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                                                                                 3rd Quarter 2009
              Womenable E3 News
In This Issue
Powerful Women, Empowering Economies
Pick a Card, Any Card
What Lies Beyond Cute Kids & Pet Tricks
A Tale of Two Cities for the World's Women

NYT Sunday magazine cover

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, it is both the best of times and the worst of times for women around the world. A recent Womenabler blog post ruminates on this situation in the wake of the don't-miss collection of articles in the recent Sunday magazine of the New York Times:

"We womenablers already realize that empowering women is one of the surest paths to peace and prosperity, but that message was elevated to a wider audience over the weekend - with extensive coverage in the New York Times Sunday magazine and with commentary by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in the Huffington Post. (Click links above to read them - they are definitely worth your while.)

"In their article, "Why Women's Rights are the Cause of Our Time," New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and wife Sheryl WuDunn - drawing from a soon-to-be-published book - state that "the world is awakening to a powerful truth: women and girls aren't the problem; they're the solution...  (read on)"
Quick Links
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Huffington Post: Brown & Johnson-Sirleaf
New York Times: Saving the World's Women
The Womenabler Blog

Powerful Women, Empowering Economies
Forbes: 100 Most Powerful Women
Fortune: Most Powerful Women in Business (2008 link)
ILO: Global employment trends
NWBC: Education for WBOs
WETF: Access to finance
WEF: Global Gender Gap report

Pick a Card, Any Card
CWBR fact cards
NWBC key facts
Pomegranate knowledge cards
Women in American History card games

Just-in-Time Entrepreneurship e-Learning
iTunes University business podcasts
SBTV.com
YouTube Edu
Sonia Sotomayor
"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

 ~ The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, who was recently named to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is the first Supreme Court justice of Hispanic heritage. September 15 - October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month in the U.S.

(photo by Stacey Ilyse Photography)
E3nabling News

It is our goal, in this quarterly newsletter, to provide a concise digest of news, information and links to 1: educate, 2: enlighten and 3: empower your work on behalf of nascent, new, established and growing women-owned enterprises around the world.
 
Our subscribers come from all walks of life - businesses large and small, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multi-lateral organizations ( MLOs), public sector decision-makers and leaders in civil society associations and educational institutions - yet you all share a common interest in supporting women's enterprise development in your communities and around the world. We hope you find this information of interest.

In this issue:
  • new and impending research on the economic and social status of women internationally,
  • learning about leading women "in a flash," and
  • finding entrepreneurship education on the web.
100 Powerful Women, 130 Empowering (or not so empowering) Economies
Recent and impending news for womenablers

Forbes powerful women Count on Womenable to highlight the most interesting, noteworthy and relevant research and insights on women's economic empowerment. Here's a round-up of recent "womenabling" information and two impending reports to watch out for: 
  • The International Labour Organisation's recent reports on global employment trends are worth reviewing and saving in your online reference bookmarks. Not only are they newly updated and available online, there is a new report on Global Employment Trends for Women, which finds that, even though the gender gap in unemployment rates has narrowed slightly, the rate of "vulnerable employment"* remains higher among women: between 50.5% and 54.7% compared to 47.2% to 51.8% among men.
  • The National Women's Business Council in the US has published a report focusing on entrepreneurship education for women in university settings. The study confirms, through a review of literature and practice, that programs targeted to women are more successful if they have local knowledge, blend classroom with experiential learning, and leverage partnerships with other organizations. Learn more on the NWBC's publications page.
  • The UK's Women's Enterprise Task Force has published a report of research findings focused on the "myths and realities" of access to finance for women business owners, reporting that - as has been seen in the US - the barriers/gaps have moved upstream. While access to finance is seen to be equitable at start-up, there is a gender gap when looking at accessing growth capital. Click the link above to learn more and to download the report.
Since we only reach out to you on a quarterly basis (following the philosophy that less is more), we'd like to alert you of these two impending announcements, which will be coming to you before we communicate with you again late this year:
  • Mark your calendars for 27 October, when the World Economic Forum will release its 2009 Global Gender Gap report, which looks at how 130 world economies are faring in terms of gender parity in health, education, political empowerment, and economic participation. Last year, Norway, Finland and Sweden topped the list; ranking at the bottom were Yemen, Chad and Saudi Arabia.
  • Also coming up soon, if past is prologue, will be Fortune magazine's list of the Most Powerful Women in Business. Their publication of this list has typically come between mid October and mid November. Click on the link above to see the 2005-2008 rankings.
* Vulnerable employment is defined as the share of unpaid family workers and own-account workers among those employed. These workers are much more vulnerable to economic shifts and are underpaid relative to wage workers.
 Pick a Card, Any Card
Learning about interesting women "in a flash"


