Recognizing the significant contributions made by Latinas to the business world is the order of the day.

Today, we will focus on an important group of businesswomen, who call themselves Madrinas (Spanish for “godmother”). Their mission has been to “[support] the career advancement of Latinas in today’s corporate/business environment” since 2002. Their tag line is “Latinas Empowering Latinas” and to me, it signifies something powerful: the notion of women helping women. We certainly need more of that in business. If you haven’t visited their website, check out the link above.

More on Hispanic Heritage Month throughout September and into October.

JFC

According to a press release sent out yesterday, the Anita Borg Institute will host TechLeaders: Realizing Your Vision for Women of Color on September 10-11, 2008 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. The purpose of the event is to help entry to mid-level women of color develop their influencing skills, refine their technical vision, and network with other women of color in the High Tech industry.

Recent research from the National Science Foundation found that women of color earn fewer than 9.4% computer science and 7.1% engineering bachelors degrees, and–as is often the case–are virtually invisible at the senior levels of both fields. The Institute is hoping to address these and other related issues. An interesting idea, to say the least.

You can check out the conference here.

To find out, I went to the recent statistics released by the Women’s Data Center of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Here’s what I found:

Participation Rates
African-American women have the highest participation in the labor force at 63.1%. This rate is 4-6% higher than any other group of women. White women and Native American women participate in the labor force at around 58% (58.8% and 58.2%, respectively), followed by Asian-American (57.5%) and Hispanic/Latinas (56.6%).

I am now reminded of the welfare queen stereotype, generally used against African-American and Latinas/Hispanic women. Oh, right, we can see from these statistics that the women in these groups participate in the labor force at almost an equal rate (Latinas) or a greater rate (African-Americans) than White women. So much for stereotypes.

Mind the Gap!
And there are more nuggets of information: in order to compare the rates at which men and women in these groups are working, the gap (or difference) in their labor participation rates was measured:

African-Americans – 5.6% difference between the men and women’s participation rates. This is the smallest gap across all ethnic groups.

Asian-Americans – 15.8% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Caucasian/Whites – 13.7% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Latinos/Hispanics – 22.7% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Native Americans – 10.6% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

These numbers remind us that large percentages of multicultural women are participating in the labor force, and underscore the need for programs and initiatives related to their professional development and career advancement.

JFC

Indus Women Leaders (IWL) is a non-profit organization geared toward the professional and personal development of South Asian women.

Cool idea, huh?

They have quite a bit of information on their website, including information about their chapters, 2008 Board of Directors, and other organizational information.

Now look at their member demographics:

• Over 80% have a Master’s Degree or higher
• Over 95% have at least 5-7 years of experience
• Over 56% make purchase decisions for a household
• Over 50% work in an organization with 500+ employees

I really hope companies and other professionals will take this organization seriously. It’s a great example of the types of groups that multicultural women are forming.

I only have one question for the women of IWL: what about a New York City chapter?

JFC

The site now has registration information and provides an agenda. More information is available on the Conference Homepage.

The conference will be held in New York City on June 24, 2008 at Bayard’s in Hanover Square.

I encourage everyone to attend; it promises to be an excellent event!

JFC

Goldman Sachs & Co.’s Brokering Change Initiative (a Wall Street Multicultural Women’s Exchange) is hosting its first annual Interbank Conference on June 24, 2008. I’ll make the registration link available as soon as I receive it.

Working Mother Media is hosting its Multicultural Women’s National Conference on July 22-23, 2008, and is the largest multicultural women’s conference in the United States. Registration information is available at the website.

UPDATE: Working Mother is also hosting the South African Advancement of Women Conference on August 8, 2008. This is one of their international events geared toward the advancement of women in the workplace. I think they are ahead of the curve on this one and that it is likely to become a trend.

JFC

But the studies on the advancement of women (especially women of color) in corporate america are not showing the sort of improvement that ought to follow all of these diversity programs and initiatives. Professors at Tuck (Dartmouth) and Loyola Chicago recently released a study entitled “The Pipeline to the Top: Women and Men in the Top Executive Ranks of U.S. Corporations”. The results are published in the Academy of Management Perspectives November 2006 issue.

You can read a short blurb on the study here (from U.S. News & World Report).

“Tired of Choosing”: Working with the Simultaneity of Race, Gender, and Class in Organizations.

Read the article: http://www.simmons.edu/som/docs/centers/insights_24.pdf

For more information on the CGO, click here.