This week’s Link Love is so warm and cozy it should keep your mind off the Polar Vortex for a little while. xo

Start warming up with this super lux DIY recipe for a “Winter Wonder Hand Cream” from esthetician and beauty expert Jessica Bartley. [via Well + Good NYC]

Has the Digital Age robbed us of our ability to have good conversations anymore? An MIT psychologist tries to slow us down and revert us back to the dying art of dialogue. [via The Atlantic]

What a way to spend a day…a café that charges you by the minute, not by the menu item. How quaint and new-world at the same time. [via Grist]

Oh, there’s nothing like spending a cold winter’s day contemplating the ambiguity of our diet options, Neal Pollack style. [via Dark Rye]

They’re back…Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David are teaming up again for something, er, rather, I think that’s nothing. [via A.V. Club]

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image via A.V. Club

The post Link Love: DIY Wintery Lotion + A Pay-By-The-Minute Café + Seinfeld’s Return appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

Yoga is becoming part of corporate culture, and that is good for the bottom line. [Via LearnVest]

Where you live affects your health. A new study shows that rural living could be an obesity risk factor. [Via Los Angeles Times]

What do you do when you have a day off? According to this poll, most of us sleep. [Via NPR]

Spice up your coffee with these five seasonal ingredients. [Via Organic Authority]

If you can rent out your apartment, why not your bike? Enter the Airbnb of the cycling world. Just make sure it’s tuned up. [Via Ethical Ocean]

Call Me Maybe vs. Gangnam Style = immediate internet sensation. Doesn’t mean it’s good. [Via Soundcloud]

What is the number one thing you couldn’t live without in the kitchen? Probably the refrigerator. This and 19 other significant inventions in the history of food and drink. [Via The Atlantic]

What do “clean” and “dirty” sound like? Take city pollution, map it with sound and you get a musical landscape. [Via PSFK]

The murder of an environmental journalist in Cambodia reminds us that we are all connected. [Via Dot Earth]

We live in an era of creativity; here is a compilation of the 25 most iconic artworks over the last five years. [Via ArtInfo]

Image: mmarcotte51

The post Link Love: Rural Living Affects Obesity, Airbnb for Bikes and the Murder of an Environmental Journalist appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

What is the best endorsement Obama could have? Snoop Dogg of course. [Via Mother Jones]

In what could be the worst news of the week, Pat Robertson tells a man to move to Saudi Arabia so he can beat his wife (legally). [Via Gawker]

11 years later: take a moment today to remember September 11. Here is a photo gallery of the current construction for the memorial. [Via The Atlantic]

Are sea otters the solution to climate change? No, but they sure are helping. [Via National Geographic]

American Diplomacy has a new strategy, and it involves food. [Via TakePart]

The angst, the unease, and the trepidation of the difficulties of a post-9/11 world is making for a talented new group of young artists. [Via NPR]

PETA takes a stand and buys stock in Revlon in the organization’s ongoing attempt to get answers on the nail polish company’s involvement in animal testing. [Via Ethical Ocean]

Are you better off than you were four years ago? Signs point to yes and there’s someone to thank. [Via LearnVest]

A British trade union is proposing more regulations to make sure that models are well fed and paid. [Via High Low]

Image: mikebaird

The post Link Love: Snoop Dogg Loves Obama, Move to Saudia Arabia if You Have a ‘Problem’ Wife, and Sea Otters That Solve Climate Change appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

An editor of a luxury magazines claims that the “only good cyclist is a dead one.” Madness ensues. [Via Bike Biz]

Want to be more productive in your job? Get out of the office and start working from home. [Via Wired]

Men vs. women: who is healthier? [Via Organic Authority]

Hear about the study finding “no significant health benefit” to organic food? Here is Michael Pollan’s response. [Via KQED]

Snail shell miniature gardens: yes you will want to make this. [Via Treehugger]

Planning a trip to Portland? Then you will need a guide to the 20 best coffeehouses and roasters. [Via Eater]

Trip planning for river lovers: the top 10 river towns in America. [Via Outside]

Help support art as activism, with a photo exhibit that captures the beauty of real life in Afghanistan. [Via Kickstarter]

If there are still Republicans people out there that are confused about how reproduction works, this video from the 1940s should explain it. [Via The Atlantic]

Co-ops aren’t just for hippies, they’re responsible business models. [Via GOOD]

What does our actual human footprint look like? A visualization of the density levels and population size of 129 metropolitan regions gives us an idea. [Via LSE Cities]

Image: Ian Sane

The post Link Love: The ‘Only Good Cyclist is a Dead One,’ Sex Education from the 1940s, and Why People That Work From Home Are More Productive appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

