Did you know that 70% of those living in poverty around the world are women?

With the financial crisis looming and gas and necessities costs soaring you may be scrimping and saving for your own family but there are ways you can still help.

Women’s Career Clothing Closets

Working women’s clothing closets exist all over the country to help women build a professional wardrobe so that they can secure good paying jobs and end the cycle of poverty. Help women get on their feet by donating gently used professional clothing. It helps others and reduces your closet clutter at the same time!

Numerous organizations for clothing donations exist, here are a few or google for more:

• Women’s Resource Center, Michigan
• Women’s Career Clothing Closet, West Virginia
• Women’s Discovery Center, Arkansas
• Charity Guide: 15 Places to Donate Gently Used Women’s Clothing

Be a Mentor

Donate your time and your experience by mentoring others. Support from others can significantly increase the chances of success and mentoring is an excellent way to give back without costing any money.

MentorNet is an organization linking mentors to students that are seeking assistance via the Internet. MentorNet is a nonprofit e-mentoring network that positively affects the retention and success of those in engineering, science and mathematics, particularly but not exclusively women and others underrepresented in these fields. By corresponding through emails and chats you can share your advice, experience, and support with a young person.

Interested in mentoring in person? Find an group in need of mentors in your area through Mentor.org’s opportunity locator. Put in your zip code and the distance you are willing to travel and Mentor.org gives you a list of organizations to contact.

• Unlike men, high-performing women build their success on portable, external relationships—with clients and other outside contacts.

• Women considering job changes weigh more factors then men do, especially cultural fit, values, and managerial style.

I have always held the belief that when I am interviewing for a new position at a company, they aren’t just interviewing me, I am also interviewing them. Turning the tables on the interview not only gives me more confidence and helps to reduce my nerves but it also reminds me to ask important questions and be honest in my expectations with the company.

I have had the experience of starting with a company that I always thought I wanted to work for and I was so star struck I didn’t ask everything I should have. I took the position and it ended up that the company was awful to work for. I spent the rest of my time there planning my exit. Not getting the offer or even a call back isn’t necessarily a rejection of your skills or talents but a sign that you two don’t fit and can sometimes be a huge favor. Women tend to take this more into account than men and it helps them to succeed in the positions they are in and the companies they work for. I don’t believe in working at a job that makes you miserable all the time, we all have miserable duties sometimes, but there isn’t anything worse than dreading getting up in the morning.

“Just like in the 1990s, today’s coverage of web companies like Facebook and YouTube dominates the media. But just as it was a decade ago, the faces behind the Web 2.0 wonders are mostly male. Are women not running technology companies–or are they simply not getting media coverage? Statistics on the number of women in technology are difficult to come by. Many women in tech believe their numbers are growing, but that they’re simply not getting much press.”

Read the rest of the article…

Where we have been residing for the last several years science class isn’t even an option until sixth grade! I moved my family back to Kansas City not only for my love of the area but for the opportunities my daughters and sons would have here. Unfortunately I have been met with huge disappointment. Reading a KC parenting magazine I picked up at a restaurant today the only classes I could find for the girls were ballet, gymnastics, cooking, and scrapbooking. Ack! Were has all the science gone?!?! As far as I could tell from the end of the school year we don’t even have Science Olympiad any longer and I discovered my children had never even had a field trip to the Kansas City Science Museum.

I am at a loss. What can I do to reverse this new trend?! I will begin by contacting the local colleges about College for Kids courses again and looks like I will start developing some new material. I will put out a call for a few new users groups even if it means that between all this I won’t have weekends to myself. There appears to be women in business and women as business owners organizations and events here but that just isn’t specialized enough. What we need are more events for women in technology and not just computer technology, we need to include all sciences. Where do I start? I cannot just sit here and do nothing.

Any ideas my visitors and readers can offer will be greatly appreciated. You can post a comment or email me directly at linuxchic@alternageek.com.

Women are finding it more difficult to break into the IT profession than to progress up the career ladder once they have their foot in the door, research has found.

In a survey of 100 female IT professionals by IT training company The Training Camp, 67 percent said it’s more difficult to even get into the industry as a woman than to gain subsequent promotions once they have secured a tech job.

Once they are gainfully employed in IT, 52 percent of women felt they could move up the career ladder quickly compared to other industries.

Claire Taylor, a systems administrator at software and services company APT Solutions who has worked in the IT industry for seven years, said although she has found it relatively easy to progress in her IT career, when she started going for IT job interviews she came up against an attitude of companies being “less willing to employ women”.

A side note that I want to mention… IT is getting better about then men v. women ratio however, when I went to college, there were even less women in the technology industry. My college had a special program to assist students with expenses if they were women working on a career in a predominately male dominated field (i.e.: automotive, welding…) IT was NOT considered one of them and to my knowledge still isn’t. How sad.

I have never hit a road block getting a position after I was granted an interview but I wonder how many interviews I wasn’t given because I am a woman. Although employers are prohibited by law from asking certain things of candidates, I never felt comfortable using that excuse when I wanted a job. Most interviews I have been in I had to spend a large amount of time explaining how I was going to be able to cover the long and unpredictable hours that come with a sysadmin job while being a mother and wife. I know that attendance is a major factor when looking to hire someone, but I am curious how many men have experienced this line of questioning and how much time was devoted to it if they did.

 Read the rest of the ZDNet.co.uk article here

The student scholarship deadline has been extended! Applications are now due by midnight CDT (UTC -5) on June 18. Scholarships will cover conference registration (which includes most meals), lodging, and an upper limit for airfare based on the geographic region of the applicant. GHC Student Scholarships are made possible by generous grants from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, the National Science Foundation, Google and Microsoft. Learn more

From GraceHopper.org

Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
by Rachel Simmons

I am about half way through this book and I think it is a MUST READ for both men and women. Every girl in the US (perhaps elsewhere) has been on at least one side or the other of a girl bully… usually most have been both. With as much progress as women have made, they are still suppressed from expressing themselves. This book was the result of a research project by Rachel Simmons and is a necessary look at girlhood and the experiences that woman have had and the challenges they face from their peers. Every manager, supervisor, executive, teacher, principal, father, grandfather, husband, boyfriend, mother, grandmother, aunt, uncle, sister, woman, daughter and brother should read this book. It was easy for me to remember my days of being bullied but until I read this, I didn’t realize I had expressed aggressive behaviors of my own. I already knew I had to change some ways of looking at things with my daughters to help them from falling into the same trappings that plague women still today, I just didn’t realize how many until I read this. I was shocked at how many unhealthy feminine “ideals” and stereotypes were ingrained in me until I saw it from this vantage.

This book is currently on sale in the bargain books section at Barnes and Noble. It is a national bestseller and is an American School Board Journal Notable Book in Education.

Read more about it at Barnes and Noble…