Episode 21: 50 Shades of Em and Lo

June 24, 2013

Em (left) and Lo (right)

"We have the independence and freedom of being freelancers but without the fear and horror of being out there on your own."

- Em and Lo

Entrepreneurs - and sex and relationship writers - Em and Lo began working together at Nerve.com in the late '90s. They left the mothership to form their own 'sex writing empire' (or close enough) in the mid 2000s. Many entrepreneurs are advised to take on at least one partner. These two women did that, and the partnership is still going strong many years (and four children) later. In this show they talk about the advantages of working with a partner, how they suffer from some of the afflictions common to professional women (they may be able to talk openly about sex, but asking for more money from an editor is another matter), how a brand like theirs has to evolve as they, and their kids, get older, and why their music teacher's husband can't look them in the eye. 15 minutes.

Their latest book is - ahem - 150 Shades of Play.

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Episode 20: The Man Show

June 10, 2013

Martin Davidson

"There are times I think women get unfair advantages in the workplace...and it’s interesting because there’s an intellectual part of me that understands the research and reality in which there’s bias...and then there’s another part of me that goes, 'Hey, what’s going on here?'"

- Martin Davidson, professor of organizational behavior and leadership, University of Virginia

Mike Otterman

This week, it's The Man Show. I realized it had been a while since I'd featured any men on The Broad Experience, and it was time to change that. So I rounded up three guys who spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship between the sexes, particularly when it comes to the workplace: organizational behavior professor Martin Davidson, sociology professor and author Michael Kimmel, and Mike Otterman, who runs the Men Advocating Real Change (MARC) initiative at Catalyst.

Michael Kimmel

We talk about why men won't be honest about women at work when women are in the room, whether women-bashing on the internet really matters, and men's evolving roles as caregivers and full claimants of paternity leave. Weigh in below - do you think it's feasible for more men and women to talk about these things together or does everyone have 'diversity fatigue'? Hit the 'share' button at the bottom of the post to share on Facebook, Twitter, etc. 17 minutes.

Show notes: I mentioned in the show that I'd read some interesting articles lately along the same lines as the things we just discussed.

The Business Week piece 'Alpha Dads' - Men Get Serious about Work-Life Balance' by Sheelah Kolhatkar focuses on a few guys at consultantly Deloitte in Toronto and what they're doing to be less full-on at work, and more present at home.

'Apparently I am Destroying Civilization' is a post by blogger Mama Unabridged (which I saw thanks to a tweet by Anne-Marie Slaughter) who is a female breadwinner with a stay-at-home husband. 

The Good Men Project - "what enlightened masculinity might look like in the 21st century" - takes on all sorts of man-related stuff from a non-GQ persepctive.

MARC - Men Advocating Real Change - is an online community where men can discuss men, women and workplace equality.