Blog

By Anna Koelsch, Write(H)ers participant

Does Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg have the answer for how women can finally break the glass ceiling? Probably not. 

Sandberg has attracted a lot of attention in the past few years. She’s delivered TED Talks and a Barnard College commencement speech, and those speeches brim with facts describing the dire situation of female leadership. As she said at Barnard, “Of 190 heads of 2 state, nine are women.  Of all the parliaments around the world, 13% of those seats are held by women. Corporate America top jobs, 15% are women; numbers which have not moved at all in the past nine years.  Nine years.  Of full professors around the United States, only 24% are women.”

By Write(H)ers participant Flora Muglia, T'14

When I imagine the glass ceiling, I envision a tall building with many stories. It is difficult to climb but has a view that is worth it in the end, and on the final floor the ceiling is a sunroof that tauntingly allows in beautiful rays of sunlight. People attempt to find a latter or set of stairs in order to get on the roof and actually see the sky from high up, some go as far as to push on it or try and find a weak spot, but alas there is no entry. All you can do is stare up and wish for a breath of fresh air.

The dreams of many a female politics/policy wonk were fulfilled this past week when Ellen Moran, former White House Communications Director and Michèle Flournoy, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, visited Duke.

Moran’s talk on September 20th, cosponsored by the Baldwin Scholars Program and the Women’s Studies Department, focused on how the upcoming election is significant for women candidates and voters.

Flournoy’s lecture tonight will be on how American Grand Strategy is affected by fiscal constraints; however, I was fortunate to sit in on her ladies’ breakfast this morning in which she also discussed work-life balance, being a woman in the national security field and career trajectories.