hand holding cardsThose of us of a certain age may remember when flash cards first came on the scene. They helped us to learn math, events in history, new words, and perhaps even a new language.

Flash cards continue in that vein, but have grown even more sophisticated. Many among us have probably played Trivial Pursuit, one of the world's top-ranked games, which uses flash cards. A women-owned company, SmartsCo, has turned the concept of flash cards into a series of party games focused on learning more about wine, beer, golf and other leisure pursuits. And (of course) there are now even iPhone apps for flash cards.

But, of course, Womenable is most interested in how flash cards are being used to share knowledge about empowered women in history around the world. Here are the flash cards we've discovered and collected in recent years:
  • Famous Women in American History - a set of three card games featuring famous women authors, famous women in American history, and notable Black women in American history. The US Games Company also has a card game focused on famous women in the Civil War and women featured in famous paintings.
  • Fact cards on women in business: And, modestly, yours truly can take some credit for the fact cards available from the Center for Women's Business Research and the National Women's Business Council in the US (and the National Policy Centre for Women's Enterprise in the UK, which are no longer available). These accordion-folded booklets contain key facts about the number and growth of women-owned firms, and sources of assistance.
So let's wash 'em, shuffle the deck, deal ourselves a hand, and learn more about empowering women around the world.
What Lies Beyond Cute Kids & Pet Tricks
Entrepreneurship Education on the Web


Woman viewing computer screenIf one takes the time to look, there's now a lot more to YouTube than family pet and toddler videos. While viral videos of talent and turmoil may get a higher number of viewers, there is also a lot of relevant womenabling information, there and elsewhere on the web.

In our Summer 2008 e-newsletter we pointed out several women's entrepreneurship related videos on YouTube. In this current  issue, we point out some wonderful sources of more formal classroom- or podium-based business and leadership education that is available for women (and men) business owners on the web:
  • YouTube Edu: As recently reported in the Wall Street Journal and TIME magazine, YouTube has begun a collaboration with over 100 colleges and universities around the world to post educational content on a new area of its website, YouTube Edu. Business lectures, symposia and other content are now available for free viewing. Some interesting women's business related content we've found:
    • a speech by Alice Waters, noted slow-foods movement chef and restaurateur, at the Haas School's Women in Leadership conference at the University of California at Berkeley;
    • Nancy Barry, former head of Women's World Banking, talking at Columbia University about microfinance for women internationally; and
    • the Women 2.0 series of video podcast conversations with women entrepreneurs.
  • iTunes educational podcasts: iTunes University is a section of Apple's iTunes that provides a wide variety of both audio and video podcasts from major universities, most for free. Included in the curriculum are lectures on entrepreneurship, finance and innovation from professors at Cambridge University's Judge Business School, a Building Social Business Ventures lecture from Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus (part of the Stanford University series on social entrepreneurship), courses in Business and Leadership from McGill University in Canada, and Facilitating Creative Thinking from Open University.
A recent study reported in New Scientist finds that students who learn through podcasts get better grades than those who attend lectures in person: one more reason to download some of these business lectures to your iPod and listen to them on your morning/evening commute, or on long plane/train business trips. All hail just-in-time learning enabled by technology!
We encourage your feedback and comments, as well as your help in spreading our "womenabling" news. Feel free to click below to forward this e-mail to others you feel would be interested in any or all of the articles above. And let us know if there are any aspects of women's enterprise development that you feel we should investigate and share more broadly.
 
Sincerely,
Julie R. Weeks
Womenable