Ilene H. Lang

The Masters Tournament is over, but Augusta National Golf Club's male-only membership policy remains.

As an institution, Augusta is well within its rights to discriminate against women. But as a club, Augusta is more than an institution -- it's a membership organization, and its policies reflect the views and values...

Do women lack ambition? Not on your life.

Women want to succeed, yet even when they do "all the right things" Catalyst has found that they earn less and progress more slowly than men. The fact that some women adjust their career advancement strategies after crashing into institutional barriers is...

Change has flatlined -- women are no further toward achieving top ranks in business than they were last year, or even six years ago. Yet equality can't wait.

Our latest census of women atop the Fortune 500 shows continued stagnation. Men hold a staggering 83.9% of corporate board seats,...

We've all heard the maxim that "women don't ask." This view is so prevalent that an entire cottage industry has sprung up to address it. The problem is that it's simply untrue.

Our new report, The Myth of the Ideal Worker, the latest in our series on high-potential...

Let's talk about sexism.

Now I know the word "sexism" carries baggage. But no matter what you call it -- gender bias, systemic inequity, inequality or discrimination -- the belief that a woman is not as capable as a man simply because she is a woman is at the root...

As a group within the LGBT community, transgender women face unique barriers, and they're part of a group that's typically left out of the conversation. But only by discussing -- and exposing -- the stereotypes that transgender women face, can we educate and mitigate the barriers.

Some people consider transgender...

Commencement addresses are often peppered with inspiring quotes, stories of perseverance, and warm anecdotes intended to uplift and inspire the next generation. But in a recent piece for the Washington Post geared for college grads, I opted to get straight to the point about the challenges ahead. The fact...

A 2010 New York Times headline posed the question: "Why take our children to work?"

Amid criticism of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day's purpose and a decline in participation among some school districts, many parents have no doubt asked themselves the same...

You can't be what you can't see.

That's the takeaway message of a new documentary, Miss Representation, which premiered on Saturday in New York City. Featuring interviews with an array of female leaders--including Condoleezza Rice, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, and Jane Fonda, among others--the film explores how one-dimensional, hypersexualized...

Women can't jump?

The International Olympic Committee said it "needs more time" to decide the fate of women's ski jumping in the 2014 Winter Games. The committee met late last year to discuss, among other issues, possible inclusion of the high-flying sport banned in years past.

You read that...

This just in: the latest Catalyst research highlights deep challenges -- and potential solutions -- for women seeking to climb the corporate ladder.

For the fifth year in a row, our Census of women leaders in the Fortune 500 showed that women are stuck. Women hold only 14.4% of...

UPDATE: Disappointing news: the Paycheck Fairness Act stalled on Capitol Hill. Below is our official statement:

Catalyst's Statement on Blockage of Paycheck Fairness Act in US Senate

A crucial bill targeting the gender pay gap in the United States was blocked today as too few senators...

The number of women in Congress has gone down in 2010 for the first time in 30 years despite a record number of women who ran for the House and Senate. Gender stereotyping is behind the decline.

"It's always been tougher for women to get elected in a...

I'm a mother, but being a mom doesn't mean I have some magical skills non-mothers lack. Yet the "motherhood debate" rages on--especially during the election cycle.

"I think my experience is one of the things that sets me apart as a candidate for Governor. First of all, being a mother,...

I was never a fan of scary movies because there are enough real scary things already out there! Below is a list of the top ten things that my colleagues and I are scared about this Halloween. Freddy Krueger's got nothing on these.

The Catalyst Top Ten Halloween Fears:

#10....

Here we go again. Sometimes news -- even good news -- gets blown out of proportion. That's what's happening now with the gender wage gap.

Recent headlines like "What gender pay gap? Young single women making MORE money than their male peers in America's cities," and

Last week, The New York Times' David Leonhardt claimed that women who didn't have children and never took time off had careers that "resembled" those of men. The next day, The Atlantic's Daniel Indiviglio argued "women without children are holding their own against men."

Both articles...

Eighteen years ago, only days before the first annual Take Our Daughters to Work Day, the Ms. Foundation for Women received a call from a New York City high school teacher.

The teacher said she had lined up an internship for one of her bright female students in a...

Eighteen years ago, only days before the first annual Take Our Daughters to Work Day, the Ms. Foundation for Women received a call from a New York City high school teacher.

The teacher said she had lined up an internship for one of her bright female students in a...

In 1962, the faculty at Harvard Business School voted to accept women -- eight were admitted the next year. I was among 33 women out of a class of 800 in 1973. As graduation loomed that year, an on-campus recruiter talked to several of my male classmates about a well-paid...