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Two studies released show women nationally still not making progress in landing more executive and board seats.

Despite the fact that women now make up half the workforce, they still are no further toward achieving top ranks at the nation’s big businesses than they were last year, or even six years ago, according to the 2011 Catalyst Census report.

At the Fortune 500 companies, more than a quarter of businesses still had no women in their executive offices in 2010, and 56 had no women directors, the Catalyst report found. It also revealed the sobering fact that only 3 percent of corporate board seats are held by women of color.

more in Miamiherald

Liberia's peace campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Leymah Roberta Gbowee, has told the world that the rights of women around the world are truly human rights. She noted that "Any leader, nation or political group that excludes women from all forms of national and local engagement is setting themselves up for failure."

The Liberian female peace campaigner made the assertions in Oslo, Norway Saturday, December 10, 2011, when she delivered a lecture at occasion marking the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize to her. more in AllAfrica

The publication of unemployment figures is regularly commented in the media. Repeatedly, the analysis focuses on the overall evolution of youth unemployment, over-fifties or long-term unemployment, which are indeed noticeable/remarkable categories.

But, who ever speaks about women’s unemployment ? Far more than men's unemployment, no matter which age group. If, because of the financial crisis, which first affected the industrial sector, women’s unemployment rate was temporarily caught up to by men’s unemployment rate in 2009, since 2010 it is back its first place.

The tendency is similar in Europe. In the latest data published by Eurostat in November 2011, the Eurozone’s unemployment rate has reached 10,3 %. "Unemployment firstly affects young people and seniors", the media unanimously point out. However, as usual, it affects women particularly harshly.

more in french in the daily Le Monde.
English translation made by Marion Chapsal and Tania Michaud, members of BPW Rhone-Alpes.

Brazilian women are more ambitious than their U.S. counterparts and aim to attain top jobs, a report by the Center for Work-Life Policy shows.

At least 80 percent of college-educated Brazilian women aspire to top-level positions, compared with 52 percent in the U.S., and 59 percent of Brazilian women consider themselves “very ambitious,” compared with 36 percent in the U.S., according to the study. Twenty-eight percent of women with a college degree earn more than their husbands in Brazil, less than the 39 percent of U.S. women with a degree that earn more than their husbands. more in Bloomberg Businessweek

2011 has put a number of women all over the world in the spotlight and they stood out for all sorts of reasons. Below we shun and applaud some. writes Brenda Banura  in the Daily Monitor.

How do bankers provide relief?
Through loans of course.
Lending to weak, vulnerable, and very poor women is the rallying cry for those who argue that micro-credit empowers women.
And that's why the Global Micro-Credit Summit begins today in Valladolid, Spain. During the next four days micro-lenders from all over the world will join some of the world's largest banks in a shout out for debt: "Loans will set you free."

Or will they?

More in Womens E-news

The EU's foreign affairs chief called for Libya to ensure gender equality is protected in law and deed as the country moves toward democracy, and said the European Union would continue to support that goal.

"Discrimination should have no place in a new country," Catherine Ashton told an audience of mainly women in the Libyan capital. Ashton was speaking during a whirlwind visit to Tripoli, where she inaugurated the EU's mission, which is intended to help coordinate aid efforts for Libya.

More in Reuters.

The Islamist Ennahda Party’s election victory in Tunisia has come to mean many different things. For outside observers wary of how the “Arab Spring” might reshape regional politics, their victory signals a trend that will allow more conservative elements in Libya and Egypt to follow suit and succeed to power. For others, the victory is a positive sign that political Islam in the region has become “moderate” and will embrace democracy.

But for women’s rights activists in Tunisia, the victory is a worrying sign that their battle for equality has suddenly become much more difficult.

More in Al-Masry Al-Youm

Japan's economic health is threatened. Not just by an ongoing recession and March's disastrous earthquake and tsunami, but by an aging population that is decimating the workforce. If ever a country needed a breakthrough idea for productivity, it's now.

In fact, a solution exists: Japan's underutilized and under-leveraged women. According to a 2010 study by Goldman Sachs, "If Japan could close its gender employment gap...Japan's workforce could expand by 8.2 million and the level of Japan's GDP could increase by as much as 15 percent."

More in Bloomberg

European countries have been following the lead of Norway and instituting quotas for women on corporate boards. Nele Feldmann says Germany should follow suit and demand more from companies than voluntary promises.

New quota requirements are changing the gender mix of corporate boardrooms across Europe ever since Norway led the way by passing a quota law of 40 percent in 2003.

More on WeNews, November 28, 2011.