Gender

"Does anyone else find it strange that the debate heating up in the US around gender imbalances in the workplace is overwhelmingly a conversation among ... women? This constant frame of gender as a "women's issue" is one of the big obstacles to progress -- in both countries and companies."

"In 1,228 words, Rosman takes a real trend -- the explosion of conferences for women with online businesses and a parallel surge in the numbers of advertisers who are courting those entrepreneurs -- and turns it into a tale of desperate housewives who use the pretext of work as an excuse to escape from home and act like ninnies."

"The paper follows the lives of 40 women, and through her analysis of in-depth biographical interviews on their work and personal life, the researcher, Connie Gersick, identified three broad categories in how these women approached the question, "Can I have it all?"

"To explain the sudden surge of discussion on this topic, look to the magic of three: Marissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg, and Anne-Marie Slaughter. Would any one of these women been sufficient to jump-start the conversation on their own? No. Slaughter, Sandberg and Mayer are at different stages of their careers and lives, and have very different ideas around a woman's relationship to work and home. It's not despite, but because of, these different stances that they are moving the conversation forward."

"In my lifetime, very little has changed to improve the lives of working parents and their children. In fact, almost all of it has become worse since I was a young woman of 22, then a new mother of 38. And this is the most depressing measure of the women's movement. Women like myself thought we had won feminism's big prize -- equal opportunity. But in our excitement and individual victories, we failed to demand the structural and cultural changes needed to make it work. In that, we have failed our daughters."

"While I share Ms. Slaughter's desire to realize that work-life balance is a man's issue, too, taking gender out of the equation not only misses the mark, it actually reinforces the problem. It is just an extension of the "get on board" mentality, because it assumes a woman's challenge on the road to creating a fulfilling career and a meaningful home life is the same as a man's. Ms. Slaughter's sentiment, though well intentioned,  fails to recognize the workplace and sometimes cultural stigma men face when they appear to place family before career.

"At PwC we're "leaning in" because we recognize that women and minorities cannot solve the leadership gap by themselves."

Sheryl Sandberg has a message for managers: It's not illegal to talk about gender issues in the workplace with your staff.