Gender Balancing

“This practical book will make an impact on every one of your relationships. Martin is an extraordinary coach who is in constant demand.” —Harvey W. Austin, MD, surgeon and author Gender Balancing: An Evolutionary Model for Elevating Relationships from Mediocre to EXTRAORDINARY shows you how to create a balanced and fulfilling relationship. As a renowned relationship coach, I have helped thousands of people find and enhance their love relationships. Now my book will guide you as you learn to create your own extraordinary relationship. The steps are easy and doable. You will learn to observe, identify, and balance the feminine and masculine energies within you to empower your relationships with others—and yourself. The discovery of what women and men want and need from each other will surprise and enlighten you. You will discover the five primary relationships and see how you can build on family, friendship, romance, and committed relationships to create an everlasting relationship—one that inspires others. Throughout the book, simple concepts are illustrated along with fascinating client stories. I have worked with thousands of people. I have watched as women and men have evolved from lonely or bored, taking themselves and their relationships from mediocre to extraordinary. Now it’s your turn. Humanity has work to do before we transcend gender bias. Extraordinary relationships will one day be established as the new norm. In the meantime, why not get a head start on your own transformation? Throughout the process, I will be there to encourage and support you.

Everyone who struggles to meet the demands of work and personal-life responsibilities knows how tough it is to do so. This bold new book shows that it is the deeply engrained separation of work and personal life that has limited our ability to deal effectively with the conflict between them. Beyond Work-Family Balance demonstrates why the image of "balance" is outmoded and why a new approach--work-personal life integration--offers greater promise for meaningful change. Providing many examples from action research projects in more than a dozen organizations of different kinds, the authors show how using their method of integrating rather than separating personal-life considerations from the workplace can achieve positive outcomes, not only for workers but also for the work. The method offers a way of looking deeply into the work culture to find inequitable and ineffective work practices that are so embedded and routine that no one thinks to question them3/4they are just the way things get done. Once identified, these work practices can be changed to achieve what the authors call a Dual Agenda: a more equitable workplace where both men and women can achieve their full potential and a more effective workplace where the needs of the work, rather than gendered and outmoded assumptions, determine what gets done and how. Beyond Work-Family Balance offers an approach that achieves what "family friendly" policies, "mommy tracks," and so-called flexibility programs cannot. Such programs address the symptoms of the problem. This book offers a way of changing the everyday work practices and norms that are at the root of the problem.

This book portrays men’s experiences of home alone leave and how it affects their lives and family gender roles in different policy contexts and explores how this unique parental leave design is implemented in these contrasting policy regimes. The book brings together three major theoretical strands: social policy, in particular the literature on comparative leave policy developments; family and gender studies, in particular the analysis of gendered divisions of work and care and recent shifts in parenting and work-family balance; critical studies of men and masculinities, with a specific focus on fathers and fathering in contemporary western societies and life-courses. Drawing on empirical data from in-depth interviews with fathers across eleven countries, the book shows that the experiences and social processes associated with fathers’ home alone leave involve a diversity of trends, revealing both innovations and absence of change, including pluralization as well as the constraining influence of policy, gender, and social context. As a theoretical and empirical book it raises important issues on modernization of the life course and the family in contemporary societies. The book will be of particular interest to scholars in comparing western societies and welfare states as well as to scholars seeking to understand changing work-life policies and family life in societies with different social and historical pathways.

Despite decades of efforts to promote gender equality, most leadership positions in business, politics, education, and even NGOs are occupied by men, and most people still work in occupations dominated by one sex. This book argues that gender imbalances in leadership and occupations are not simply a moral issue or an economic issue, but a governance issue. Gender imbalances persist in large part because the very people with the authority and influence to do something about them know very little about gender and how it works in their organizations and in society at large. Gender imbalanced governance is an expression of entrenched ideas about masculinity and femininity that lead to poor decision making. Improving the quality of governance requires action to counteract the main justifications for the status quo. Based on interviews and conversations with leaders and managers in Europe and the United States, the book presents seven of the most common explanations for persistent gender imbalances and shows how they are based on common stereotypes and myths about men's and women's abilities and preferences. This book provides a guided tour of current research about gender from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It challenges commonly held assumptions and offers alternative explanations and corresponding principles to guide individual decisions, action, and behaviour toward achieving gender balance.

This book breaks new ground on the evolution and present technologies and practices of lifestyle sex selection, builds on and critiques feminist and STS theories of reproduction to develop the new concept of biopopulationism, and engages with the messy politics of sex selection in the United States.

