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Help paying off your student loans is a great perk–if you can get it

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Back in 2014, Joe Lakier, then 25, wasn’t really thinking about his student loans. After graduating from law school three years earlier, he was stuck making monthly payments on $100,000 worth of loans, and wasn’t even beginning to chip away at the principal. But Lakier qualified for a federal student loan forgiveness program. “The plan was, I would wait 20 years and if I made those minimum payments, the rest would be forgiven,” he remembers.

His employer at the time, Ernst & Young, had recently begun offering a discount on student loan refinancing as part of its employee benefits package. Lakier says he signed up and was surprised to find that he was able to halve his interest rate. “That’s when I started to take control of my financial situation,” he says. He opened up Excel and started modeling out different financial scenarios. What would his finances look like five and 10 years from now if his interest rate and payment had just stayed the same? What would change if he continued making the same monthly payment but at the new interest rate? What if he started paying an extra $1,000 every year toward his student loans?

“It was like whoa, this is incredible,” he says. “I should be doing this in other areas of my life, like savings.”

In the U.S., 42 million people have an aggregate $1.4 trillion in outstanding federal student debt, according to Federal Student Aid. Of that, some 3.65 million people are deferring their federal student loans and another 2.6 million have such loans in forbearance. Over 4 million are defaulting on their loans. These figures don’t include private loans, which account for another $67 billion in student debt.

As salaries stagnate and unemployment continues to drift downward, more companies are considering new ways they can draw and keep talent. Three years ago, student loan repayment was offered up as a shiny new benefit–an alternative to the 401K. But contrary to the press cycle, it seems companies have not been signing up in droves to help out employees with their debt burden.

The fortunate 4%

Only an estimated 4% of companies participate in student loan repayment, according to a 2018 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey, barely more than when the organization first started tracking student loan repayment benefits in 2015. That may be in part because it’s expensive to put money toward employees’ student loans and there’s no tax benefit. Any money an employer puts toward employee student loans is taxed before it’s applied, unlike dollars that are put into approved retirement funds. There is, however, an effort to change that. In February, U.S. Representative Rodney Davis [R-IL] introduced a bill that would make payments toward student loans tax exempt. It has yet to come to the floor.

In the meantime, some companies are taking matters into their own hands. Over the summer, following approval from the IRS, Abbott Laboratories launched a program called Freedom 2 Save. Employees who are contributing between 2% and 5% of their paycheck toward student loans get that amount matched and applied to their 401K.

Other companies are seeking out cheaper ways to benefit employees. Over 800 companies including Orrick, Meredith, Credit Suisse, and Ernst & Young have signed on with SoFi to offer their employees student loan consolidation and refinancing. In total, the company says, it’s refinanced $2 billion in student debt through the program. Of its partners, 5% have chosen to contribute money toward employee student debt–an average of $1,200 per employee per year. SoFi says its partners have put $1.8 million toward student loan debt.

SoFi’s program lets companies offer student loan refinancing to their employees for free, and constitutes 10% of SoFi’s student loan volume. SoFi also promises lots of free perks.

“Last year we had 18,000 SoFi members come to events,” says head of marketing Joanne Bradford. “Everything from Get That Raise to networking to yoga.” SoFi notably pours lots of money into marketing and acquiring new customers through events and other activations.

Some of these free services started out of necessity. Early on, the company hired a career coach to offer free one-on-one career counseling to members. “When people lost their jobs, we used to have one career coach to help them because we wanted them to get a job as fast as possible so they wouldn’t default on their loans,” says Bradford. Now she says, they serve as a way for building brand loyalty. Bradford says customers who come to events are three times as likely to sign on with another SoFi product. To expand its offering, this year SoFi partnered with consulting services company Korn Ferry to give all its members access to free career coaching.

In the last four years, 20% more companies began offering financial counseling of some sort to their workers, according to SHRM. Bradford says the companies SoFi works with are also asking them for more financial counseling as well.

Ultimately, most companies still aren’t ready to pay off your student loans–but if you’re lucky, they might offer you some advice on how to do it.


This is why women leave jobs in tech

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Women hold less than a fifth of technical roles in the tech industry, and while there plenty of efforts to attract and recruit more women into STEM, that’s only half of the equation if companies want a diverse workforce. Once women land jobs in the tech field, they leave at a 45% higher rate than men.

To find out why, the job site Indeed surveyed 1,000 women in the field, asking about their experiences and how tech companies might retain them. They identified underlying discord that’s causing women to rethink their careers.

Advancement opportunities

Lack of career growth or trajectory was the biggest reason, with 28.1% of respondents saying it caused them to quit. Many of the women also believe that men have an advantage in the field; just 53% said women have the same opportunities to enter senior leadership roles as their male counterparts.

“Lack of career growth is a problem that women face across industries,” says Kim Williams, Indeed’s senior director of design platform, technology, and operations. “This year’s Women in the Workplace report explored this further and discovered that one of the biggest hurdles women face is making the leap into management roles. This is an area where women still remain underrepresented as they are less likely to be hired into management roles and even more unlikely to be promoted into them.”

Wage disparity

Nearly one quarter of women left due to unacceptable pay. Forty-six percent of women in tech feel they are being paid less than their male counterparts, and 45% say wage growth is their biggest job challenge–more than bias, discrimination, or sexual harassment.

The pay gap has actually gotten worse for women in tech than in other industries, says Williams. “Though it is hard to pinpoint exactly why that is, we know that fewer women tend to enter STEM fields than men, which creates a disparity from the beginning,” she says. “And that doesn’t include other reasons that exist that could be why women in tech have lower salaries than men. Some studies, such as Hackerrank’s 2018 Women in Tech report, show women in tech are more likely to hold junior positions compared to their male counterparts, which could be another consideration.”

Work-life balance

When asked about important benefits, the second most popular answer for women is having a flexible work schedule. However, issues related to lifestyle were cited by fewer respondents as reasons for leaving. Work-life balance was chosen by 14.4% of respondents as the reason they quit, and inadequate parental leave policies forced 2.3% out. However, 28% of women with children believe they’ve been passed up for a promotion because they are a parent or have other family responsibilities.

What can be done?

When asked what could improve the situation and keep them in their jobs, the most common response was that companies should be transparent about salaries, including sharing ranges in job descriptions that would help them identify better opportunities and negotiate a more fair compensation.

“What we are seeing from our study is that women in tech continue to feel they are being paid less than their male counterparts, with many also still being worried about their future wage growth,” says Williams. “If companies can change this perception, whether that is by hiring more women or having salary transparency, it can have an impact on the way women think about their careers.”

Women said they’d like to see companies work toward gender-pay equity and empowering women to ask for promotions. And they’d like a more clearly defined path for switching roles within their company. Publicizing the process for internal mobility could help retain the 6 in 10 women who are interested in moving within the company.

Despite all the initiatives in place aimed at creating more diverse workforces, it’s clear there’s still a long way to go, says Williams. “If companies want to build diverse workplaces, they must have a pipeline of diverse job candidates,” she says. “Companies can also address the concerns the women raised in this survey by providing salary transparency, offering mentorship, and other resources that help individuals grow in their careers, and benefits that support the needs of their employees.”

Williams also encourages women to be their own advocate. “As more women advance in their careers, they break down barriers and set crucial examples for others,” she says. “Once you get into those management and senior leadership positions, continue to find ways to hold yourself and others accountable for creating an environment where women are included and have access to what they need to be successful.”

Check out the best ads of 2018 as voted by YouTube viewers

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If advertising has become less about interruption and more creating work that people actually want to watch, certainly one of the best metrics of this new attention paradigm is the response from YouTube audiences. Now, for the fourth year in a row, YouTube teamed up with The Webby Awards to invite the advertising community and general public to celebrate the #TheYouTubeAd of the Year by voting for their favorite commercials. The winners were announced this morning.

