International Women’s Day

Serena Williams on International Women’s Day: It’s a reinvigorated call to actionThe tennis champion, entrepreneur, philanthropist and working mom is also a board member of the survey company SurveyMonkey. In this post exclusively for Coins2Day, Williams shared some data she’d commissioned about women at work. “For starters, our data show that women are four times more likely to say they provide more childcare than their male partner,” she says. And while 42% of women want mentors, and 84% want other women’s support, many believe that competitiveness prevents women from helping each other. And she shares her own journey. “I cried when I had to stop breastfeeding,” and when she missed daughter Olympia’s first steps. “I’m honest about my struggles as a working mom because I want other women out there to know they are not alone.”Coins2Day

Wilbur Ross broke the law and violated the Constitution when he proposed changes to the census

A federal judge ruled this week that Ross displayed “a strong showing of bad faith” when he added a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The question would have a chilling effect on the census effort, a cynical move to produce an undercount particularly among Latinx, said U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco. Seeborg, in a 126-page ruling, sided with an earlier ruling, saying that Ross misrepresented the reason for adding the question to the public and Congress last March. The case will eventually be heard by the Supreme Court.

Washington Post

David Brooks changes his mind on reparations

I will admit that I was skeptical at first, so I read the column looking for a twist, a rhetorical sleight of hand. Instead, I found analysis informed by sharp observations and in-person reporting and rooted in moral and spiritual thinking. At its core, it’s an endorsement of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s groundbreaking Atlantic piece, “The Case for Reparations.” But Brooks shows his work. “One way to capture it is to say that the other divides are born out of separation and inequality, but the racial divide is born out of sin,” he says. The sin of slavery has infected society and has been passed down through the generations. “It is a collective debt that will have to be paid,” he says. You may not be down with reparations, but this is an extraordinary example of how to change one’s mind in public, and I appreciate him for it.

New York Times

The number one app in the Apple store is a Chinese propaganda tool

The “study” app called 学习强国(Xuexi Qiangguo) was released on January 1st this year and translates to either "Study the Great Country,” or “Study Makes the Country Great.” Most workers and Communist party members are “encouraged” to download it, and user scores to party-related quiz and trivia questions are posted to public leaderboards. (I think. I haven't seen it.) “While the party has criticized the likes of Tencent for making addictive games,” reports Philip Spense, “it seems perfectly happy putting the dark arts of these so-called freemium products to use for propaganda purposes.” The problem is that maintaining a presence on the game is so time-consuming, Chinese workers have to find ways around it. Innovation!

Foreign Policy

On Background

Hi. I'm Ellen. I'm emotional.

The good people at Catalyst have prepared an amazing gender bias correction tool that lets you spot your own biases in everyday conversation. When you call a woman “emotional,” what negative image are you perpetuating? (Did you mean “passionate,” the tool will ask.) Gender bias is baked into all sorts of words that are used to stereotype women – shrill, bossy, bitch, cold, etc. You can install it on Slack or other platforms, and even create a postable photo of yourself with the word used to describe you in the workplace. Share wildly, you cold, calculating, aggressive bitches that I love so much.

Catalyst

Creating a more ethical algorithm

When Amazon revealed it had created and then shuttered a recruiting algorithm that inadvertently screened out female candidates for software jobs, human resource officers took note. “Although it represented just a single case of an internally developed AI tool, the flawed Amazon algorithm captured the attention of the industry and led to a new wariness and some policy changes,” reports Dave Zielinski, for the Society for Human Resource Management. There are no uniformly embraced ethical principles in AI development, but some firms have created advisory boards and established codes of conduct. The move is also a market differentiator. "We wanted to send a signal to our customers and to the market that we care about using AI technology ethically because there are ways it can be used irresponsibly," says Loren Larsen of HireVue an AI-driven assessment platform

SHRM

Blessed are the cruise directors, for they shall know happiness

What makes for a happy life? Seeking the next thing. Neuroscientist Jaak Panskepp argues that of seven core instincts nestled in the human brain (anger, fear, panic-grief, maternal care, pleasure/lust, play, and seeking), seeking is the most important, and all mammals are similarly wired. The reward is dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to reward and pleasure, but is also linked to planning activities. This may be the reason why we spend so much of our lives at work, living for the rush of the perfectly executed executive retreat or the best of all possible product launches.

Quartz