Because you should never be without a to-go cup: now you can make your own from a mason jar. Just make sure you use a reusable straw. [Via Fine and Feathered]

It’s back-to-school season, but what does education look like in the rest of the world? This portrait slideshow takes us into classrooms from around the globe. [Via Brain Pickings]

Summer isn’t over until the fall equinox, and this healthy Mint Mojito Smoothie might just be the afternoon reminder that you need to embrace the late season. [Via Well+Good NYC]

Movies can be educational, which is why someone came up with this list of Lifetime movies for Republicans who don’t understand rape. [Via The Cut]

Minimalism is on trend right now. Even for Kuwaitis. [Via Dezeen]

Your drinking habits depend on the shape of your glass. [Via The Atlantic]

Our new dream house? A converted barn in France. [Via The Style Files]

On average, Americans eat 200 pounds of meat a year. That’s not just bad for our health, it’s also fueling the water crisis. [Via Mother Jones]

Trying to figure out how to live better in small spaces? You need the Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Feng Shui. [Via Greatist]

Image: Fine and Feathered

The post Link Love: How to Turn a Mason Jar Into a To-Go Cup, Kuwaiti Minimalism and Movies for Republicans Who Don’t Understand Rape appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

Artisanal. Curated. Tweeps. All words we love to hate. Thankfully, someone curated compiled a whole list of them. [Via The Atlantic]

Are travel guidebooks bending over backwards to excuse the world’s “thuggish regimes?” One writer poses that we should think about what is written within the pages of some of the most well respected travel literature. [Via Foreign Policy]

Why we need to start embracing germs. [Via Slate]

A Saudi Arabian female athlete is called a “prostitute” for competing at the Olympics. And she’s only 16. [Via The Frisky]

Equalizing the gender employment gap? As it turns out, women lost fewer jobs during the recession. Maybe times are changing. [Via Wall Street Journal]

Omelette in bed? This and more for the morning after, including a spoonful of peanut butter. [Via How About We]

The “Daddy State”: a place where male politicians dictate how women care for our infants and decide what birth control is most suitable for us. [Via Huffington Post]

There’s still time to catch up on your summer reading! If you’re interested in food, start with this list. [Via Grist]

Just how would Paul Ryan as Vice President affect women’s health? Here are five reasons the answer is not looking good. [Via Think Progress]

Put the essence of summer in a jar: make your own sun-dried tomatoes. [Via Big Girls Small Kitchen]

Image: jwyg

The post Link Love: Words We Love to Hate, Foods for the Morning After and Reasons to Embrace Germs appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

IKEA addict? Maybe you should put all those blue bags with yellow lettered handles to good use. Like in a dress. [Via Inhabitat]

What is the definition of a “Real Woman”? Whatever it is, please stop calling me one. [Via Thought Catalog]

Haven’t joined a CSA yet? You should, and if you’re wondering how to go about it, here’s a great guide to help you navigate.  [Via Small Kitchen College]

Keeping an eye on the indie designer scene in Beijing? Here are nine to pay attention to. [Via Afar]

McMansions out and tiny homes in; we approve of this minimalist trend and will always take more micro-home eye candy like this one. [Via Curbed]

Finally someone has a good recipe for making gluten free sandwich bread at home. [Via Saveur]

Outdoor backyard movie night? There really can’t be a better way to spend a late summer evening. [Via CasaSugar]

The U.S. has no national vacation policy, how is this affecting productivity and why are we so bad at checking out? [Via The Atlantic]

A diet that’s high in sugar can lead to memory loss. [Via Organic Authority]

Image: Gewerbemuseum

The post Link Love: Making Dresses Out of IKEA Bags and How the Lack of U.S. National Vacation Policy Affects Productivity appeared first on EcoSalon.

Strong women unite under one great title.

When Iranian American author Angella Nazarian was growing up in pre-revolutionary Iran, she didn’t have many female role models outside of her immediate family. “I came from a very traditional culture which was very patriarchal. [At age 11] when I first moved from Iran to the U.S., it was the time of revolution, and I didn’t see my parents for 5 years,” she says.

After building a successful family life and career in the U.S., Nazarian, who is also a professor in psychology and speaker on women’s issues, decided to go on a writerly mission of self discovery. “I thought, how exciting would it be if I immersed myself in researching the lives of the most extraordinary women not only to find out for myself, but to share with everyone else,” says Nazarian. “This is part of what writers do. Whatever they are seeking to find out for themselves, they write books about.”

The result is her new book Pioneers of the Possible, which profiles 20 women, both living and not, who have fundamentally changed the field in which they work and, in the process, the world in which we all live. The list includes known names like writer and philosopher Simone DeBeauvoir, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Mathaai, South African politician and activist Helen Suzman as well as lesser known women such as female bullfighter Torera Conchita Cintron and Cambodian human rights campaigner Somaly Mam.