Over the course of eight days, viewers voted for 42 finalists in seven categories YouTube picked as the biggest advertising themes of the year. Six of the seven categories were new this year, including the ad “That Deserves Best Picture,” the ad “That Makes Me [Laugh Emoji]”, the ad “That Frees Your Inner Gamer,” and the ad “That Turns an Ad into Action.”

Check out the winners below.

#TheYouTubeAd That Deserves Best Picture

Gatorade “Heart of a Lio”

Agency: TBWA\CHIAT\DAY Los Angeles Media

#TheYouTubeAd That Taught Me

Nintendo “Nintendo Labo – Make, Play, & Discover”

Agency: Leo Burnett

#TheYouTubeAd That Rewrites the Rules

Bonobos “Evolve The Definition”

Agency: Observatory

#TheYouTubeAd That Makes Me [Laugh Emoji]

McDonald’s “Speechless Thoughts with Charles Barkley”

Agency: We Are Unlimited

#TheYouTubeAd That Frees Your Inner Gamer

World of Warships “You Haven’t Played World of Warships Yet?!

#TheYouTubeAd That Turns an Ad into Action

Nectar “Make America Sleep Again”

Agency: BlackBoard Studios

#TheYouTubeAd That Has Six Appeal (Best use of six seconds)

Groupon “Save Money on Groupon!”

x

Agency: O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul

Despite a surge of tech activism, Clarifai plans to push further into government work

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Despite a surge of activism in the tech sector about the ethics of their work, Clarifai, the New York AI startup known for its work on the Defense Department’s controversial Project Maven, announced Thursday that it is pushing further into government work.

The company, which offers computer vision and analytics technology, is launching a Washington, D.C., subsidiary called Neural Net One that will focus on its work with the public sector, coming as the tech world wrestles with big questions over when it’s appropriate to harness AI technology for military and other government work.

“It’s a really exciting expansion for us,” says CEO and founder Matt Zeiler. “We think it’s a huge opportunity to work more with the government.”

Zeiler says he can’t share all of the potential client list, but explains that the company is in talks with multiple federal agencies, from intelligence organizations like the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to agencies interested in automatically analyzing aerial and satellite footage of disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. Those images could be used to scan for signs of people in need of rescue or to analyze damage over wide swaths of terrain.

“It doesn’t scale to throw humans at that problem,” he says.

The company’s computer vision could also be used for monitoring agriculture and climate issues, including analyzing how plants are affected by climate change, and how land development affects local climate patterns, he says.

“All these problems are just huge data problems,” says Zeiler.

In addition to its work with Project Maven, Zeiler says the company has worked with government agencies when it’s spotted child pornography through automated image moderation tools it offers, and has offered to develop the tool for agencies to use for that purpose.

“As a side effect of one of our models that we use called the moderation model that detects nudity, we actually detect a lot of child porn already, and we report it to the government,” he says.

At a crossroads when it comes to government work

Government work has been increasingly controversial in the tech sector recently: Google recently announced it would pull out of Project Maven, a Pentagon initiative focused on using machine learning to examine battlefield images such as those taken with drones, at the end of its current contract after widespread protests. Microsoft employees and hundreds of thousands of members of the public have called on the company to end its work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and some members of Congress have also raised concerns about Amazon’s Rekognition software, which looks for faces and other objects in images, and its use by law enforcement. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has defended the company’s government contracts, including defense work.

“If big tech companies are going to turn their back on the U.S. Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,” he said at a Wired magazine event in October.

Zeiler has spoken similarly of his company’s work for the Pentagon.

“Clarifai’s mission is to accelerate the progress of humanity with continually improving AI,” he wrote in a June blog post. “After careful consideration, we determined that the goal for our contribution to Project Maven—to save the lives of soldiers and civilians alike—is unequivocally aligned with our mission.”

Zeiler says Clarifai has been open internally about its government work, letting people voice concerns through surveys and an “open mic” Q&A session. A couple of people opted out of the Maven work, including one person who moved to the company’s retail sector, and the company generally lets people move from assignment to assignment if they wish, he says.

“That happens all the time,” the CEO says. “People get bored with what they’re working on.”

In June, a former Clarifai marketing executive named Amy Lai filed a complaint with the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General, saying she was forced out for urging the company to report to the Pentagon that a server involved with Maven work was compromised, allegedly by someone from Russia. At the time, the company said it was simply an automated attack on an “isolated research server” not used for customer workloads, and Zeiler declined to comment further.

“We quickly contained the situation and determined the bot did not access any data, algorithms, or code,” a Clarifai spokesperson told Fast Company in June. “We voluntarily notified customers following a full assessment, including an external audit and report by a security firm.”

The company is also shifting one manager to a new role thinking full-time about minimizing bias, a common concern with AI algorithms and their training, and generally making sure projects and their implementations are ethical, he says, emphasizing that Clarifai has previously turned down projects over such concerns.

“There’s opportunities we’ve turned down in the past where we just didn’t see that it could accelerate the progress of humanity,” he says.

How to let your secret, hidden extrovert out

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About 15 years ago, I was asked to serve on the board of a nonprofit that I had been affiliated with for many years. I chaired a particularly contentious meeting and used a lot of humor to break the tension in a way that defused some of the rancor and allowed us to discuss a difficult topic.

After the meeting, a board member that I had known for many years only in the context of this nonprofit came up to me and said, “Thanks, I had no idea that you were funny.”

This comment came as a surprise. I love humor. I’m not a world-class comedian by any standards, but I often find moments of levity (or absurdity) in the situations around me and then share them with others (with varying levels of success). But, this nonprofit was a pretty staid place, and there were few situations in which I thought it was appropriate to let that side of my personality shine through.

I think a similar thing happens to a lot of extroverts out there. Extroversion is one of the Big Five personality characteristics. It reflects people’s motivation to be engaged and visible in social situations. Extroverts like to engage with lots of people, to speak in public, and to be noticed for positive things they are doing in group situations.

However, research on personality consistently demonstrates that the situations people are in have a stronger influence on behavior than the motivation provided by personality traits. That is, most people find a way to act appropriately in social settings.

Why you hide your extroverted side

Even if you’re an extreme extrovert, you may find that many people in your workplace are unaware of that, particularly early in your career. This may be particularly true for your supervisors. Often, when you first start out in an organization, you have few chances to be the focus of attention. You are taking orders from others and attending presentations rather than giving them. You may not have a lot of social time with many of the people above you on the food chain either. Plus, when you are new to any organization–even in a more senior role–you should listen more than you speak in order to ensure that you understand the workplace and its culture. So, people might not get to know how outgoing you like to be.

Speak up about your love of speaking up

There are lots of opportunities for which your extraversion might be a good fit. Having the chance to interact with clients, to give presentations, or to take people to dinner might be something you would thrive on. But, you might not get asked to take on these responsibilities if people don’t know how much you would enjoy them.

Which means you need to tell them.

Strange as it may seem, you might need to go out of your way to let your supervisors know how much you enjoy being out in front of people. This is a case where you want to tell people what you want rather than showing them. There is no need to call attention to yourself inappropriately at work just to let people know you enjoy these interactions. Instead, sit down with your supervisor and talk about ways that you might engage more with others as part of your role.

As an added bonus, if you really like public speaking, you may end up looking like a hero. Many people find speaking in public to be stressful and a chore. So, if it fits in your wheelhouse, they will be happy to turn presentation duties over to you.

How did Maroon 5 top Drake as one of YouTube’s most popular music videos in 2018?

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It’s the year of our Lord 2018, and apparently it’s not “God’s Plan” to have Drake earn the No. 1 spot on YouTube’s list of the most-viewed music videos this year.

Despite the fact that everyone was doing the “In My Feelings” challenge, God’s plan apparently was to make a star out of Ozuna, the Puerto Rican singer who appeared in three of the top 10 music videos. That includes the No. 1 hit, “Te Boté,” the remix of Casper Magico’s 2017 breakup song, which had 1.45 billion views so far this year. Coming in a close second is Nicky Jam’s “X (EQUIS)” featuring J. Balvin with 1.40 billion views.