The proven rewards of a gender-balanced business. Scores of studies have shown the benefits to the bottom line of gender-balanced organizations. A handful of smart companies have tapped into the opportunities of today’s female consumer base and talent pool—yet too many companies still struggle with an outdated and ineffective imbalance of genders, across all levels, functions, and geographies. Now, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox brings a practical, seasoned voice to the problem of gender imbalance in business, laying out proven actions designed to make gender balance a sustainable reality. Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of the consultancy 20-first, has worked with some of the world’s largest and most reputable firms to deliver the benefits of balance. In this HBR Single ebook, she outlines what companies need to do to bring about real change. Beyond the usual well-intentioned but often ineffective mentoring and networking programs for women, the author argues that building gender balance is a twenty-first century management and leadership skill. Bringing a business into successful gender balance requires leaders who have a strategic understanding of the considerable economic benefits that lie untapped in the female population—in their roles both as customers and as talent—and the competencies needed to work across genders. It’s time for businesses to tap into 100% of the talent pool and connect with 100% of the market—both male and female. Wittenberg-Cox tells us how and why gender balance needs to happen now—and how to achieve it. HBR Singles provide brief yet potent business ideas, in digital form, for today’s thinking professional.

Pressure to achieve work-life "balance" has recently become a significant part of the cultural fabric of working life in United States. A very few privileged employees tout their ability to find balance between their careers and the rest of their lives, but most employees face considerable organizational and economic constraints which hamper their ability to maintain a reasonable "balance" between paid work and other life aspects—and it is not only women who struggle. Increasingly men find it difficult to "do it all." Women have long noted the near impossibility of balancing multiple roles, but it is only recently that men have been encouraged to see themselves beyond their breadwinner selves. Gender Equality and Work-Life Balance describes the work-life practices of men in the United States. The purpose is to increase gender equality at work for all employees. With a focus on leave policy inequalities, this book argues that men experience a phenomenon called "the glass handcuffs," which prevents them from leaving work to participate fully in their families, homes, and other life events, highlighting the cultural, institutional, organizational, and occupational conditions which make gender equality in work-life policy usage difficult. This social justice book ultimately draws conclusions about how to minimize inequalities at work. Gender Equality and Work-Life Balance is unique as it laces together some theoretical concepts which have little previous association, including entrepreneurialism; leave policy, occupational identity, and the economic necessities of families. This book will therefore be of particular interest to researches and academics alike in the disciplines of Gender studies, Human Resource Management, Employment Relations, Sociology and Cultural Studies.

Written about lawyers, but relevant to people in various professions, this book shows how individuals can act according to their personal qualities and attributes, rather than according to expectations based on gender. It prescribes several models to help firms and individuals achieve a workplace free of gender bias for both men and women.

Looks at the three main components of work-family policy packages - childcare services, flexible working patterns and entitlements to leave from work in order to care - across EU15 Member States, with comparative reference to the US. This work also provides an examination of developments in the UK.

Maybe you're skeptical about what men have to gain from greater gender balance. Maybe you're reticent to speak up about a sensitive subject. Perhaps you're wondering how to get more men to join the gender balance debate. Or maybe you just want to take part in one of the major managerial transformations facing companies in the 21st century. Gender balance: when men step up. Because men too can benefit! Today's leaders have much to gain from greater gender balance, be it in their personal lives or at work. The leaders interviewed for this book are categorical: gender balance is a tool to transform organisations and to build competitive advantage. But it is also a means to address men's - and Gen Y's - growing aspiration for flexibility and innovative ways of working, This book clarifies the business case for gender balance, explores what men have to gain, provides the basic knowledge to engage debate and action plans - and get other men on board. Twelve leaders explain why they have personally taken a stand on gender balance and put it high on their list of strategic priorities. The book will help men and women understand the pillars of masculine identity, and why change in organisations is so difficult. It resolutely takes the man's point of view in the hope of rebalancing a debate too often confined to women, to political correctness or to conforming reluctantly to equality laws. As men and women's aspirations converge, we hope this book will bring new perspectives, a new language - and a more balanced view of gender balance! Authors: Marie-Christine Mahéas, Jerome Ballarin, Armelle Carminati, Laurent Depond, Sandrine Devillard, Francois Fatoux, Antoine de Gabrielli, Alexandre Jost, Cécile Kossoff, Margaret Milan, Kunal Modi, Jean-Michel Monnot, Marie-Claude Peyrache, Véronique Préaux Cobti, Valérie Rocoplan, Patrick Scharnitzky, Catherine Vidal. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. CEO interviews: Henri de Castries, Carlos Ghosn, Gerald Karsenti, Michel Landel, Noël Le Graet, Christophe de Margerie, Gianmarco Monsellato, Frédéric Oudéa, Guillaume Pepy, Francois Pérol, Franck Riboud, Stéphane Richard.