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Will The Real Feminist and Champion of Women’s Rights Please Stand Up? Part 2 of 3

By Linda | March 20, 2013

Yesterday we highlighted Sheryl Sandberg’s feminist niche–creating women leaders to change the workplace. In reaction to the media blitz for her book, another point of view was heard from Wall Street Journal columnist and business entrepreneur, Jody Greenstone Miller, President of her own Business Talent Group. She believes that women need more of the right kind of time management–flexibility, predictability and control in the workplace.

She is also right. But her pointed dismissal of Sandberg’s “misdiagnosis of the problem” as stated in the opening paragraphs of her opinion piece is an unfortunate beginning if she wants to advance her legitimate agenda.

She posits that the real woman’s issue is time. She states this without doubt, with no room for other opinions. Miller appropriately hammers the rigidity of the workplace and sees flexibility as the panacea for what women want and need. She points out that the way work gets done in American corporations (or hospitals, law firms, assembly lines?) can be re-engineered, project by project to adapt to the way women want to work. Read More »

Posted in Adventures in Advocacy, Women at Work | Tagged Gender bias, Jody Greenstone Miller, Leadership, Marissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg | Leave a comment

Will the Real Feminist and Champion of Women in the Workplace Please Stand Up? Part 1 of 3

By Linda | March 19, 2013

In the past month, three prominent and powerful super-achieving women have gone on record with their secrets for success. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook put forward her Lean-In program designed to re-design a woman’s approach to her work. In rapid and critical response, Jodie Greenstone Miller offered her cure for what ails women—more time. And Marissa Mayer, perhaps unwittingly, unleashed a fierce and fearsome debate, as to how much the workplace can adapt to women’s needs at home before it loses its effectiveness to do the job.

Each one has a different approach; each one focuses on a different problem, and each one is faced with battling forces that leave little room for alternative opinions and points of view. And the basic questions put forth are: “How do women get ahead? How do they adapt to the business workplace? And how should that workplace adapt to their needs?” Read More »

Posted in Accidental Crusader, Women at Work | Tagged Feminism, Jody Greenstone Miller, Lean In, Marissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg, Women and Leadership | Leave a comment

“The Mommy MD Guides” and Other Books I Wish I Had Written

By Linda | March 14, 2013

Almost 5 years and 453 posts ago, I started The Brodsky Blog. I was told I had to build an audience for “my book.” Since then I have written enough to fill a book, but it isn’t the book I started to write about–my experience suing two powerful organizations for gender discrimination and the fall out from those 10 years–events still impacting me in ways both awful and wonderful.

Along the way I took some interesting detours. One of the most fun was Get Your Woman On! Grace, Beauty and the Power of Women which became an Amazon Best Seller two years ago. Thirty-nice women shared in written, audio and video (yes! a multimedia book that is also in print if you prefer) their experiences crawling out of dark holes and changing the lives of others in a positive fashion. I am still inspired by my co-authors, whom I met in person at an e-Women Network conference in Dallas in 2011. Definitely worth the read. Read More »

Posted in Telling Stories, Uncategorized, Women at Work, Worthy Causes | Tagged authors, Mommy MD Guides, Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing, Women entrepreneurs | Leave a comment

Excessive Exercise Can Be UnHealthy for Our Kids!

By Linda | March 5, 2013

What gives? There is a raging obesity epidemic out there. Too little exercise=computer potato. But too much exercise? What harm? As it turns out, more than meets the eye: sleep disordered breathing and sleep apnea, acid reflux disease, eating problems, mood disorders and headaches.

How is this possible? Isn’t exercise good for our kids? Of course. But like everything, the right amount, at the right time, and in the with the right digestive circumstances. Read More »

Posted in Adventures in Advocacy, On the Job | 2 Comments

From Olympic Hopeful to Computer Potato–Exercise Extremes Can Be Harmful to Kid’s Health

By Linda | February 26, 2013

Kids today suffer from the extremes of a society that wants too much, has too little and never settles for just right. Self-regulation, ideally learned in the first 4-5 years of life, and possibly even earlier, has become an important but forgotten goal of child rearing.

Both too little exercise and too much exercise can have deleterious effects on the health of our children. In this post we take up too little exercise and its obvious effects.

Too many tout exercise as the great panacea for the obesity epidemic. Unrealistic and untrue. And, similarly, the lack of exercise, is a poor excuse for why the pounds pile on. Read More »

Posted in Accidental Crusader, On the Job | 1 Comment

Childhood Obesity: Education, Exercise and Elimination of School Snacks

By Linda | February 20, 2013

More than one-third of the children I see in my practice are obese. Granted, my practice is skewed because we deal with a number of problems in which obesity takes a major role, e.g. obstructive sleep apnea and extra-esophageal reflux disease (reflux from the stomach that comes up into the airways). At least twice a day, two days a week I spend significant time “counseling” children and their families about diet and lifestyle

Most people are clueless about the three prongs of weight management:

What “healthy eating” means,
What constitutes “exercise,” and
What the schools are making available to their kids to eat.

