Final Episode: What's Changed in Ten Years

“The #MeToo movement I think was very important here [in Brazil], even though we didn’t have one to speak of...but what happened was, this started the conversation on the part of women.”

— Branca Vianna

Branca Vianna

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

“The vast majority of audit committees, which is the most senior committee, are still chaired by men. And the vast majority of remuneration committees, which is the really shitty committee to be chairing, are chaired by women. So...I want to see that change.”

— Heather McGregor

Heather McGregor

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

“I am cautiously optimistic that we’ve opened Pandora’s Box and there’s no way we’re getting those women pushed back in. Now we’ve got a lot of work to do on men and boys. We thought we could empower women without working on men. And I think that was a huge mistake.”

— Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

London, via France, Canada, and the US

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In this, the final episode of The Broad Experience, I talk to three women about what has changed for women at work during the past decade, and what remains to be done.

I began this show in 2012. Back then women and the workplace was a little discussed topic, and almost no one was podcasting about it. But my own experiences at work had convinced me this subject deserved much more attention. And while one measly decade barely registers in the arc of history, it means something to those of us who live through it. There has definitely been progress during the years I’ve worked on this show.

My guests are based all over the world. Branca Vianna is a longtime listener who lives in Rio de Janeiro. Today she is the founder and president of a highly successful podcast company, Radio Novelo. Frequent guest Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is back in London after a stint at Harvard. She always has an intriguing take on where we are, and where we should go next. Heather McGregor, once known as Financial Times columnist Mrs. Moneypenny, was in one of my first podcasts, and I was delighted that she agreed to be in my last. She’s now living and working in Dubai.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

I can’t tell you how rewarding it’s been to make this podcast during the last almost 11 years. Thanks for listening and for all the emails and other messages of support. It means a lot when you work alone from your closet.

Onward.

Episode 200: You and Your Money

“The example that was set for me and probably for so many women is that we don’t need to worry about it. We don’t need to think about money in the same way that men do.”

— Sarah Wolfe

Me (l) and kristine beese (R) during our interview, complete with her Broad Experience T-shirt

“If you look at women’s magazines, they talk about budgeting...they talk about keeping your money safe. It’s really restrictive when it comes to money. And then when you go to magazines targeting men, it’s about ‘the sky’s the limit!’”

— Kristine Beese

Shame, guilt, trauma…these are just some of the words that came up in my conversations for this show on women’s relationship with money. Why IS that relationship so complicated? Two women with quite different money backgrounds, knowledge, and expectations, help me delve into that question.

My first guest, Sarah Wolfe, grew up with little knowledge of how to handle money and a mother who told her she didn’t really have to worry about it. She just needed to find a guy who would. But that advice didn’t work out so well.

Kristine Beese is CEO of Untangle Money, which helps women plan, save, and spend. Her own life experience and years in the financial services industry taught her just how poorly it caters to women. Yet women tend to work less over a lifetime, earn less, and live longer than men - if anyone needs solid monetary advice, it’s us.

This show came about thanks to a social media thread many listeners were part of - thanks to everyone who contributed!

The final episode of The Broad Experience will come out in the new year.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

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More resources: Kristine is a fan of Canadian author and financial planner Shannon Lee Simmons, who has two books on handling your money.

She also mentioned British author Annabelle Williams’ book Why Women are Poorer than Men, and What We Can Do About It.

Kristine and I also talked offline about Ellevest, which like Untangle Money is aimed at women. Its founder Sallie Krawcheck has been on this show in the past. Ellevest invests your money, whereas Untangle Money helps you plan for the future.

Episode 199: Age and Possibility

“I actually think that adulthood for women starts at 50. So I think these are the best not only career years, but life years, where I think women come into their own.”

— Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

View fullsize

Avivah wittenberg-cox

“I’ve started to notice that people will expect different things of me - like I’ve always been an edgy kind of person, but people tend to see me more as quite motherly, that I’ll be interested in their concerns.”

— Anthea Ogilvie

Ageism and sexism are sometimes described as a double-whammy that hits women later in life. Which is a bit worrying, because I’m 52 and wrapping up this show after a decade of production. Onto new things - I hope!

My first guest lives in New Zealand and recently got back into the workforce in her fifties after being out for more than a decade. It feels like that notorious double-whammy is hitting her, yet it’s impossible to truly measure. She wants people to know that many 50-plus women aren’t coasting on a sea of contentment and financial security.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox agrees that ageism is rampant, but says we need to re-frame things if we’re going to improve life for older employees. And that starts with educating employers about the advantages of maintaining and engaging 50-plus workers, a group that includes more women than ever before.

It’s up to us to do our part as well, she says, including “recognizing that usually what got you here isn't going to get you through the next phase.” As usual she’s sprouting with ideas that I plan to use in my own next phase.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

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Further reading: Here’s Avivah’s piece from Forbes on the Lisa LaFlamme firing and what companies have to gain by being age-inclusive.

And another one of hers: Want to Work Longer? Careful, Your Fifties Define Your Sixties, also from Forbes.

Avivah has appeared on several episodes over the years including Does Your Partner Support Your Success? and episode 41, Stop Fixing Women, Start Fixing Companies (audio missing from website but you’ll find the episode on the podcast feed).

