That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together, A Conversation with Author Joanne Lipman

Please join us and Author Joanne Lipman joins us at Yale SOM for our final Colloquium on Business & Society this semester: “That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together.”

Lipman will be discussing her new book of the same name, which shows why empowering women as true equals is an essential goal for women and men—and offers a roadmap for getting there.

She will be joined in conversation by Kyle Jensen, associate dean and Shanna and Eric Bass ’05 Director of Entrepreneurship and senior lecturer, and Jennifer McFadden, associate director of entrepreneurship and lecturer in the practice of management at Yale SOM.

Immediately following the talk, Lipman will be signing copies of her new book, which will be available for purchase.

A veteran journalist, she served most recently as chief content officer of Gannett, and editor-in-chief of USA Today. She began her career as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, ultimately rising to deputy managing editor—the first woman to attain that post—and supervising coverage that won three Pulitzer Prizes. Subsequently, she was founding editor-in-chief of Portfolio magazine and portfolio.com, which won Loeb and National Magazine Awards.

Lipman has pioneered integrating gender equality into the workplace. She has written on the topic for publications including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, and Time. As one of the most senior women in the media industry, she has actively promoted women in the newsrooms she leads.

A frequent speaker about women in the workplace, she has addressed mixed-gender groups at major law firms, banks, professional, and civic organizations on issues such as unconscious bias, women in leadership, and bringing men into the conversation about gender equality. Recent speaking engagements on women's issues include the Aspen Ideas Festival, the World Economic Forum in Davos, and Women in Cable Television’s national leadership conference, which she keynoted with Katie Couric.

Lipman is a winner of the Matrix Award for women in media. She and her husband live in New York City and are the parents of two children.

In the struggle for equality in the workplace, the allies that women most need now are men, journalist and author Joanne Lipman (Yale College Class of 1983) told students at the Yale School of Management on May 8.

“Women have ‘leaned in’ plenty far—we’re falling over already,” Lipman said. “We need the men to lean into us.” Lipman came to Yale to discuss her new book, That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together (HarperCollins.)

Moderated by Kyle Jensen, associate dean and Shanna and Eric Bass ’05 Director of Entrepreneurship, and Jennifer McFadden, associate director of entrepreneurship and lecturer in the practice of management, Lipman’s talk was part of Yale SOM’s Colloquium on Business and Society lecture series.

Lipman emphasized that while it’s important that women continue advocating for themselves and each other at work, the time has come to enlist greater help from male colleagues.

Raising awareness and creating an environment where it’s less awkward to discuss gender equality are the first steps, Lipman said. “There are bad guys out there, but demonizing an entire gender isn’t going to fix things,” she said, adding that there are many men who fully support equality for women in the workplace and sincerely want to help bring it about.

While Lipman supports the diversity and unconscious bias training that some companies undertake, she said efforts have to go further: “Culture change has to start at the top with the leaders of the organization”—for example, with more diverse hiring policies and by ensuring that women’s voices are heard during meetings and that women are given full credit for their ideas and innovations.