Also on the list is the “Dame Tu Cosita,” which was originally recorded  by reggaaeton artist El Chombo 20 years ago, but started to creep up the charts after French animator ArtNoux used the song as the soundtrack for a weird, dancing alien short. According to Billboards history of the song, it then started showing up on musical.ly and finally moved on up, Jeffersons style, over at YouTube.

YouTube’s list proves the power of Spanish-language music, with eight of the top 10 videos in Spanish. We’re guessing that Drake and Maroon 5 will be sure to include J.Balvin, Bad Bunny, and Ozuna as featured artists on whatever single they plan to release next year. (Now, as to why Maroon 5 is more popular than Drake, well, someone has a little explaining to do, or do we all secretly hate our ears?)

Here are the top 10 music videos from 2018:

  1. Casper, Nio García, Darell, Nicky Jam, Bad Bunny, Ozuna, “Te Bote Remix”

2. Nicky Jam x J. Balvin, “X (EQUIS)”

3. Maroon 5, “Girls Like You ft. Cardi B”

4. Daddy Yankee, “Dura (Video Oficial)”

5. Ozuna x Romeo Santos, “El Farsante (Remix)”

6. Becky G, Natti Natasha, “Sin Pijama”

7. El Chombo, “Dame Tu Cosita feat. Cutty Ranks”

8. Drake, “God’s Plan”

9. Reik, “Me Niego ft. Ozuna, Wisin”

10. Ozuna x Manuel Turizo, “Vaina Loca”

For absolutely no reason, here are 29 women directors who made outstanding films in 2018

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Earlier this year, Lady Bird filmmaker Greta Gerwig became the fifth woman in history ever to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar. Ever!

“That’s one hand!” she told USA Today, summing up the sadly small club she’d just entered.

Although the argument for better female representation behind the camera has been raging for years, the glaring rareness of Gerwig’s achievement became a flashpoint. Of all the great movies ever made by women, how could only a single handful ever have been deemed worthy of nomination? (And with only one winner!) Headlines seized on the unfortunate notoriety of Gerwig’s nomination, and many urged Hollywood to do better. Fortunately, because everybody is woke now and recognizing a problem is almost exactly the same thing as fixing it, the nominations for the 2019 awards season will surely be wall-to-wall estrogen. Right?

Not according to the Golden Globes.

The nominations for the award show (aka the Drunk Oscars) emerged on Thursday morning with some of the usual snubs (no Atlanta?) and surprises (we see you, Eighth Grade’s Elsie Fisher). However, the most notable discrepancy was probably the familiar absence of female directors. Did the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, whatever the hell that is, somehow not see Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer? They must have seen it, though, because they nominated Nicole Kidman for her stunning performance in it. Did they think Kidman arrived at that performance on her own? (Look for Fast Company‘s interview with Kusama about the film later this month.)

The Golden Globes are not the Oscars. Hell, they gave two nominations to Netflix’s The Kominsky Method, a Netflix series I’m not entirely sure actually exists. However, the Golden Globes traditionally serve as sort of a licked-finger-in-the-wind for the Oscars race. One would hope the Oscar voters pick up some of the slack dropped by the HFPA.

So without further ado, for absolutely no reason, here are 29 outstanding movies from 2018 that women directed, including not one but two films about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

5 reasons empathy is the most important leadership skill

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According to studies carried out by Development Dimensions International (DDI), empathy is the biggest single leadership skill needed today. According to Richard S. Wellins, senior vice president of DDI, “Being able to listen and respond with empathy is overwhelmingly the one interaction skill that outshines all other skills.” Other research has backed up DDI findings. Dianne Crampton at Gonzaga University found that “Empathy is a universal team value that promotes high commitment and cooperation in the workplace.”

Some companies believe that empathy is so important that they send managers to “empathy training.” According to the Wall Street Journal 20% of employers now offer empathy training, which is up substantially from 10 years prior.

Here are five reasons that empathy is becoming the number one leadership skill:

1. Your staff will be more loyal

One of the struggles that every organization faces is retaining talented staff. One of the most common cited reasons for people leaving an organization is lack of trust in and appreciation from those they report to. Empathy increases trust, a sense that staff are valued and cared about. Whether in our personal relationships or part of an organization, we will be more likely to stay when we feel like we are heard, appreciated, and cared about.

2. Your staff will be more engaged

Have you ever noticed that when someone close to you notices how you are feeling or tells you much they appreciate something you have done for them? You automatically have the urge to do more for them. In terms of employee engagement, it is known that when leadership demonstrates to employees that they care, the reciprocity reaction kicks in and they want to put in more effort. Somehow many organizations miss this basic, yet very important point when it comes to leadership behaviors. Successful organizations are aware of this and their leaders continuously look for ways to notice, compliment, and find ways to show their appreciation to their staff.

3. Your employees will work better with each other

Not only do employees that feel valued and appreciated want to do more in their work, they want to do more for their fellow employees. When empathy is demonstrated at the top, it is passed down throughout the organization, resulting in an increase in teamwork, a decrease in staff conflict, and a decrease in workplace disruption. This collaboration will result in better coordinated work effort and increased productivity.

4. Your staff will be happier

Staff that feel seen, heard, and appreciated feel more satisfied with their work and as a result miss fewer days on the job. As the level of job satisfaction increases, so does the level of absenteeism. Staff who feel less committed to the organization will feel less motivated to come to work. Their rational is that since nobody cares, so why should they? Increased absenteeism decreases morale as coworkers who have to pick up the slack become resentful. This can create a downward spiral in terms of employee morale and absenteeism rates.

5. Everyone will be more creative

People who perceive they are part of an organization and feel heard and appreciated tend to risk more and look for ways to add increased value to the organization. They are more likely to put time and energies coming up with new ideas, processes, and methods to improve their own work and move the organization forward. Their commitment to the organization makes them feel that their success and that of the organization are interrelated, boosting their desire to find new, better, and more efficient ways of working.


Why is the right-wing obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s clothes?

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As the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has attracted much media attention.

A young outspoken woman who defines herself as “an educator, an organizer, a working-class New Yorker,” Ocasio-Cortez has positioned herself as an outsider who isn’t afraid of speaking truth to power.

While her radical political positions – from abolishing ICE to Medicare for all – is responsible for some of that publicity, her fashion choices have also drawn a lot of scrutiny.

“I’ll tell you something,” Washington Examiner reporter Eddie Scarry tweeted on Nov. 16, “that jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles.”

It seems that some critics just can’t accept the fact that an unapologetic Democratic socialist like Ocasio-Cortez – who calls for a more equal distribution of wealth and fair shake to workers – can also wear designer clothes.

To a historian like me who writes about fashion and politics, the attention to Ocasio-Cortez’s clothing as a way to criticize her politics is an all-too-familiar line of attack.

Ocasio-Cortez isn’t the first woman or even the first outsider to receive such treatment.

In particular, I’m reminded of Clara Lemlich, a young radical socialist who used fashion as a form of empowerment while she fought for workers’ rights.

Lemlich – like Ocasio-Cortez – wasn’t afraid to take on big business while wearing fancy clothes.

“We like new hats”

In 1909, when she was only 23 years old, Lemlich defied the male union leadership whom she saw as too hesitant and out of touch.

In what would come to be known as the “Uprising of the 20,000,” Lemlich led thousands of garment workers – the majority of them young women – to walk out from their workplace and go on a strike.

That 14-week strike between November 1909 and February 1910 was the largest strike by women to date, turning what was thought of as a disorganized workforce into a united, political force.

A 1912 group photograph of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Local 25 Executive Board, which includes Clara Lemlich (top row, third from left). [Photo: Kheel Center Flickr]
Strikers demanded better wages, hours and working conditions. But they also called to end the pervasive sexual harassment in the shops, safer workrooms, and for dressing rooms with mirrors and hooks on the walls, so workers could protect their elegant clothes during the workday.