Episode 198: From Convent to Corporate

“As a nun, I had the freedom to do a lot of things within a certain context that I wouldn’t have had otherwise...I actually felt often like I had more freedom than some of my married or coupled friends at that time.”

— Ellen Snee

Ellen Snee

Ellen Snee decided to become a nun in the early ‘70s, which seemed an inopportune time. Society was changing rapidly, there were riots on her college campus, and as a friend pointed out, nuns and priests were abandoning convents and the priesthood, not joining. But Ellen felt a sense of mission and purpose that didn’t go away. She spent 18 mostly happy years with an international order of nuns, the Religious of the Sacred Heart.

In a stereotype-busting conversation, Ellen describes how life in a convent gave her a freedom her married girlfriends lacked, how she hoped to change the Catholic Church from the inside, and how taking a vow of chastity didn’t mean the end of her relationships with men.

Ellen (second from right) making her final vows in Rome

After studying human psychology with an emphasis on women, Ellen switched to corporate life in the 1990s, working with women in leadership. There she used the wisdom she’d gained during her years of working closely with other nuns, women in authority in a patriarchal system.

Since leaving the convent she has used her insights to help professional women “learn how to know what they know, how to recognize their desire, and how to pursue it.”

Ellen is the author of the book LEAD: How Women in Charge Claim their Authority.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Episode 197: Facing the Music

“I won second place. And the feedback from the head judge was that I shouldn’t have worn slacks...I was so upset because he didn’t say anything about the actual playing.”

— Renate Rohlfing

Renate Rohlfing

“I don’t think it’s a mistake that the people that in a sense guided and founded the work in this country are female. We need all of those qualities to be good collaborators.”

— Lydia Brown

Lydia brown

In this show we meet three musicians, all performers and teachers, and get a sense of how much the traditional world of classical music is changing.

Lydia Brown, now a professor of collaborative piano at Juilliard, began her career mentored by several women who worked to established her profession. Yet despite this female influence, she says she’s had to fight to achieve the same success as a male pianist.

Renate at work

Renate Rohlfing was one of Lydia’s students. Now in her late thirties, she has had a successful career, traveling far and wide to play. But it took her a long time to realize that performing does not have to mean sticking to old expectations of what a woman ‘should’ look like on stage.

French horn player Christine Stinchi is working on her doctorate at Rutgers University. She performs in pants, and has had plenty of women mentors in what was for so long a male field. She sees a hopeful future for women in brass.

“I don’t think about it on a day to day basis, ‘Will I land this job because I’m female?’ because it’s opening up more in the brass field, being more balanced.”

— Christine Stinchi

Christine Stinchi

You can also read a transcript of the show.

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Music credits:

I want to thank Renate and Christine for contributing their wonderful playing to this show. I loved including their music in the episode.

In the first part of the show you heard Renate playing:

Lieder ohne Worte (Songs Without Words)

Opus 30 Number 4 - Agitato e con fuoco (recorded for Deutschlandfunk Radio in Cologne, Germany).

Composer: Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

In the second part of the show you heard:

Lieder ohne Worte (Songs Without Words)

Opus 30 Number 1 - Andante Expressivo, also by Mendelssohn. Also recorded for Deutschlandfunk Radio in Cologne.

You heard Christine playing Tanguito, composed by Dante Yenque, and Hope Springs Eternal, composed by Justin H Bush.

Episode 196: Where Partner Violence Meets the Workplace

“I went back into the house. And that is when I received the worst beating that I have ever received. And two days later I had a job interview at the CBC. And I had a ring of bruises around my neck from his hands...I realised I had to try to cover it up.”

— Anna Maria Tremonti

Anna Maria Tremonti on her wedding day

“Even as lately as 2020, at least half [of employers] regarded this as something that would be dealt with by their employee assistance program....reflecting the idea that this isn’t a company’s business.”

— Beth Lewis

Anna Maria today

When longtime Canadian journalist Anna Maria Tremonti was 23, she married a charming guy she met through work. He turned out to be violent, a secret Anna Maria kept from everyone, including her colleagues. This was quite a feat given his attacks would sometimes leave her with visible bruises she’d have to cover up before heading into work.

In this episode she and I talk about her long-ago marriage and the scars it left behind. We discuss the positive role work played in her life, even as she strove to keep any signs of her tumultuous home life hidden.

Anna Maria is the writer and host of the six-part CBC podcast Welcome to Paradise. Since it came out she’s heard from acquaintances and strangers alike saying ‘me too.’

My second guest is Beth Lewis, director of Standing Firm, a Pittsburgh-based organization that trains businesses to spot signs of abuse in their employees, as well as signs that they might have an abuser on staff.

Beth says while some businesses may question what domestic violence has to do with them, think about it: if women (and it is mostly women) on your staff are living through an incredibly stressful situation at home, most will not be doing their best at work. Standing against partner violence and abuse is a big part of health and wellness that many companies currently bypass.

This is a difficult topic and you will hear some descriptions of partner violence in this episode.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

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Resources for anyone being abused by their partner:

US: National Domestic Violence hotline 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788

Canada: Assaulted Women’s Helpline 1-866-863-0511, or text #7233

UK: National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0800 2000 247

Australia: National Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Counselling Service 1800 737 732