Partnership has proven results in myriad ways:

Support for education

×          Mentors help keep students in school.

×          Students who meet regularly with their mentors are 52% less likely than their peers to skip a day of school and 37% less likely to skip a class.

×          Mentors can improve their mentees’ academic skills.

Support with day-to-day living

×          Mentors help improve a young person’s self-esteem.

×          Mentors provide support for trying new behaviors.

×          Youth who meet regularly with their mentors are 46% less likely than their peers to start using illegal drugs and 27% less likely to start drinking.

×          About 40% of a teenager's waking hours are spent without companionship or supervision; mentors provide teens with a valuable place to spend free time.

×          Mentors teach young people how to relate well to all kinds of people and help them strengthen communication skills.

Support in the workplace

×          Mentors help young people set career goals and start taking steps to realize them.

×          Mentors can use their personal contacts to help young people meet industry professionals, find internships and locate job possibilities.

×          Mentors introduce young people to professional resources and organizations they may not know about.

×          Mentors can help their mentees learn how to seek and keep jobs.

For a second year, Chrysalis After-School participants have been invited to a day-long workshop at FBL Insurance, Inc. in West Des Moines to provide a tremendous mentoring opportunity through its women’s leadership network.

On Tuesday, August 7, over 50 girls will be hosted from 9:30 am to 3 pm for a day of leadership education, career information, tours, special activities, and healthy meals.  “Become a Model for Success” is the theme that dozens of women employees will share with girls to help them understand the workplace, plan for future education, and learn about life in a corporate career.

This is an example of a very special type of mentoring that you might think about for girls in your life, or girls involved in Chrysalis After-School programs.  We’ll be happy to help you plan for an opportunity to learn more about the value of mentoring.

Changing Workplace Gender Definitions

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported an interesting statistic about job growth: 80% of the 2.6 million new jobs created over the past ten years are filled by men.

As you may expect, this reflects the increase in male-dominated manufacturing jobs, but it also is the result of the loss of many government jobs, which are held most often by women.  But surprisingly, men are obtaining a greater share of the jobs that have been more commonly held by women, such as retail sales:

Three years ago, women made up a majority of the payrolls in the retail trade, just as they have throughout most of the last three decades for which data are available.  But since the sector hit bottom in December 2009, men have landed more than 440,000 retail jobs while women have lost 49,500 positions.

Men now account for 51% of the 14.75 million retail jobs in the country.

The number of men employed in financial services (such as real estate and banking), hospitality, and healthcare have also increased, although women still outnumber men in each of these sectors.  This may not be beneficial for men or women, as these positions typically pay less or provide fewer benefits.  Career advancement, as well, may be limited in some of these job types.

During the recession, unemployment hit men first – 2009 was the peak year for number of unemployed males in the country.  For women, the unemployment peak was a full year later.  Both women and men have looked for alternative careers and jobs in other sectors; many have returned to school or college to retrain in a different field.

But the difference in hiring between genders, if it continues, may set back the many gains women have made in the workplace over the past years:

"It's hard to know whether some employers place a priority on men going back to work," said Joan Entmacher of the National Women's Law Center. Of particular concern, she said: Opportunities for women in higher-paying fields such as manufacturing are shrinking.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said men may have an edge because they tend to have a longer work history. But he also suspects some employers will "take a male applicant more seriously even though men and women are equally qualified."

Although gender discrimination is tough to prove, more men than women filed “unfair hiring based on gender” complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year - the first time this has happened in over a decade.  It’s possible that this is due to more men applying for positions in what were previously women-dominated fields, or simply more men looking to be hired.

Whatever the case, gender definitions are changing throughout the workplace, as more women and men are taking positions simply to be employed.  And whether women can obtain more of the new jobs being created is unknown.

What helps?  Chrysalis does, by funding organizations that help women become successful and employed:

×          Dress for Success provides professional attire and career support to disadvantaged women seeking employment.

×          We Learn Independence for Tomorrow (WeLIFT) delivers support, resources, and employment assistance to unemployed and low-income residents of Warren County.

In addition to these 2012 grant partners, Chrysalis has funded many other organizations and programs that train women to open and sustain a business or to gain personal and career skills to prepare them for successful employment.

Women in Sports: Perspectives on the Olympics

If, like me, you’ve recently watched the United States Olympic trials, you’ve enjoyed seeing the “best of the best” in physicality, strength, and power.  It’s been particularly exciting to see the women (including young women) competitors including Iowa’s hurdler Lolo Jones, and gymnast Gabby Douglas who is following in the shoes of Shawn Johnson.  (For your information, both Lolo Jones and Shawn Johnson have been guest speakers at our year-end Chrysalis After-School celebration – very inspirational!).