“We like new hats as well as other young women. Why shouldn’t we?” argued Lemlich, justifying strikers’ demands. And when they went out to the streets, strikers were also wearing those nice clothes of theirs, updated according to the latest trends.

As historian Nan Enstad has shown, insisting on their right to maintain a fashionable appearance was not a frivolous pursuit of poor women living beyond their means. It was an important political strategy in strikers’ struggle to gain rights and respect as women, workers, and Americans.

Two women strikers on picket line during the ‘Uprising of the 20,000’ in New York City. [Photo: Library of Congress/Wiki Commons]

When they picketed the streets wearing their best clothes, strikers challenged the image of the “deserving poor” that depicted female workers as helpless victims deserving of mercy.

Wearing a fancy dress or a hat signaled their economic independence and their respectability as ladies. But it also spoke to their right to be taken seriously and to have their voices heard.

Activism and fashion can work together

The strikers’ fashionable appearance was heavily criticized by middle-class observers and the male union leadership. To them, it was evidence that these women weren’t really struggling as much as they claimed to be.

Sarah Comstock, a reporter for Collier’s magazine, commented that “I had come to observe the Crisis of Social Condition; but apparently this was a Festive Occasion,” pointing to the fact that the strikers’ clothes made them look like they didn’t have any real grievances.

“Lingerie waists were elaborate, pufftowered,” she observed. “There were picture turbans and di’mont pendants.”

The New York Sunalso mocked the strikers, calling them the “unwonted leisure class…all dressed in holiday attire” and showing no evidence of harsh treatment.

To critics like Comstock and the New York Sun, the fact that strikers aspired for better working conditions that would allow them to go beyond mere survival – and would provide them with disposable income to spend their wages as they saw fit – wasn’t a privilege that working-class women should have.

Despite the criticism, Lemlich and her fellow strikers were able to win concessions from factory owners for most of their demands. They also turned Local 25 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union into one of the most influential labor unions in the country, changing for the better the lives of millions of workers like themselves.

But more importantly, Lemlich and her colleagues changed the perception of what politically radical women should look like. They demonstrated that socialism and labor struggles were not in opposition to fashionable appearances.

Today, their legacy is embodied in Ocasio-Cortez’s message. In fact, if Clara Lemlich were alive today, she would probably smile at Ocasio-Cortez’s response to her critics.

The reason some journalists “can’t help but obsess about my clothes [and] rent,” she tweeted, is because “women like me aren’t supposed to run for office – or win.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign shoes, on loan to the Cornell Costume & Textile Collection for the exhibition Women Empowered: Fashions from the Frontline, on display from Dec. 6, 2018 to March 31, 2019. [Photo: Rachel Getman/Cornell Costume & Textile Collection]

Ocasio-Cortez has already begun to fashion an image for women who, as her worn-out campaign shoes can attest, not only know how to “talk the talk,” but can also “walk the walk.”

Einav Rabinovitch-Fox is visiting assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University. This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The man who sent “the most famous email in history” still has plenty of questions

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The man who sent “the most famous email in history” is ordering a Chicken Kiev for lunch at the Russian Tea Room, under the watchful gaze of golden eagle statues and bear ice sculptures.

Rob Goldstone is an unmistakable presence on this warm fall day in midtown New York, even without one of the fanciful hats for which he became a tabloid fixture and an online meme. Wearing a denim jacket over a blue patterned shirt, a golden Buddha necklace hanging below his chin, the chatty music publicist overflows with wit and bonhomie. And he’s eager to tell his side of the story.

Ever the pitchman—he claims to have worked with Michael Jackson, BB King, and Richard Branson—he’s anxious to sell himself as anything but the useful idiot he’s been depicted to be by too many Russiagate sleuths, the patsy who emailed Donald Trump Jr. to set up the Trump Tower meeting with Russians peddling dirt on Hillary Clinton in the summer of 2016.

After all, Goldstone’s got a book to sell (Pop Stars, Pageants & Presidents: How an Email Trumped My Life, a breezy and entertaining account of his career and his moment in the eye of the storm), notoriety to monetize, and a reputation to make over. Goldstone was the publicist for Emin Agalarov, a Azerbaijani-Russian singer, whom he accompanied to the Miss Universe contest in Moscow in 2013, which was hosted by Agalarov’s father, Aras, a well-connected oligarch. That’s where Goldstone met Trump, and Agalarov pitched the real-estate mogul on the idea of a Trump Tower in Moscow while “Emin’s driving Trump around in a golf cart . . . and because Trump is Trump, an hour later, he does a press conference where he’s like, ‘We’re doing a Trump Tower in Moscow.'” As a result of his role in these scandals, Goldstone has testified before a grand jury as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry and in front of three congressional committees.

Bubbling with British charm, dropping names, and retelling anecdotes from his career in publicity, he makes me feel a hint of nostalgia and a strong dose of déjà vu for an earlier time in my career. When I used to run around New York City as the legman for a gossip column at the Daily News, I practically talked to guys like Goldstone every day, either fending off pleas to cover the launch of a new cologne at a midtown boutique, or trying to cadge some juicy details about the sex life of one of his clients. That’s what makes it so surreal to talk to him about presidential politics, international corruption, and the minutiae of prosecutorial discretion.

The Trump-Russia scandal is the strangest kind of drama, combining the high stakes of Watergate, the cold war intrigue of a John Le Carré  novel, but with characters out of a Page Six column. And it’s a plot that remains a conundrum. It seems simple on its face, the “stupid Watergate” described by John Oliver, involving a bunch of dolts who sought to please Donald Trump with amateurish antics, of which the illegality and inappropriateness would have been obvious to anyone with the slightest bit of common sense. But it might be something much more nefarious, involving Trump as a Manchurian candidate controlled by the Kremlin, or at the very least, corrupt enough to get financing and/or dirt on Hillary Clinton from Putin in return for pro-Russia policies. And yet we still don’t really know, for all the partisan hyperbole on cable news.

And Goldstone perfectly embodies that enigma, like a Russian nesting doll that’s empty inside. He seems so obvious, utterly lacking in guile, eager to spill the beans. But his explanations seem so suspect . . . to anyone who’s been bombarded by the intricate Russia-gate infographics in the New York Times and the complicated corkboard conspiracies sketched out by Rachel Maddow every night. It’s puzzling . . . or maybe it’s perfectly plausible.

Basically, it was BS (or was it?)

For a man whose career in publicity and at the heart of the fame machine has been based on creating drama and building up expectations, his account of the Trump Tower scandal is surprisingly dull and pretty disappointing.

He asserts that he made up or exaggerated some of the most important details in the infamous email—the Kremlin’s support for the Trump campaign, his highlighting of “high-level and sensitive information” and “documents” that would “incriminate Hillary,” the reference to the “crown prosecutor of Russia”—just to get the attention of Donald Trump Jr.

“I was so intent on getting a response from Don Jr. that, honestly, I would have told him I was bringing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the meeting if I thought it would get his immediate attention,” he writes.

So, it was (mostly) BS.

Goldstone now says he was referring to Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya, whom Emin had previously told him was “well-connected,” when he used the term, “crown prosecutor,” which is a title used in the U.K. Though Veselnitskaya originally denied having any links to the Russian government, it was later revealed that she personally knows and communicates with the Kremlin’s powerful prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika.

In addition, Goldstone is the first one to describe what really happened at the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Veselnitskaya, and lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin. And again, his account is unsatisfying, as if a Jason Bourne thriller ended with the resolution of a Friends-style misunderstanding.

According to Goldstone, the meeting was a complete snore (almost literally, when it comes to Manafort), with Veselnitskaya droning on unintelligibly about abortion and the Magnitsky Act (a U.S. law that sanctions Russians and is fiercely opposed by the Kremlin). Nothing about Hillary’s emails. Nothing about the Kremlin’s support for Trump. Nothing about oligarchs cutting deals with Trump. Nothing about Putin blackmailing Trump with kompromat.