Nazarian explained that the most fascinating part of researching her book was realizing that her twenty subjects—who she said became her “invisible friends” after getting to know each of them so well—had striking commonalities despite markedly diverse backgrounds, life stories, and challenges.

“Women today tend to look at self improvement books thinking about how we can be better people, how we can improve ourselves, but when you read the lives of these women, you can absolutely see they were not perfect in any way shape or form,” Nazarian said. “What they were all similar in is that they knew themselves so well. They actually tailored a life around their strengths and filled their lives with vibrancy and things that mattered to them.”

One example of this is Brazilian rainforest campaigner Marina Silva, who has been called the “Al Gore of Brazil.” Nazarian said she was particularly inspired by Silva who, at the age of 16 was still illiterate yet managed to go on to run for the presidency of Brazil and be instrumental in passing legislation to preserve the Amazon rainforest.

When it comes to the perennial question of “can woman have it all?“—a debate that was reignited recently in an Atlantic magazine piece authored by former U.S. State Department Director of Policy Planning Anne Marie Slaughter—Nazarian thinks it’s a matter of defining what you mean. For Nazarian, who is also a mother, having it all means having a little bit of everything.

“If you had asked the women in my book, they’d probably all say they did have it all!” she said. “One was never married, one was bisexual, Estee Lauder had a vibrant family life but her husband was the one at home looking after kids while she was doing all the marketing. Her vision of a family was different from a stay at home mom.”

Nazarian agrees with the main argument of Slaughter’s Atlantic piece—that having a high-powered career and enriching family life simultaneously is largely unattainable, and not even ideal for most women.

“We need more conversation about how we can have a career track as women where you can have plateaus and then go back into the workplace. I don’t think it has to be an upward journey all the way through,” she said. “Statistics show that a greater number of women are going into entrepreneurship fields. This makes perfect sense—as an entrepreneur you have a much better chance of what we call ‘having it all’ rather than being in a corporation.”

After completing the research for her book, Nazarian says it is her firm belief that there is nothing a woman—particularly one who surrounds herself with a “fearless tribe” of supporters—can’t accomplish.

“Some of the biggest movements to revitalize economies in third world countries address female micro-finance and that’s because women have an amazing resourcefulness that rejuvenates their communities,” Nazarian said. “We’re the untapped resource. We’re not eye candy.”

The post ‘Pioneers of the Possible’: Profiles of 20 Extraordinary Women appeared first on EcoSalon.

Don’t make this about working mothers – we need a workplace change for everyone.

When Anne-Marie Slaughter’s The Atlantic cover story appeared, it sparked a firestorm of criticism ranging from accusations of setting women in business back by telling her story of leaving her dream job in the high ranks of government to step back in her career to be there for her children; to stomping on feminism; to boohooing about her elitist stature and the choices she’s made when many women have none. Although it’s not surprising that her story caused so much backlash, thankfully it has also generated great discussion around some important issues. And, despite the furor, they aren’t just about working mothers, or even just women – but the need for our work culture to change for everyone.

The story, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” is poorly titled, but still spoke to many who appreciated that Slaughter had the courage to tell her story of stepping back and wanting to be home for her children. Many women are used to feeling inadequate after reading stories of other women who made it to the top of their demanding professions, raised exceptional children and saved the world.

A Focus on Women
I first saw Sheryl Sandberg speak at the 2011 Women in the World Summit and she wowed the audience. We are contemporaries, and she is clearly a superwoman. Afterward I followed many of her talks and speeches and while I admired her mission to motivate and support women in business in their quest to be leaders, she also made me feel a bit resentful (something Slaughter alludes to in her article). As she motivates, she also expresses disappointment in our (hers and mine) generation in our failure to become leaders and places the blame squarely on our shoulders.

I was not alone in wishing she also championed the large number of women who occupy the middle ground – who don’t necessarily want to lead multinational corporations but want to sit at the table, who want to be heard, be recognized, and be equally compensated, but who still think it’s important to spend a significant amount of time with their families or pursue interests outside the office. These are the women, and a growing number of men, who are leaning back or on the fence about opting out of the workforce or into another career (if they have that choice) because that situation is so hard to find.

Does much of the blame falls on our American work culture? To hear Slaughter put exactly those feelings into words is tremendously satisfying. Can women be both leaders and great moms? Absolutely, but as Sandberg points out, you don’t see many of them, and it’s not completely due to a lack of ambition, but some very real workplace barriers.