For the first time, the 2012 United States Olympic team will have more women than men: there are to be 269 women and 261 men on the team.  And for your information, the oldest American athlete is a woman – equestrian rider Karen O’Connor at 54 – and the youngest is 15-year-old swimmer Katie Ledecky.

As tough as it is to become an Olympian, the financial costs are becoming increasingly prohibitive.  The United States is one of a select few countries that does not provide funding for Olympians, leaving athletes to rely on the US Olympic Committee for support.  The majority of the $170 million in annual funding supports athletes in the “popular” sports, leaving competitors in "lesser-popular" sports without much, if any financial assistance.

In an interview with CNN, Alan Ashley, Head of Sports Performance for the US Olympic Committee, noted that the division of this funding is determined by how many medals a particular sport has won, and whether or not that sport has a good chance this year.  Funding also supports training camps, coaching, and competition entries for prospective Olympians.

According to CNN, only 50% of American track and field athletes ranked in the nation’s top 10 in their event earn more than $15,000 from the sport, and those not highly ranked fare much worse.  Most athletes look to private donors, sponsorship opportunities, and grants to fund their participation, and if they don’t excel quickly, they lose an opportunity to win cash prizes.  In 2012, gold medalists win a $25,000 bonus, silver medalists receive $15,000, and bronze winners are awarded $10,000.

The Women’s Sports Foundation, created in 1974 by tennis icon Billie Jean King, is the only charitable organization providing grants to women athletes.  Figure skaters Michelle Kwan and Kristi Yamaguchi, skier Picabo Street, and gymnast Kerri Strug are among the recipients who received direct financial assistance to support coaching, specialized training, equipment, uniforms, or travel.  The Foundation also moves the women’s sports movement ahead in other ways:

·  working with media to increase positive coverage of women athlete’s and women’s sports

·  helping shape the public’s attitude about women athletes and sports for women

·  advising on women’s sports issues and other concerns

·  advocating for athletes’ commercial rights and purse and salary equity

·  marketing and promoting female athletes to corporate partners and the public

·  operating a Speaker Service to enhance women’s athletics and sports

In the coming year, Chrysalis will incorporate the Foundation’s “GO GIRL GO!” curriculum for school-age girls into the Chrysalis After-School program’s GIRLSTRONG! Program, which includes healthy lifestyle, nutrition, fitness, and wellness education to program participants.  Through community partners and facilitator training, The Chrysalis GIRLSTRONG! curriculum ensures that adolescent girls learn and adopt knowledge and behaviors that will keep them healthy and resilient – prepared to become confident and contributing women.

To hear the reasons why this program is so important:  http://vimeo.com/38229299

Early Onset Puberty Raises Concerns

Just when we thought that adolescent girls had enough challenges (social norms, media images, emotional and physical changes), new research points to a larger and broader issue: early onset of puberty.

Armpit and pubic hair, pimples, starting menstruation, and breast budding are known physical signs of puberty in girls.  In 1800, these changes began in girls at around age 17.  In 1960, the changes were beginning around age 14.  Now, most commonly, puberty in girls begins at age 11.

Kathy Nesteby, Coordinator for the Iowa Task Force for Young Women with the Iowa Department of Human Rights, recently authored a newsletter on this very issue.  She notes the additional challenges this factor presents:

Girls who develop breasts and other physical characteristics of maturation at an early age are more likely to date at a younger age as well. Cognitive and emotional development trails behind physical development in all adolescents, but is more pronounced for those with early on-set puberty. As a result, this young woman has less capacity to resist pressure from an older boyfriend to become involved in delinquent or other risky behaviors than she would if she were older. Likewise, she may lack the sophistication to resist the influence of peers who perceive her to be older.

Her relationship with her parents and community are also significant. Puberty often signals an increase in conflict with parents, as girls begin to assert their independence. A girl displaying the physical signs of maturation, may experience an increase in expectations about her maturity in general, for which she does not yet have the capacity. Additionally, if her parents use harsh and inconsistent discipline, she is even more at-risk for developing behavioral problems.

Nesteby notes that a recent article in The New York Times (March 30, 2012) cites research done by medical professionals in seeking answers for this anomaly:

In the late 1980s, Marcia Herman-Giddens, then a physician’s associate in the pediatric department of the Duke University Medical Center, started noticing that an awful lot of 8- and 9-year-olds in her clinic had sprouted pubic hair and breasts. She started collecting data, eventually leading a study with the American Academy of Pediatrics that sampled 17,000 girls, finding that among white girls, the average age of breast budding was 9.96. Among black girls, it was 8.87.

When Herman-Giddens published these numbers, in 1997 in Pediatrics, she set off a social and endocrinological firestorm. “I had no idea it would be so huge,” Herman-Giddens told me recently. “The Lolita syndrome” — the prurient fascination with the sexuality of young girls — “created a lot of emotional interest. As a feminist, I wish it didn’t.” Along with medical professionals, mothers, worried about their daughters, flocked to Herman-Giddens’s slide shows, gasping as she flashed images of possible culprits: obesity, processed foods, plastics.

