Whether Senator Hillary Clinton will somehow pull a rabbit out of a hat and win the Democratic nomination for president -- however unlikely that may be according to the political pundits -- writer Susan Faludi says that Clinton’s candidacy has succeeded in transforming the way that male voters perceive female politicians, moving beyond the stereotype of a no-fun, school marm-ish rules-enforcer to the tough-as-nails working class gal who’ll down a beer and a shot in a bar and mix it up with the best of ‘em.

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 Reminiscing about her days when she was a lawyer in Arkansas and then a First Lady in Washington, D.C. , Senator Hillary Clinton said trying to be a good mom to her daughter Chelsea was a matter of balance and quality time. In a recent forum sponsored by the web site Mom Logic, Clinton more

A survey of 880 women employed full-time found that nearly half of them (43 percent) said they’d agree to reduce their pay if they could have more time with their kids, according to CNN. The CareerBuilder.com survey also found that 25 percent of respondents were unhappy with their work-life balance. (May 2008) more

Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman recently lamented Congress’ failure to pass legislation that would’ve helped make it easier for women to file gender discrimination lawsuits if they learn they’re paid at unequal rates as compared to their male colleagues with similar qualifications.

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In its long feature story about a powerful female Wall Street exec who was unceremoniously fired from her post at Morgan Stanley last year, New York Magazine tangentially noted that while this exec, Zoë Cruz, was climbing the corporate ladder, she had three kids – even got up early in the wee hours of the morning to bake cookies for her kids’ classes – but rarely mentioned her children when she was at work and opposed flex-time arrangements for parents. more

Time Magazine profiled Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s mother calling her “at least a dozen things . . . a teen mother who later got a Ph.D. in anthropology; a white woman from the Midwest who was more comfortable in Indonesia; a natural-born mother obsessed with her work; a romantic pragmatist, if such a thing is possible.” The magazine -- which detailed her international, multicultural life -- quoted Senator Obama calling his mother someone who “wasn’t comfortable seeing her life confined to a certain box.” (April 2008)

The Associated Press recently ran a feature story about high-profile women who have pregnancies at pivotal points in their careers. Spotlighting the newly-appointed and seven-months pregnant Spanish defense minister, the article also made mention of former ABC “World News Tonight” anchorwoman Elizabeth Vargas who left her position when she was pregnant with her second child. “What do you do when the timing of motherhood clashes with the upward trajectory of your career?” the article asked. (April 2008) more

The president of the Families and Work Institute says in the current issue of The American Psychoanalyst that a study she conducted of children in grades 3 through 12 found that, when asked their one wish for their parents’ work lives, she expected they’d wish their parents would spend more time with them. “Only 10 percent of children made that wish about their mothers and 15.5 percent about their fathers,” wrote Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute. “Most children wished that their mothers (34 percent) and their fathers (27.5 percent) would be less stressed and tired.” more

Over 515 women answered a request from two authors to detail their work experiences in the form of diary entries. The best of those entries appears in the new book Water Cooler Diaries: Women Across American Share Their Day at Work, by Joni B. Cole and B.K. Rakhra. “. . . [A]lmost all of the contributors to Water Cooler Diaries, except those on graveyard shifts, rise between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.,” said the Houston Chronicle. more

The CBS Miami affiliate examined the disparities in company policies when it comes to employees who have sick children at home. With 50 million people working nationwide, CBS reports that “43 percent don’t get paid when they call in sick, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And only 30 percent of workers with sick pay can use the day off to care for sick kids, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.” (April 2008) more