Education, exercise and elimination of school snacks. Sounds simple Not so fast. Read More »

Posted in Adventures in Advocacy, On the Job | Tagged children, exercise, food, Obesity, school lunches | 6 Comments

Book Review: Heart-based and Health-based Communication in a Healthier Wei (Pronounced Way)

By Linda | February 12, 2013

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” The great comedienne Lucille Ball didn’t know she was talking about Dr. Julie Wei. Dr. Wei is not just an active member of the pediatric ENT community, not just a busy clinician in Kansas city, and not just a mother and wife. She is also a ground breaking author.

In her just self-published book, A Healthier Wei, Dr. Wei uses the most important relationships in her life to make her case with a certainty that only those of us who believe in wisdom gained from experience can do. She teaches how patients can live in a healthier way, and how women physicians can have their voices heard using non-traditional models of communication–heart-based and health-based.

The “Acknowledgements” section previews how Dr. Wei was able to create this work and to share it with us. She did it by caring about other people. Listening to them. Giving them the best that she has. She gave to her family, her patients and her colleagues.

Photographs of important people, from the kids in her clinic to her own child, reversing roles on a most beautiful cover photograph, chronicle her journey of discovery with the people who gave her the strength, the courage and the opportunities to make these discoveries. As a woman physician, I learned as much about the importance of relationships as I did about her core message of how to reclaim health for our children who are “misdiagnosed and over-medicated.” Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Artist Ellen Steinfeld Is a One Woman Show at the Burchfield Penny Art Gallery–Not to be Missed

By Linda | February 6, 2013

Suspended Motion: Sculptures and Watercolors by Ellen Steinfeld

This coming Friday, February 8, 5:30-7:30 pm it’s happening at the Burchfield Penny Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY. Artist Ellen Steinfeld will exhibit her work–the first time they have ever had a single artist show. Ellen is an incredibly versatile artist; and this exhibit promises to show off her talents from steel sculpture to water color!

It takes more than talent to succeed in the art world. And there is no doubt that Ellen Steinfeld is a success. From her monumental, inspirational sculpture in the lobby of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute to her delightful rendition of the Absolut Vodka New York, Ellen has had works of art ranging from church stained glass to painted wood wall relief.

But Ellen has much more than talent. She knew she was destined to be an artist at the age of three years. Her need to create never left her. She is petite and has a quiet voice, but her vision is large and powerful. She creates her visions because she is driven to create. Something she needs to do. Read More »

Posted in Travels with Linda, Women at Work | Tagged ellen steinfeld artist, steel scupture, women artist, Women at Work | Leave a comment

Women Are Finally Using their Right to Vote to Gain Women’s Rights

By Linda | February 5, 2013

The 2012 elections were a turning point for women’s rights. Not because any great legislation was passed, and not because women were elected to any particular positions. But because women voted and made their voices count. Look at the voting statistics and look at the outcomes. Women counted; their votes counted.

So is it any wonder that the smartest amongst our elected officials are getting on the bandwagon for gender equity. Governor Cuomo is leading the way with his Gender Equity Act, announced just weeks ago. Both individuals and more than 280 groups have signed up to support his very aggressive, all encompassing,10 point plan. The groups include: labor groups, business associations, civil rights organizations, medical associations, and religious groups, to name a few. If you are a member of one of these kinds of groups, there is opportunity to get your group to speak up and support. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Xtreme Everest: Trekking to Mt. Everest Base Camp May Save Someone’s Life

By Linda | January 30, 2013

Everyday we are connected to otherwise unknowable people through connectivity never before imagined. Arguably we might not want to meet many of these people, but occasionally one pops into our lives with a special purpose, a mission.

I “met” Bree Fisk, a member of the team of Restech Corporation, a company that makes small sensors to detect acid reflux into the throat, through my work as a doctor. She appealed to me to help her become a research subject in a study out of the UK called Xtreme Everest. Apparently 1 in 5 people in the UK will end up in an ICU during his/her life. Many know that breathing difficulties, especially low oxygen, are life threatening problems. Studying ICU patients while they are sick is nearly impossible–experimental conditions in a life threatening illness makes it hard to control for many variables, and is likely unethical in most instances given the highly regulated human experimentation laws, universally adopted by researches globally. Read More »