Goldstone claims to have been so bored, scrolling through his Facebook and Instagram and text messages, that he doesn’t remember if Veselnitskaya spoke Russian or English or even used a translator at all. “I was literally fighting to stay awake as she rambled on.”

Though Goldstone claims that Veselnitskaya didn’t offer any dirt on Clinton, she did describe a complicated tax-fraud scheme involving prominent Democratic donors the Ziff brothers (whose investment partner Bill Browder pushed for the passage of the Magnitsky Act). Though Trump Jr. later said that her information was “useless,” it’s still illegal for “an American political campaign to accept anything of value from foreigners, and opposition research is considered something of value,” reports NPR. Meanwhile, the Trump team’s account of the substance of the meeting keeps shifting—first claiming it was about adoption, then “vague, ambiguous” claims of dirt on Clinton, to the president acknowledging in a recent tweet that it was to “get information on an opponent” (adding that it was “totally legal” and “done all the time in politics.”)

Both of these explanations seem dubious. Even someone who calls himself naive and uninformed would have to know that helping connect a Kremlin-connected lawyer with the presumptive U.S. presidential nominee of a major party is improper, if not illegal. “You know, a lot of people have said to me, ‘Why didn’t you, Rob Goldstone, know it was wrong and call the FBI’? You know what my answer is? I’m an idiot. We’ll go with that when it comes to this because it’s true.” Later, he adds, “I wouldn’t do it again, knowing what I know now. Of course, I wouldn’t do it.”

And his explanation in the book reads like something a hostage held by terrorists would say on camera: “I would have hoped that people would understand that my email was not an official statement on behalf of anyone, but my own personal opinion. When I wrote that this government support was helped along by Emin and Aras, it goes without saying that Aras and Emin Agalarov do not, at least to my knowledge, help the Russian government in any way. It was pure fawning, flattery by me.”

Goldstone’s account of the meeting defies belief: Wasn’t he the least bit curious about what this mysterious Russian lawyer had to say about information that could hurt the Democrats and help Trump? “I was sneaky curious,” he tells me, explaining that if she mentioned something incendiary, he’d be able to see a change in the others in the room: “They’d suddenly all sit up.” Instead, he says they were all annoyed–Kushner fidgeting in his seat, Manafort never looking up from his phone, and Don Jr. perplexed and cranky, telling Goldstone as they left, “I have no idea what that was about.”

Really? Don Jr. didn’t ask her any questions about dirt on Hillary or the Clinton Foundation? Manafort, drawing on his deep knowledge of Russian-Ukrainian relations, didn’t pose a few questions of his own?

“Look, Dad, I did this!”

Goldstone’s exoneration of the Trump team feels like the witness suddenly introduced at trial who provides an improbable alibi for the mob boss on trial for murder. So what’s really going on here: Is he afraid? Did the U.S. administration get to him? Did the Agalarovs pressure him to play dumb?

It doesn’t seem likely. For a man who could help put the president’s son in jail, get the most powerful man in the world impeached, and embarrass the Kremlin, Goldstone seems awfully relaxed.

And he’s remarkably unrestrained in his opinions. In our wide-ranging interview, he belittles Don Jr. (“idiot”), condemns his father and his base of supporters (“I honestly believe that he would drive over these people in his Maybach sitting on his gold toilet and they would still believe in him”), and says he believes that Don Jr. told his father about the Trump Tower meeting:

If my father was running for the president of the United States, and I was taking a meeting with a bunch of Russians, allegedly to talk opposition research, whatever it was, in my father’s conference room, a floor or two below where my father was sitting, with my father’s son-in-law and the campaign manager . . . having a meeting. Would I tell my father? Sure, before and after, I would tell my father. Do I know that he did? I have no idea. But do I think he did? I’m more inclined to think that he would have mentioned it. I read somewhere that when Don Jr. bench presses more than 180 pounds, he tells his father. So the chances are that, ‘Look, Dad. I did this!’

When asked if he thinks Manafort or Kushner mentioned it to Trump, Goldstone says, “You would think so.”

He claims that none of them—Don Jr., Manafort, or Kushner—has contacted him since that meeting. Sometimes he sent notes to Jr., praising him for speeches he gave during the campaign, and then congratulated him on Election Night (to which Jr. just replied: “Thanks”). Looking back, Goldstone calls those messages “fawning nonsense.”

Not until June 2017, while Goldstone was shopping for flip-flops on vacation in Brazil, did two lawyers for the Trump Organization (including longtime counsel Alan Garten) call him to ask him questions about the meeting. “And I said, ‘Yeah, it was about adoption.’ And I’ve always thought that maybe that’s what stuck in their head, if you look at the statement they released,” referring to the misleading statement that Trump personally dictated while flying home on Air Force One, in which Trump Jr. said that he and Veselnitskaya had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.”

He also says that he rejected another statement to be released on his behalf and crafted by the Trump Organization’s lawyers because it was “ludicrous, not because it was wrong, but because I thought it looked like an endorsement. I can’t remember what it said, something like, ‘Donald Trump is 100% correct.’ I was never going to sign it.”

“That’s the 64 billion ruble question”

And Goldstone has plenty of his own questions. He says that his three biggest unanswered questions are:

  1. Who really is Natalya Veselnitskaya and why did she want to meet with the Trump team? “Was it a bait and switch, where she hinted about illegal funding to Democrats but it was really all about the Magnitsky Act? Or was there more going on?”
  2. What did Emin and Don Jr. talk about on the phone call (set up by Goldstone’s email to Don Jr.)? “It was never explained to me. Never.” He doesn’t accept Emin’s explanation: “His answer is ridiculous, ‘Well, I said to him [Don Jr.] there’s someone, I’m not sure who it is or what it’s about and it might be nothing.’ Nobody would take that meeting–and bring Jared and Manafort, the campaign manager! So that leaves a big question mark: What did they say to each other?”
  3. Why does Aras care so much about the Magnitsky Act? “Because he’s so friendly with the Kremlin? That’s the 64 billion ruble question.”

Even after the Trump Tower meeting “fiasco,” Goldstone claims that the Agalarovs made two more requests to talk to Trump about the Magnitsky Act, “nothing else,” one in fall 2016, and one after Trump was already sitting in the White House. But he put it off, telling Emin, “I cannot ask for a meeting with the same absurd cast of characters about the same thing. So I just did a dance and did nothing.” He says he waited until just before Thanksgiving 2016 and then sent a request to Rhona Graff, Trump’s longtime secretary. And he claims that he never got a response, and that he never made the later request.

Weeks after our lunch, when the revelations came out that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen told prosecutors that talks about a Trump Tower Moscow continued through June 2016, shortly after the Trump Tower meeting, I reached out to Goldstone again (via Twitter DM, which has been our only way of communicating, though he insists he’s not spooked about email). He claimed that Trump’s Moscow deal never came up when he was arranging the Trump Tower meeting, and that Emin never discussed the idea with him after it was announced by Trump in Moscow in 2013. Asked why the deal was canceled just days after the Trump Tower meeting, Goldstone says he “always believed it was shelved because Crocus group [the Agalarovs’ company] put the residential project on hold due to” a decline in the Russian economy.

Over an hour of discussion, Goldstone repeats many of the same stories and points he describes in his book. But very few revelations. And even after peppering him with dozens of questions, I feel like I’m no closer to the truth.

But there’s one conspiracy that Goldstone believes. He claims he was forced to self-publish his book after the big publishing houses in liberal New York wouldn’t give him a book deal because he’s associated with Trump. “Have you heard of Random House? Well, I published this in my random house because nobody would publish my book, or even read it.” He claims that friends in the industry told Goldstone that it would sell well, but that he is “perceived as to the right of Steve Bannon” and they were “scared on some level that their peers will say, ‘We can’t believe you’re doing a book that helps Trump.'” It’s not clear how valid those claims are. And he won’t disclose how well his book is selling since it came out in September.

But that’s not stopping him for another book project called “100 emails you wish you’d written and one you’re glad you didn’t.” It would go back in history to key moments—such as Cleopatra reaching out to Marc Antony— “and write emails about the way I’d do it, how it would be looked at like an email.” The one you wish you didn’t write “would be mine.”