…Was the age of puberty really dropping?  Parents said yes.  Leading pediatric endocrinologists said no. The stalemate lasted …years.  Then in August 2010, well-respected researchers at three big institutions — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York — published another study in Pediatrics, finding that by age 7, 10% of white girls, 23% of black girls, 15% of Hispanic girls and 2% of Asian girls had started developing breasts.

Why is this happening?  Physicians don’t yet understand the reasons, but do suspect several contributing factors.  Being overweight (heavier girls have higher levels of hormones including estrogen, which causes the body to mature quicker).  In addition, animal studies show that exposure to environmental chemicals that mimic estrogen – including those used in agriculture and livestock production – can alter puberty timing.  And the chemical BPA (now found in hard plastics and common products such as dental sealants and cash-register receipts) that mimics estrogen is now found in the bodies of 93% of Americans.  Other causes can include family stress, maternal depression, and divorce.

What can we do about this issue?  Nesteby advises:

Assuring that girls are getting plenty of exercise, eating a healthy diet and not being overexposed to hormone disrupting chemicals are a good place to start…Offering adequate and timely support is crucial as well.  For adult women, who may not have begun to mature until much later, it may be a matter of not assuming the 9 year old you are interacting with has years to go before puberty hits.  She may need your guidance now!  Adults must also refrain from any inadvertent tendency to treat girls as more mature than they might actually be based solely on their appearance.

All the more important are our efforts to reach girls early through Chrysalis After-School programs.  Helping girls understand their own bodies and minds, and supporting their physical and mental health is key – our new GIRLSTRONG! programming around healthy lifestyles is a major effort throughout all 29 Chrysalis After-School locations.  And having this information helps us address emerging concerns for all girls and women.

Thank you for your leadership in this work.

To review The New York Times article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/puberty-before-age-10-a-new-normal.html?_r=1

Reflections on Women's Contributions this Memorial Day

As we reflect upon this national holiday, you might like to consider how to honor women this Memorial Day and encourage you to think about how women have served our country in many ways.

Beginning with the American Revolution and continuing to the present, women have always volunteered in defense of our nation.  Women have played a key role in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, and beginning with World War I, women for the first time began to serve overseas – those who were not nurses were allowed to enlist in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard (1917).  Over 24,000 women served in this war.

From 1942-1945, while men fought in the battlefront of World War II, over 18 million women filled the civilian and defense positions created is the country's shift to wartime productions (remember “Rosie the Riveter?).

Nationally, the number of women who served in the Persian Gulf War (Desert Storm) was 41,000, and over 200,000 have served to-date in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

As of September 2009, more than 1.8 million living women veterans had served in the U.S. military.  The percentage of veterans who are female has increased by more than 25% in recent years; in 2000, 6.1% of living veterans were women, and currently are 8% of the veteran population.  This number is expected to rise to 9.0% by 2013 and 15% by 2035.

Women in Military Service for America reports there are 15,084 female veterans in Iowa, roughly 6.5% of all Iowa veterans.  The median age for U.S. women Veterans was 48 years old (46 for non-Veteran women), 23% of who were divorced, which is nearly double the percentage of non-Veteran women (12%) divorced in the United States.  It is estimated that about 8% of sheltered homeless veterans are female, a number that has been increasing since 2000.

Drake University graduate, Kirsten A. Holmstedt, began researching women serving in combat in 2003, and authored 2 books, Band of Sisters, covering the roles, challenges, and accomplishments of women on the battlefields of Iraq.  Her second book, Girls Come Marching Home, digs into the racism, sexual harassment, and drugs, as well as the difficulties and challenges when they return stateside.

Women in the military is just one of the many issues of importance to women and to our community, so please take time to honor the women who have so bravely served our country this Memorial Day.

To learn more about the author:  http://girlscomemarchinghome.com/

To learn more about the history of women in the military:  http://www.womensmemorial.org/H&C/History/historyeras.html

PS - If you haven’t yet visited the meaningful exhibit on Iowa Women in the Military, please visit the Fort Des Moines Museum on Des Moines’ south side.

We Are Making Progress

We’ve long known that equal rights – women’s, civil, gay – are continuing struggles for what so many of us believe is “right.”  But a recent article in The New York Times frames equal rights as being strong for our economy.

Research presented by 4 U.S. economists makes the case that in the last 50 years, 20% of increased productivity in our country can be credited to women and blacks.  Changes that have affected both populations – and the equal talents they bring to the workplace – have tremendously increased the availability of highly skilled and enterprising professionals.  This is referred to by researchers as “improved allocation of talent.”

