Company Culture
In an effort to mitigate the effects of the pink and tampon taxes, online wholesaler company Boxed has introduced discounts of about 9 percent nationally on personal care products marketed toward women so their prices are more equal to that of men’s products by unit or ounce. Fast Company
Microsoft (3.4 stars) isn’t doing too hot on the whole respecting women thing. The tech company, which is the second-most valuable corporation in the U.S., is currently facing an equal pay suit, a wrongful termination suit, and accusations of pregnancy discrimination, many of which were revealed in an internal email chain women employees used to share their negative experiences at the company. Vox
Doug Peterson, CEO of data and financial firm S&P Global (3.1 stars) , is on a mission to get more women into the workforce. His campaign “Change Pays” calls on business leaders to set gender parity goals at their companies, including his own, and meet them. Fortune
Quick Hits
When you bust your butt daily at your job, it can feel like a slap in the face when you hear that a more junior, male employee at the company is making more than you. A recent survey conducted by Fast Company found that this is a fairly common experience for working women. Of the respondents, 52 percent of women reported they’ve found out a male colleague at their workplace of equal or more junior status gets paid more than them. Fast Company
Three years ago Katie Bouman, a Ph.D student at MIT, led the creation of an algorithm. Standard grad student stuff. But the algorithm Bouman created revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos when it led to the first picture of a black hole in existence from 55 million light years away. The Guardian
Around the World
South Korea: The Constitutional Court in South Korea has deemed its antiquated 1953 abortion ban unconstitutional. Under the ban originally passed in to increase South Korea’s population, those who had abortions faced up to a year in prison, and doctors who performed the procedure faced up to two years in prison. The Constitutional Court has given parliament until 2020 to revise the law. Bloomberg
Sudan: After accusations of human rights abuses and political corruption, protestestors in Sudan are calling for the resignation of President Omar al-Bashir. Thirty-eight people have died since the protests began in December, and maybe that’s why the powerful image of a woman being called “Kandaka," which means Nubian queen, has reignited hope for the protestors and sympathizers across the globe. BBC
Germany: In December, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was handpicked by Angela Merkel to be her successor as leader of Germany’s center-right party. But how will the much more socially conservative Kramp-Karrenbauer’s leadership differ from Merkel’s? Bloomberg