I’ve decided to dub 2013 “The Year of the Working Dad” because I’m sick of all the focus on working mothers.

Seriously, men have children too and it’s about time we started accepting this fact as a society. Just yesterday a story appeared in the Wall Street Journal about how women now make up one-third of all the doctors and lawyers in the country, and the reporter saw it fit to ask a female attorney about her plans to raise a family.

A Miami based lawyer, Lindsey Lazopoulos, the article states,

graduated from the University of Miami School of Law last year and now is a commercial litigator. Two partners in the Florida firm where she works are mothers raising children, she said. Ms. Lazopoulos said she isn’t focusing on raising a family yet. “For me, and for other women we’re kind of just trying to get a start on our careers and focus on that,” she said.

What about the guys!? I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m thinking Josh Mitchell, the reporter who wrote the story, would not have asked any male lawyers such questions.

Of course not. We don’t think about men as working dads, as a recent blog post in the New York Times written by a working dad pointed out. (more…)

Finally someone said it!

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…)

You would think that when a woman finally makes it to one of the most prestigious tech companies in the world she’s be able to toot her own horn.

Well, think again.

I was disturbed to read an article in the New York Times today about Google’s inability to keep and promote women at the search engine giant. What got me perturbed wasn’t the fact that they were having trouble getting women to the corner office. Alas, that’s nothing new throughout the work world.

What got me crazy was their own internal research as to why this is happening.

Turns out, Google women aren’t stepping up and demanding power at the company. Seriously, women at the top of their careers games think they suck. (more…)

When I covered the auto industry for a local newspaper many years ago, some of the autoworkers took to calling me Lois Lane. I’d show up in my fitted suits — notepad in hand — at the plants, at local bars they hung out at, and in parking lots where some of them drank beer to deal with the horrific summer heat in non air-conditioned facilities.

Even though I knew some of workers were mocking me a bit, I secretly was proud of the title. All I ever wanted to be was a reporter since I was probably around 11 or 12. Lois Lane happened to be my idol early on when I’d watch reruns of the original Superman series.

So, what’s weirder than a career writer writing about her new career?

Yes, I’m leaving the world of full-time journalism and heading into the nonprofit world. But I won’t be leaving the workplace and labor world my friends.

As of mid August, I’ll be joining a New York-based think tank called Families & Work Institute, or FWI.

I’ll still be blogging about workplace issues here on CareerDiva and writing occasionally for NBCNews.com, but my full-time gig will be getting the message out about the great research and advocacy FWI does.

This moment is bittersweet. I leave behind a profession I’ve loved for more than 20 years, and I leave behind a great crew of journalists at MSNBC.com, now NBCNews.com.

Change can be scary. I’ll admit that. But change is what makes our lives exciting and enriching. (more…)

I got a reality check from a friend on Facebook yesterday.

I had just finished a story on NBCNews.com yesterday about Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer and how she plans to balance her new gig and the new born she’s expecting in October, and after posting a link on my Facebook page a friend Kathryn wrote:

“Wow. I’m just really shocked that no one even mentioned the father. We don’t even blink when men return to work after having a child.”

She is so right. I wrote the story looking at her decision to take only a few weeks off after the baby comes, and her plan to answer emails from work right after giving birth. Many women, and men, got on her case saying she doesn’t know what she’s in for. (more…)

Can you bench press your weight? Some police departments in this country ask applicants to do this. This, among other physical aptitude tests, often keeps women out of the running.

A recent Justice Department lawsuit against a Texas police department claims such tests discriminate against women.

The government case against the city of Corpus Christi, Texas

“Challenges the police department’s use of a physical ability test for the hiring of entry-level police officers. According to the complaint, the physical test used by the city between 2005 and 2011 had the effect of excluding qualified women from consideration for hire as entry-level police officers and did not screen candidates for job-related skills.”

Cases like this get a lot of anger on both sides. Do we want our cops to be as strong as possible to fight crime, or have we created tests that have nothing to do with the job of policing, and keep out qualified applicants? (more…)

Are you gals ready for a rumble tonight?

A year ago this week, the Supreme Court decision to strike down a class action gender bias suit against Walmart had a sweeping and symbolic impact on women’s rights.

That ruling, and a host of other actions including moves by religious employers to derail contraceptive coverage for workers, a recent legislation defeat of pay equity legislation for women, and the rise in the number of pregnancy discrimination claims have all culminated into what many women advocates call a “War on Women.”

On Thursday, it was time to rally the troops, maintained Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, during a luncheon with a focus on stopping the war with more advocacy and also legislation to turn back the high court’s Walmart ruling.

“Who would have thought that in 2012, we’d be arguing over providing contraception for women, or debating the idea of equal pay,” Ness told a 1,500 member audience of mainly women gathered in the Washington Hilton including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton who gave the keynote address. “Yet here we are.” (more…)

There are two new women in the boardroom of Italian automaker Fiat — Joyce Victoria Bigio and Patience Wheatcroft.

It’s great news, but don’t get all warm and fuzzy over Fiat. The company was pretty much strong-armed into adding women to its all-male board because of a new law that requires Italian firms to have at least one-third women board members by 2015, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal today.

Other countries, including Norway, have imposed such quotas and many have reaped the benefits of having more women voices in the big chairs. But it’s not even something that’s seriously considered in the United States, even though less than 20 percent of board seats are held by women at U.S. firms.

In fact, some firms won’t even consider women board members when asked by their shareholders to just think about more gals for board positions. (more…)

I wrote a story this week for Today.com on how the pay gap between men and women widens as we age, and I was struck by something an economist that was part of the study told me during an interview:

“Men are selecting to go into higher paying jobs,” said Katie Bardaro, lead economist for PayScale. Women, she said, tend to gravitate to jobs in human resources and nursing, while men go for the big bucks in finance and technology.

Why should these jobs pay more, I asked her.

“A lot of people complain, that if these were male-dominated jobs, they’d be paid more,” she explained, but “I can’t put a lot of basis in that argument.” She pointed to the fact that many jobs men go into are dangerous, requiring a pay premium as a result.

I wouldn’t say being a banker is dangerous, and she agreed. But, she noted, that more men tend to become construction managers.

In the end what we have is nearly half of society not making as much as the other half of society, and the problem only gets worse as we grow older. And I don’t know about you, something’s got to give.

Did you know women are more likely to be poor as they age? (more…)