Currently, he’s traveling the world, pitching his book, trying to relax. Touching his Buddha necklace, he explains, “I actually wear it because I like the Buddhist philosophy of southeast Asia . . . they say out there that the West is obsessed with knowing the answer to why.” He adds, “They would say, ‘You guys are crazy, you spend all your lives asking why: Why did something good happen to me? Why something bad? Why did he win the lottery? Why did he get hit by a bus? And we don’t ask that. We just live in the moment.’ And I thought, that’s good. Now I can’t do it, because I still ask why.”

5 things to know about the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s CFO

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Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver, and there are plans to extradite her to the U.S. Huawei recently passed Apple to become the second-biggest smartphone maker in the world, after Samsung, and is one of China’s largest telecommunications equipment and services providers. The detention of Meng is not being well received in some business circles—particularly now.

The arrest comes after the U.S. and China tentatively reached a detente in a trade war that has seen both sides impose billions of dollars on tariffs on each other’s goods. The detention could cause a rift in that very fragile truce. Stocks dropped after the detention was made public.

Here are five things to know about the detention:

  • Meng Wanzhou is the daughter of the company’s founder and the deputy chair of the company’s board.
  • She was arrested in Vancouver on December, but the news was not made public at her request. Meng has now asked for a publication ban on the details of the arrest, which has been granted by the courts. Huawei said it was “not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng.”
  • The specific charges against Meng remain unknown, but the New York Times said the U.S. Commerce and Treasury departments subpoenaed the firm over suspected violation of sanctions against both Iran and North Korea. Charges were filed by the U.S. Justice Department in the Eastern District of New York. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating whether Huawei violated U.S. sanctions on Iran.
  • China, of course, is not happy about her detention. According to the BBC, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters, “The detention without giving any reason violates a person’s human rights” (and China would know about rights abuse), and demanded that Canada and the U.S. explain the detention and release Meng.
  • Meng’s detention coincides with moves to restrict the use of Huawei technology in the U.S. In February, officials from the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the Defense Intelligence Agency told a U.S. Senate committee that smartphones produced by Huawei and Chinese company ZTE posed a security threat. And in May, the Pentagon ordered stores on U.S. military bases to stop selling smartphones made by those two companies out of concern that the Chinese government could be using their technology to spy.

Are e-bike and scooter startups benefitting everyone?

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One of the main complaints levied against docked bike-share systems is that they’re notoriously bad at serving low-income neighborhoods of color. The borders of Citi Bike in New York and Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C., for instance, generally track along the edge of the more prosperous parts of the city, and skirt neighborhoods like East New York or Anacostia, where residents are poorer, less white, and in need of better transit options that current infrastructure provides.

One of the arguments for the free-range options,. like dockless bike-share e-scooters now on the scene, was that they would change this pattern. Because they don’t require the expensive and bulky docking infrastructure that earlier bike-share iterations rely on, dockless bikes and scooters can be deployed in greater numbers, and with greater flexibility around location. Minneapolis’ Nice Ride program, one of the earliest docked bike-share systems in America, is switching to dockless for its expansion for those exact reasons.

[Image: OpenStreetMap/Coord]

But the reality of the way dockless bikes and e-scooters are distributed often falls short of the ideal. In the Washington, D.C. area, the mobility data company Coord looked four different vehicle providers–Lime, Bird, Jump, and Skip–and analyzed how well they were serving census tracts across the socioeconomic spectrum.

What Coord found, according to cofounder and CTO Jacob Baskin, was that each company followed a different pattern in how it distributed its vehicles across neighborhoods of varying income levels. Of the two scooter companies, Bird and Skip, Bird maintains a higher number of scooters in lower-income neighborhoods, and of the two companies (Jump and Lime) that manage both bikes and scooters, Jump serves lower-income neighborhoods much more successfully.

Washington, D.C. offered an ideal setting for Coord to test out his type of equity analysis. Recently, the District Department of Transportation announced that it would be expanding the pilot program that enabled various mobility companies to come to the city in the first place. In 2019, the city will grant companies a permit to deploy 600 bikes or scooters, up from 400 previously. Under the new terms of the permit, though, the companies must offer non-smartphone payment options for trips (to open access for people who do not have smartphones) and offer discounts to low-income people. They also must deploy bike and scooters in all eight wards of the city by 6 a.m.

[Image: Coord]

What Coord wanted to figure out was what types of gaps mobility companies should be looking to fill under the new terms of the permits. Coord already collects and analyzes data on the distribution of different companies’ bikes and scooters (which the companies are required to make public). For this initial equity analysis, it was just a matter of Coord overlaying density of bikes and scooters with income level in various census tracts.

“These mobility providers all believe very strongly that they are benefitting everyone,” Baskin says. “But what they don’t have, almost ever, is any type of competitive analysis–they’re not in the habit of looking at their data in comparison to other companies.” And that lack of comparative analysis, Baskin says, is part of what contributes to excess availability in wealthier areas, that are already well-served, and a lack in lower-income neighborhoods.

Coord found that while Lime and Jump do a much better job at reaching lower-income neighborhoods, none of the four main mobility providers have a strong enough presence in Anacostia, one of the poorest parts of the city. Scooter companies like Skip and Bird have much stronger presences in wealthier areas of the city like Georgetown, and because e-scooters have to be charged overnight, availability in those areas drops dramatically at nighttime. In lower-income areas, the presence of what scooters there are doesn’t change as much depending on time of day, suggesting, according to Baskin, that either the companies are having trouble collecting the scooters to charge them, or they’re not being used enough to merit charging every night.

Coord published this analysis on its public blog, but has not, Baskin says, reached out to the individual providers in the study to discuss the findings with them. But as 2019 approaches and the companies will be under more scrutiny from the city to meet equity goals, this analysis should help them identify where to be. All of the companies, for instance, need to prioritize Anacostia and other lower-income areas, and the scooter operators in particular should perhaps look into doing outreach in less wealthy neighborhoods as part of their increased expansion there.

All four of these providers have presences in multiple cities, and the learnings from D.C. should encourage them to look more critically about how they’re performing on equity goals elsewhere. “We see this as a demonstration of why this data is so useful and so important,” Baskin says.

Infant ibuprofen recall affects products from CVS, Walmart, and Family Dollar

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If you happened to buy a particular brand of infant ibuprofen at CVS, Family Dollar, or Walmart, throw it out or march to the store and demand your money back, as it has been recalled.

Tris Pharma has voluntarily recalled three lots of Infants’ Ibuprofen Concentrated Oral Suspension, USP (NSAID) 50 mg per 1.25 mL, sold at those three retail stores. The recalled lots of the product have been found to potentially have higher concentrations of ibuprofen, which is dangerous for children.

Here are the affected lots:

  • Walmart: 00717009A (exp 02/19), 00717015A (exp 04/19), 00717024A (exp 08/19)
  • CVS: 00717024A (exp 08/19)
  • Family Dollar: 00717024A (exp 8/19)

Adverse events from the medication may include nausea, vomiting, upper abdominal pain, diarrhea, gastrointestinal pain, ringing in the ears, and headache, although good luck trying to get an infant to tell you their ears are ringing. So far no adverse events related to the recalled ibuprofen have been reported, according to Tris Pharma’s recall announcement.

If your child does have a reaction, report it to the FDA here.

Wholesalers and retailers of the product, meanwhile, should stop distribution. See the full recall notice for more details.

Catherine Zeta-Jones knows how to make you love to hate her

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Catherine Zeta-Jones is at her best being the worst.

Whether it’s her Oscar-winning performance as Velma Kelly in Chicago, Julia Roberts’ insufferable sister in America’s Sweethearts, or a vengeful divorcee in the Coen brother’s Intolerable Cruelty, Jones has become especially adept at adding dimension to characters who seem deficient in any redeemable qualities–and the same can be said for her new role in Facebook Watch’s show Queen America.

