I love that Waylon Jennings song, “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.”

Here’s one part of the song I found poignant today:

Them that don’t know him won’t like him and them that do,
Sometimes won’t know how to take him.

Unfortunately, cowboys aren’t the only ones with this problem. It’s also the case for female scientists. No one knows how to take them either.

A Yale study released Monday found there are a whole lot of people in science who just won’t give women a break when it comes to pay and career opportunities. They just don’t get or respect gals who pursue science as a profession.

The researchers at Yale asked “127 scientists to review a job application of identically qualified male and female students and found that the faculty members – both men and women – consistently scored a male candidate higher on a number of criteria such as competency and were more likely to hire the male.” (more…)

(Part one of a two-part blog series on Anne Marie Slaughter and the notion of “Having It All.”)

When Anne Marie Slaughter wrote her now infamous The Atlantic article titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” she wasn’t naive about how the piece might stir up women.

She wanted to question the status quo, and possibly help inspire change.

But for everyone out there who may have interpreted her article as a narrative meant to inspire women to give up their careers for motherhood, she says, you were wrong.

And for those who thought she damaged the women’s movement’s progress leveling the workplace playing field, she says, get over it.

It’s time to move beyond the tired mommy wars, and the notion that women should be afraid to point out the flaws in the U.S. workplace for fear of rocking the boat.

It’s time to “make work choices in a different way” and not condemn women, or men, who want flexibility at work, stressed Slaughter during Families and Work Institute’s Immersion Learning Experience session held this week at JPMorgan Chase. (more…)

The media is up in arms today over the revelation that a thief was rewarded millions for snitching on other thieves.

A former corrupt banker ended up reaping the benefits of a law that encourages whistleblowers in the workplace. But sometimes don’t you have to take some bad in order to do greater good?

Here’s how the story played out, according to a Wall Street Journal article today:

Bradley Birkenfeld, 47 years old, began cooperating with U.S. authorities in 2007 while still at UBS. He provided prosecutors with detailed descriptions of the bank’s efforts to promote tax evasion and confessed to running errands for rich clients, including one instance when he sneaked diamonds into the U.S. in a toothpaste tube.

Yes, it makes me sick to my stomach to know this guy is going to end up on easy street because he was sleazy. Alas, we can’t pick and choose the whistleblowers who get the big bucks for snitching. The law says nothing about keeping the money out of excons’ hands. (more…)

This blog post may not be written by me even though it’s me.

I need to warn all of you out there that you can’t believe everything you read. I know that’s odd coming from a journalist, but in today’s Web world you have to question everything you read.

Case in point, work-at-home hucksters have reached a new low.

I wrote a story a while back about the best and worst jobs out there, and some unethical scammer somehow was able to take my story and put in bogus information about a work-at-home company and make it look like the article was coming from MSNBC.com and written by me.

The bogus article is located at this Web address: http://msnbc.msn.com-articles8.us/jobs/ It clearly looks like it’s coming from MSNBC.

Here’s an excerpt: (more…)