This swell in the “talent pool” and its effect on our economy is confirmed by a 2009 report, The Business of Empowering Women, based on a survey of 2,300 senior private sector executives conducted by McKinsey and Company.  The report asked corporate respondents, “Do you expect your company’s engagement with women to increase the company’s profits?”  

Attracting and retaining female employees is also an effective business strategy, according to McKinsey.  Their research  demonstrates that the presence of gender- and race-diverse leadership correlates with stronger financial and organizational performance.  Companies with greater leadership diversity have reported operating margins twice as high as those with little or no female leadership, and there is a strong correlation between the percentage of top managers who are female and a company’s return on assets and equity.

Although we certainly aren’t a gender- or race-neutral society yet, significant shifts have occurred over the last half-century, note the researchers.  The New York Times article notes:

In case you are behind in your viewing of “Mad Men,” the television drama set in 1960s New York, (the show) is a reminder of how truly supreme white men were in the United States half a century ago. In 1960, 96% of lawyers were white men, 94% of doctors were white men and 86% percent of managers were white men. The subsequent 50 years were a revolution.  By 2008, white men accounted for just 61% of lawyers, 63% of doctors and 57% of managers.

“We’ve come a long way, baby.”

Thank you for being part of this movement.

SHE MATTERS Op-Ed

We are receiving quite a bit of tremendous feedback on SHE MATTERS: 2012 Status of Women and Girls in Iowa, the report we released last week at the Iowa Women’s Leadership Conference.  As we continue to publicize the information, I will be submitting an op-ed piece to the Des Moines Register and the Business Record which will include some of the highlights.  Here is the copy for the op-ed:

OP-ED submission

SHE MATTERS: 2012 Status of Women and Girls in Iowa

May 2012

The World Bank calls investing in women “smart economics” because research shows economic growth for women has a critical multiplier effect.  Women are more likely to share their personal economic gains with their families and communities; in fact, women reinvest 90% of their income in food, healthcare, home improvement, and schooling for themselves and their children.  In short, “women’s progress” is “society progress.”

In Iowa, there are changes in the lives of girls and women that we see every day:

×          we’ve embraced more women in our military

×          more women are attending and graduating from college

×          more women are in our labor force

×          girls are reaching greater proficiency in academics, including science and mathematics

×          women’s life expectancy has increased

Although these are reasons to celebrate, research presented in a new report from the Iowa Women’s Leadership Project, SHE MATTERS: 2012 Status of Women and Girls in Iowa, tells us that for many Iowa females, the vision of self-sufficiency, independence, and opportunity isn’t within reach.

This report provides a measure of the demographics of our state, the health and well-being of our girls and women, the achievement and autonomy we’ve attained, and the employment and income levels we’ve reached.

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, women and girls comprise just over half (50.5%) of our state population.  Since the 1070, Iowa women’s participation in the workforce has more than doubled – today over 80% of Iowa women ages 16 to 64 are working.

With this enormous increase in the female workforce, Iowa women – like women throughout the country – still earn only 79% of what men earn when all other factors are equal.  This may seem insignificant, but consider that collectively, Iowa women are paid over $4.1 trillion less annually due to this wage gap.  Per woman, this could mean 82 weeks of groceries, 8 months of mortgage payments, 29 months of family health insurance, or over 2,000 gallons of gas.

And there are other glaring disparities:

×          21.3% of Iowa’s legislators are female

×          women hold only 11% of executive positions in Iowa’s insurance businesses

×          only 16% of corporate board positions are held by women

×          the number of women-owned businesses has dropped over the last decade

×          13% of Iowa women have no health insurance, 14% live in poverty, and over 80% of homeless families are females with children

×          Nearly ¾ Iowa’s nursing home population and 2/3 of home health care patients are female

When we see these indicators, we realize that not only have women not progressed – in many cases, we’ve lost ground.  The facts underscore the reality that the value of Iowa’s (and our country’s) women and girls must be demonstrated.  By adequate earnings.  By career and promotion opportunities.  By assuring safety.  And by having an equal voice for all decisions affecting Iowans.  When these are realities, women and girls can participate fully in the life of Iowa communities.

We can do better, and we will do better.  The Iowa Women’s Leadership Project has engaged women and organizations throughout the state to provide input and energy toward changing the trend lines.  Our intent is that our daughters, nieces, and granddaughters will have role models will have role models that reflect Iowa’s population – half of our leaders, at a minimum, will be women.

SHE MATTERS: 2012 Status of Women and Girls in Iowa has been created by a public/private partnership of Iowa organizations forming the Iowa Women’s Leadership Project.  The report was released at the 2012 Iowa Women’s Leadership Conference in April, and will serve as a guide for the partnership’s shared work to improve the quality of life for Iowa’s women and girls.