Jones plays Vicki Ellis, a cutthroat beauty pageant coach driven by two goals: producing winning girls and perfection. When Ellis’s star pupil loses her crown, Ellis finds herself attempting to groom the unpolished and inexperienced runner-up so she might grab the national crown.

“Out of the gate, you think that Vicki Ellis is this b-i-t-c-h, and she’s not that. She’s very complex,” says Jones, 48. “Through her fear and pain and anger and disappointment of probably not becoming what she wanted to become, it’s a defense mechanism. So with all these issues, it was just something I couldn’t wait to get my my hands on.”

Queen America comes at a particularly interesting time with the Miss America pageant scrapping the swimsuit portion of the competition earlier this year after years of complaints of it being demeaning. For all the ire beauty pageants have drawn over the years, Queen America show runner and creator Meaghan Oppenheimer digs past presumptions and finds a nuanced story that doesn’t rest on the knee-jerk notion that pageants are inherently evil. And it’s that complexity that attracted Jones to the role.

[Photo: courtesy of Jessica Miglio]
“[Queen America] deals with very current questions and tries to understand that through the facade of someone who has it all pulled together, who has that desire for perfection–whatever that is–we are all human and there’s vulnerabilities and there’s fractures and there’s cracks in the surface. And we delve in into that,” Jones says.

The actress admits knowing next to nothing about the pageant world, but through her research (she highly recommends the documentary The World Before Her) and her own experience as a dancer growing up, she was able to understand why young women would voluntarily submit themselves to a system of superficial critiques.

“What I do connect to is that thought of bettering oneself, of me coming from a small town in Wales. What can I do to get that next step to fulfill my dreams?” Jones says. “The people who pooh-pooh the whole pageant world and go, ‘Do women really need to be doing this right now?’ That’s empowerment to women–a woman who takes her own future into her own hands, who goes, ‘You know what? It will get me on the stage, get me speaking in public, get me out there and maybe get me a job at a TV [station].’ I think it’s admirable.”

Building on a character like Vicki in a show that focuses on the gray zone in what most see as a black-and-white debate is the type of challenge Jones wants at this point in her career.

“I relish becoming a 49-year-old woman because I know there is a beautiful next chapter of my life where I get to play some of the real juicy roles,” she says. “I’m not the ingenue anymore. I never wanted to be the ingenue anyway. But now I’m able to bring my life experience to different characters that I would never have been ready for [before].”

From the View-Master to Sears trash cans, this man designed our world

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As a child of the 1960s and 1970s, I grew up in a world imagined by industrial designer Charles Harrison—I just didn’t know it. The New York Times has published a wonderful obituary by Katharine Q. Seelye of Harrison, who died on November 29 at 87. I’m just sorry I had to read about his passing in order to appreciate his extraordinary career: Harrison, an African American, went from being refused a job at Sears because of his race to becoming the company’s chief designer.

[Photo: Flickr user Enokson]
In 1958, before he devoted his career to Sears, Harrison oversaw the redesign of the View-Master, the 3D viewer that had spent its first couple of decades principally positioned as a device for grown-ups to look at photos of vacation destinations. Harrison’s slicker, svelter, more colorful version—and a bevy of reels based on TV shows and cartoons—pivoted the gadget to the kid audience. For a couple of generations of us, there weren’t many toys that were more iconic.

Along with his View-Master, Harrison worked on hundreds of products for Sears—from trash cans to cordless shavers—during an era when the merchant was the closest thing the U.S. had to an official outfitter. My family’s household must have had at least a few of his designs back in the day. I’m sure I saw many more when I whipped myself into a consumer frenzy as a kid by losing myself in the Sears mail-order catalog, a favorite pastime.

The Dieter Rams and Eameses of the world have always gotten their share of industrial-design glory. But by taking on so many mass-market assignments for so long, Harrison must have touched the lives of far more people. That’s quite a legacy.


Why quotas alone won’t make boards (or companies) more diverse

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We are at a historical moment where tides can turn quickly to create meaningful, systemic change towards how women are welcomed and represented in the world of business.

California recently passed a mandate requiring public companies that are incorporated in the state to have at least one female director by the end of 2019. It’s the first statewide ruling of its kind, designed to address the small and stagnant representation of women in U.S. boardrooms. The value of diversity in leadership roles across organizations and sectors is significant and research-backed. Yet quotas should also be regarded with a critical eye to ensure programs that support women in business are doing so in the most responsible way possible.

Through my work with the U.S. chapter of the 30% Club, I’ve learned that while it’s hard to argue against the value of women on boards, how a company gets there can be controversial and raise several questions.

Most notably, there is the question of whether quotas lead to the desired outcome of better gender balance throughout company ranks. Past government regulations, like Norway’s government-mandated quotas beginning in 2008, have shown that while they may increase the number of women on boards, there is no substantive evidence that shows quotas as a catalyst for systemic change across companies.

In Norway’s example, the percentage of women in C-suite and senior leadership positions has not risen in tandem. On a larger scale, mandated regulations for diversity and inclusion risk causing complacency across private firms tempted to check a box, instead of taking an opportunity to be leaders in driving wide-reaching change.


RELATED: Here are the worst excuses for not putting women on corporate boards


Accelerating gender diversity at the board level requires a strong commitment from multiple stakeholders. Governments must be cautious when implementing regulations without partnering with the private sector to support them. The U.S. 30% Club members include the CEOs of public and private companies, executive search firms and the three largest asset managers with a combined $14 trillion assets under management (AUM). These business leaders are all in positions with the power to affect meaningful change in their own way. Through collective, voluntary actions, the public members have moved the needle in their own boardrooms at a pace far exceeding that of the S&P 500. In June, they celebrated crossing the 30% threshold, up from 21% five years ago. This is a testament to what business leaders can do when they buy into desired change.

The other common concern surrounding quotas is whether there are enough qualified women to fill these board seats. This “pipeline issue” is a popular misconception that is easily disproven. In 2016, the U.S. 30% Club and Equilar partnered on a study that found that 78.5% of female officers at listed U.S. companies have yet to sit on a public board. This overwhelming evidence indicated that the gender gap in public boards is not a result of lack of supply, but rather a question of how that supply is positioned in traditionally male-dominated networks.

The 30% Club’s Future Female Directors program works to address this concern. CEOs directly contribute to the pool of qualified female candidates by personally endorsing women from their firms and increasing their exposure to board networks and executive search firms. Getting suitable candidates in front of companies and presenting nominating committees with diverse slates of candidates increases the likelihood of a female board appointment and, in the process, helps dispel this persistent pipeline myth.


RELATED: These are the industries that have the best and worst gender equality in leadership


Programs like these can ensure companies are aware of the array of options open to them when selecting board members and also know how to better prepare women to take on these roles. Through voluntary efforts like the 30% Club, it is clear that the private sector is taking steps to acknowledge the obvious fact that women should be better represented in all parts of a business, including the boardroom. And while the California quota is a well-intended tool to increase female boardroom representation, it can’t be the only lever. If implemented responsibly, and in a way that compliments business-led programs and elevates the cultural dialogue, we can collectively harness the power to accomplish real change.

Kiersten Barnet is the steering committee chair of the U.S. 30% Club, a group of business leaders who are committed to better gender balance at all levels of their organizations through voluntary actions.

Attention retailers: Christmas music actually makes some shoppers angry

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Every holiday season, when I inevitably find myself among shoppers who cheerfully hum along to Christmas music at retail establishments, I feel as if I’m the sole sour face in a crowd of sanguine elves. “Jingle Bells,” “White Christmas,” “Deck the Halls,”—am I the only one who hates these tunes? It can certainly feel that way when you’re just trying to make it through a crowded Walgreens in December with your eardrums intact.

Which is why I was gratified to see the results of a new survey from Cloud Cover Music, a streaming music service for businesses, which found that holiday music is not the all-purpose consumer opiate many retailers assume it to be. Among the 1,016 respondents, 39% of millennials and 31% of gen-Xers said hearing religious Christmas songs would discourage them from shopping at a particular establishment, while 37% of baby boomers said the same of comedic Christmas songs.

