Women's empowerment worldwide: a 'silent revolution'.

Progress toward women's empowerment and equality can seem frustratingly slow and the milestones unclear. But, "The movement for women's empowerment is a wave of change that is inexorable," reported Linda TarrWhelan, chair of the Center for Policy Alternatives and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. "Women's empowerment is happening around the world. It's a silent revolution," she said.

Women leaders from every sector of society are helping sustain this worldwide revolution. Those in higher education have a particularly powerful podium from which to work for justice and equality, she said.

To stay ahead of change, women must ask themselves: What is the next frontier? Where should we go as leaders? She spoke at ACE's Fourth Women Presidents' Summit in Washington DC in June.

New heroes for a new era

Tarr-Whelan remembers not getting into a hospital grad program because she was female, and being fired from a nursing job on her first day because she wouldn't stand up when a doctor entered the room.

Sharon Watkins from Enron and Special Agent Colleen Rowley of the FBI are her new heroes. Both women work in entrenched, male-dominated organizations, share families with stay-at-home husbands and displayed tremendous courage. "They came forward when the going was really tough to say, 'what's happening here is morally and ethically wrong,'" she said.

She cited another example of progress: A powerful Speaker of the House in Virginia was recently deposed by his GOP colleagues for paying hush money to a woman he'd sexually harassed. "An important political guy lost his job because of sexual harassment of a young woman--and not a woman of position or means or authority," she said, quoting from his parting remarks: "The times have changed and I didn't change. What used to be acceptable is no longer."