“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…”
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.

        Women, both in history and in our society today, have no such tide. In fact, they are stuck in the shallows that Shakespeare goes on to mention, and if they wait for a tide to arrive, they are most likely to wind up high and dry.

            For women, success is more like an obstacle course, where we must overcome certain common barriers or roadblocks just to stay on the right path, much less to cross the finish line ahead of our peers.  Action is required and, to set the right course, women need some clear signposts along the way. This book aims to provide those signposts, in the form of guidance and practical steps on how to move forward to plan and implement your successful career path.

            According to the U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, there are about 68 million women working in the U.S. today, and virtually all of them would benefit from the practical self-help steps provided in this book.  This is the guidebook I would have liked to have had when I started out, instead of learning the hard way. Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison said: “If there is a book you want to read and it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”  This is that book.

The Federal Commission came out with its Glass Ceiling report in 1995, ratcheting up awareness of the issue of the unlevel playing field for women and placing it into much sharper focus.  But that was more than 10 years ago and yet things haven’t changed much! Although women have made some progress, women should not have to wait for our daughters to grow up or for the current crop of women graduates to come into power.  The time for women to take power is now.

Many experts agree that the workplace won't change until there has been a significant shift towards more women in the top positions of power. Only when women hold half of the top-level jobs will companies become truly women- and family-friendly, offering day-care and elder-care alternatives; flextime options; and better pay, benefits, and retirement packages.

Consider these dismal facts facing working women today:

• There are only 9 women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies (only 1.8%).
• There are only 19 women CEOs in the top 1000 companies (only 1.9%).

Below that exalted level, the stats are equally grim:

• In a workforce of roughly 50% women, only 5% make it to top management.
• Only 10-15% of professional women make it to top positions.
• Only 16% of women earn 6-figure salaries.
• 48% of women-owned businesses have less than $10,000 in revenue annually, and 87% generate less than $100,000 in revenue annually.
• The share of dollars lent to women-owned businesses is only about 15%, and almost none of it comes from male venture capitalists.

For most women, many of the historic patterns persist. Notably, many women still are only able to own a major business through the death of their father or husband.  Katherine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post and the first woman to run a Fortune 500 Company, attributed her management succession to CEO to “the good luck of my birth and the bad luck of my husband’s death.”

AdvancingWomen.com will deal comprehensively and strategically with these issues, fusing experience with research-based perspectives.