Even more noteworthy is that a sizable percentage of respondents said some holiday music actually makes them angry. Broken down by age, 24% of millennials called out religious Christmas music as anger-inducing, while 21% of gen-Xers and 31% of baby boomers said comedic tunes stoked their ire.

Cloud Cover Music doesn’t get into the specifics of why shoppers are angered by Christmas music, but as someone who feels their pain, I suspect it has something to do with the age-old catch-22 about holiday-driven expectations and how the pressure to feel good and jolly actually ends up making us feel worse. Or maybe it’s just impossible not to hear the soulless drumbeat of consumerism behind that umpteenth iteration of “dashing through the snow.”

Either way, I feel very seen by this survey, although retailers need not worry too much. Angry shoppers aside, the survey found that a majority of consumers in all age groups (millennials: 52%, gen-X: 60%, baby boomers: 76%) enjoy traditional Christmas classics, and are encouraged to shop at a place again after hearing them.

Read the full survey results here.

[Cloud Cover Music]

This stroller that grows with your kid turns into a tricycle and then a bike

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A typical toddler might quickly move on from a tricycle or balance bike, either because they’ve grown too tall or they’re ready for a different challenge. That’s a lot of expensive cycling equipment to buy for each stage of development. That’s why a new bike is designed to change along with them.

The design, called the Monkeycycle, can start as a stroller, and then converts into a pedal-less trike for a one-year-old or two-year-old, and then a low balance bike. Flip the frame, and a higher version of a balance bike helps a child prepare for pedaling. Then you can add pedals. The design also converts into a regular tricycle, or a “tadpole trike,” with two wheels on the front, to help further develop balance, or a quad bike, with two wheels on both the front and back. The simplest conversions take a couple of minutes.

“When our son was born we bought him a balance bike, which was a really expensive wooden one from Germany,” says Tony Webb, the Israel-based entrepreneur who created the Monkeycycle, which is now crowdfunding on Kickstarter. “It had no brakes, it was very basic, and it was outgrown really quickly. Then when our second son came along, it wasn’t even fit for him to ride.”

[Photo: Monkeycycle]

It’s possible to buy other transforming toddler vehicles, like a baby walker that becomes a tricycle or a balance bike. Other designers have designed frames that grow along with kids, and many other bikes are adjustable. But Webb saw the opportunity to go a little further. He sketched out the basic design himself–despite no background in bike design–and then partnered with an experienced bike designer to perfect it.

[Image: Monkeycycle]
The Kickstarter campaign offers a few different versions: a basic kit that transforms from a balance bike to a pedal bike, another kit that includes a tricycle, and full kit with seven different bikes. The stroller, which is listed in the campaign as a stretch goal, is still in development. Webb also plans to continue working on attachments for children who struggle with balance, after requests from parents.

For Webb, the design is a way for parents to avoid buying multiple products that quickly sit unused in a garage or are thrown away. “We buy so much stuff that ends up in landfill or on the side of the road,” he says.

Amazon looks to airports for cashier-less stores: report

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Amazon is always in expand mode. It’s building out its technology offerings, always trying to grow its online domination, and is also looking into expanding its physical footprint. And it looks like airports may be one of Amazon’s new targets.

Earlier this year, the company opened its first Amazon Go store to the public. The space used cashier-less technology, meaning customers could walk in, check in via an app, and then simply put the items they wanted in their bags and walk out of the store. The company has since announced plans to open many more of these stores. Meanwhile, it’s also reportedly looking at expanding the use of this technology to larger stores, which will likely cause many Whole Foods workers distress.

A new report from Reuters says that Amazon is looking at implementing cashier-free stores in airports, citing “public records and a person familiar with the strategy.”

According to unearthed emails, Amazon requested meetings with officials from both Los Angeles International Airport as well as San Jose International Airport. It’s unclear whether any real plans have been developed beyond initial meetings.

This sort of project would put an Amazon storefront in front of tens of millions of travelers every year. At the same time, it would require more work to bring to life than simply buying a storefront on a street corner. Given Amazon’s penchant for trying to keep plans mum, bidding on retail space in airports–many of which are publicly run, Reuters notes–could put the company in the uncomfortable position of disclosing more than it wants the public to know. I reached out to Amazon and a spokesperson declined to comment.

Even so, it looks like the e-commerce giant is at least considering the opportunity. And it’s true that it may be more convenient to simply walk into a store and walk out with a book, rather than wait on line at Hudson News.

You can read the full Reuters story here. 

Squarespace’s sleek redesign rejects cliché Silicon Valley branding

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How do you brand your business when your business is “helping any business make its own branded website?”

Until recently, Squarespace, the 15-year-old web publishing and design platform, had a fine solution: stylish but unassuming minimalism. Its logo and type felt round, open, and calmly still–like an empty art gallery or yoga studio, solicitously available to accommodate all comers with soothing, upscale grace.

[Image: Squarespace]

That’s over now. The new Squarespace identity is still minimalist, but less like a yoga studio and more like a samurai sword animated by Saul Bass: it’s hard, sharp, elegant–and always moving. In fact, according to Chief Creative Officer David Lee, that dynamism is the point. “We really wanted to figure out if someone could identify Squarespace purely from its motion,” he tells Co.Design.

[Image: Squarespace]

The move (zing) makes sense: after all, Squarespace is a fundamentally interactive product. To figure out what kind of motion felt right, the company collaborated with DIA, “who’s known for this,” says Lee. Based on isometric 3D movement–in which flat, edged shapes rotate along tightly described axes like facets of a Rubik’s cube–Squarespace’s visual identity is now boiled down to its platonic essence. It’s literally squares moving through space: slicing, swiveling, even swaggering.

[Image: Squarespace]

If that attitude sounds very New York, it’s no coincidence. Lee says that the city is in Squarespace’s DNA–“we’re proud that we’re not some Silicon Valley transplant that just has opened up a satellite office over here”–and he wanted the new branding to be more assertive about that fact. Previously, Lee says Squarespace subtly “tipped its hat” to its hometown by using Hoefler & Co.’s Gotham typeface family. Now, the whole package feels New York-ey: Clarkson, a custom typeface inspired in part by subway signage, scrolls around the edges of stacked cubic squares like the outdoor headline and stock-price tickers that wrap around buildings in Manhattan. Jagged-edged juxtapositions (generated by an internal app created for the redesign) mimic a crowded NYC skyline, or the intellectual and physical collisions that happen down on the streets.

[Image: Squarespace]

“In our collaboration with DIA, we came up with this idea of an algorithm that could actually create serendipitous compositions,” Lee explains. “It’d be very hard to design things like that from scratch.”

But Squarespace’s flashy facelift isn’t just cosmetic, Lee asserts. The angular, almost mathematically precise visual scheme was the company’s solution to maintaining a coherent identity while experiencing rapid growth (although the company wouldn’t comment on any specifics). “With all the new designers and creatives that we’re hiring,” Lee says, “it’s really easy for the work to start to deviate. We wanted to create a tighter sandbox than what we’ve had before, to make sure that everything that goes out the door–from squarespace.com and the Instagram channel, to tiny details like how superimposed graphics come in on TV commercials–really feels like our brand.”

[Image: Squarespace]

The custom Clarkson typeface sprung from a similar necessity: Gotham’s “very horizontally stressed” letterforms had been creating problems for Squarespace’s increasingly internationalized UI. (As of last year, the site and product are operating in six languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian.) “The German language is like 150 percent longer in character count than English,” Lee explains. Clarkson may evoke hip New York ‘tude, but it also lets the company fit more text into the same amount of space.

While the Squarespace site itself doesn’t look quite as aggressive–even, dare we say brutalist–as the redesign teaser microsite or Instagram channel, the company is clearly making a break with its cuddlier former self. The new Squarespace is looking sharp–so much that you might cut yourself on it.

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