I was invited to attend a “big mouth meeting” at Hyperion Books this morning. The publisher is about to launch a new book titled, “INFLUENCE: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better” by demographer Maddy Dychtwald. The author gave a short presentation and then attendees were asked to share their thoughts, ideas and questions. The participants comprised journalists (e.g. Carol Hymowitz of Forbes), authors (including Leslie Bennetts who wrote “The Feminine Mistake”), bookstore owners and academics, as well as entrepreneurs like me.
The bottom-line message was this: Women across the globe have achieved a remarkable level of financial independence and feel they’re finally in a position to have a say in our society – but our influence is still disproportionate to that of our male counterparts.
According to Dychtwald, 73 percent of high school valedictorians last year were women. Twenty two percent of women now out-earn their husbands. In fact, women make up 57 percent of all professional workers in our country.
But only 18 percent of our nation’s top corporate leaders are women. And the numbers look similar in politics, on newspaper editorial boards and other places where important public debate occurs.
Dychtwald described the evolution as going from survival to independence to influence. We’re somewhere between independence and influence. The book apparently discusses how women will use this power to “improve society in ways we can only begin to imagine.” Sounds promising. Now that I have a proof of the book (available wherever books are sold on May 4), I’ll give it a read and report back what I learn.