Elana Sztokman

The gap between women’s wages and men’s wages in Israel is getting wider. According to the latest annual survey conducted by Oketz Systems, men in senior management positions in Israel are making on average 29% more than women in identical positions. The survey results show a distinct widening of the gender gap in salaries. Last year, the gap was 26%; in 2007 the gap was 25%; in 2005, the gap stood at 23%. It exists in all levels of employment, but increases in senior management positions. The gap is 24% among CEOs, 26% among those second in command, and 41% among product managers. The widest gap of 49% is noted among marketing managers, in which men earn on average 29,480 NIS ($7,833) per month and women earn on average 19,730 NIS ($5,243) per month. Only in administrative positions does the gap all but disappear — with monthly wages of 5,270 NIS ($1,400) for men and 5,260 NIS ($1,397) for women. Read the rest at the Forward Sisterhood. Read the rest of this entry →

This fall, Publishers Weekly named the top 100 books of 2009. How many female writers were in the top 10? Zero. How many on the entire list? Twenty-nine.

A must read by Julianna Baggott at the Washington Post. Read the rest of this entry →

I was so excited to see a woman on the cover of Friday’s financial section of Yediot Ahronot that I nearly spilled my nail polish all over the newspaper. The full-page headshot of Sharon Chen-Konofny — gorgeous, fully made up, and biting on a nail-polish bottle — seemed like such a welcome change from the usual face of business in Israel. Monday’s issue of Mamon (“money”) is much more typical: There are three photos of men on the cover, 11 photos of men inside and not a single photo of a woman anywhere. Of course, of the 19 families in Israel who own the equivalent of 88% of the national budget, only one is a woman: Shari Arinson. Moreover, according to a Knesset survey, men are four times more likely to be a CEO than are women, and a significant number of businesses in Israel don’t have any women on their boards or in their top leadership. So the absence of women in newspapers’ financial sections reflects a very sobering reality. I therefore read with great earnestness the story about Chen-Konofny, entrepreneurial founder of “Laka”, a chain of inexpensive manicure stands in malls that enable women to get their nails done even in an economic downturn. “Women will always want a manicure,” she said. “We have a basic need to do this. Whether we have money or not, we like to feel that we invested in ourselves.” Hmm … When it comes to “investing in myself,” a manicure is not at the top of my list. Read the rest at the Forward Sisterhood Read the rest of this entry →

A gigantic two-page spread in this weekend's newspapers advertising an economic conference by Calcalist and Psagot advertises "ALL THE BIG NAMES" with photos of these big names -- and they include 16 men and only one woman. Have the planners no shame whatsoever? Is there not one person in either of these organizations who can look at this and see something is wrong? Read the rest of this entry →

I was sitting with a client last week, a man who directs a not for profit for whom I’m doing some grant-writing. He told me he has a new project for me, to write a 15-page marketing document, “But we cannot pay you,” he added. The organization has no money, he explained, and then he gently asked me if I would be willing to do this “not as a volunteer,” but with the understanding that I would be paid “eventually,” or “some time in the future”. I smiled politely and said that I’m grateful that he is not asking me to volunteer because I do quite a bit of volunteer work and can’t take on any more, and that this is my livelihood. And then it came, the question that always comes in conversations like this: “What does your husband do?” Read the rest of this entry →