Since Slaughter’s article came out, a large body of work has sprung up debating the issues that she raised. You might say that she isn’t covering any new ground as a “we all need balance” piece, but she has started an important discussion. Framing her argument around working mothers got many people’s backs up, but once you step back from that (as she does late in the article and in subsequent discussions), her argument and proposed changes should apply to everyone – meaning fathers, single parents and childfree women and men.

Toxic environment
It’s no secret that our work culture is, frankly, unsustainable and unhealthy. The U.S. has been a workaholic society for years, but the recession has exacerbated the weaknesses in our work culture. CNN calls the U.S. the no-vacation nation, highlighting the fact that most companies give employees only a few weeks off a year, and most expect employees to keep in touch with the office while on vacation. The U.S. lags far behind many European nations that employ liberal vacation policies and encourage their employees to use their time off.

Mother Jones reported that many businesses are posting double-digit profit growth while continuing the current employee workload and declining to hire more workers. “Americans now put in an average of 122 more hours per year than Brits, and 378 hours (nearly 10 weeks!) more than Germans.”

A full-time job used to require around 50 hours a week (allowing for lunch and a moderate commute). Now, for most, that number is low since we put more hours in at the office and can, and do, remain connected to the office nearly every waking moment with mobile technology. As our work culture continues to wring more and more work out of us, is there really time for much else?

In Glass Ceilings and 100 Hour Couples – What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us About Work and Family, authors Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy dissect the growing trend of highly educated women who are turning their backs on leadership and leaving the workplace – the same trend that Sandberg is lobbying against. Moe and Shandy report that dual-income families (the 100+ hour couples), show the most stress and damage from our current work climate. They conclude that an ideal arrangement involves one parent working part-time, yet meaningful part-time work is extremely hard to find.

However, concessions just for working parents can breed resentment in childfree women and men who might have their own, less recognized commitments outside of work like elder care, volunteering, hobbies or a sick spouse. That’s why change should apply to all employees, beginning with a fundamental shift in our work culture veering away from constant work obsession.

Flexibility Plays a Role
Slaughter admits that her regular full-time job as a professor is flexible and it was a shock when she entered government service to have to be on someone else’s timetable. This is where many who have spent their entire professional lives at someone else’s beck and call booed and hissed at her “complaining” which really came off more like a realization of what other professionals deal with. She quotes Mary Matalin, who spent two years as an assistant to Bush and the counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney before stepping down to spend more time with her daughters, as saying, “Having control over your schedule is the only way that women who want to have a career and a family can make it work.” I would amend that to say that flexibility is the only way to accommodate the myriad of personal situations people have outside of work, and children is just one of them.

Slaughter talks about being open about being a parent and having to tend to parental duties outside of work – not to bore her co-workers, but to set the tone of her work environment as family-flexible. Many women know this to be a potential minefield. When I worked in corporate America, I saw family commitments and subsequent time away from work used as a club in both salary raise negotiations and promotion discussions for several coworkers. Supervisors couched it as the employee being “not available” and “missing meetings,” and so on. It’s easy to point to other employees who have not missed work for these reasons as examples of promotion, so there is a reason many parents feel penalized when trying to balance both. It’s also something Sandberg fails to realize when telling women it’s entirely within their control to become leaders, despite having children.

What About the Men?
Slaughter writes, “Men are still socialized to believe that their primary family obligation is to be the breadwinner; women, to believe that their primary family obligation is to be the caregiver.” Men believe they have to be the primary breadwinner, because most workplaces refuse to see them as anything else. When men leave work or miss a meeting to tend to one of their children, more often than not, they feel the need to offer up an explanation, because the underlying thought is, “Why doesn’t their mother go?” (This is not necessarily true for single dads, of course.)

In this work climate, job stability often hinges on a worker appearing to be constantly available for every meeting and task. Where women bend or step back in their careers to care for children, men become more rigid to ensure their job security. I know a man who lost his job of seven years last week, one where he worked partly at home and commuted a long distance to work since his wife worked in another town, because the company terminated all flexible work arrangements. Other employees had asked to also have flex arrangements, and rather than accommodate them, they told all current flex workers they had to be in the office daily or find another job.

All Talk and No Change?
Now that a high-profile figure has raised the issue in such a public forum and it has clearly struck a chord – will anything change? Immediately and on a large scale, probably not. But companies that are ripe to consider flexible work arrangements might be persuaded by this discussion, and those that already offer it can see how important it is for employee attraction, retention and overall happiness. And, as long as we keep the discussion open, we might make progress not just for parents, but for everyone.

Images: Victor1558, Victor1558, Ed Yourdon, Mirimcfly

The post Not a Mommy War – This is About Our Unsustainable Workaholic Culture appeared first on EcoSalon.

Curating the very best reads weekly from our daily recommendation engine, We Heart This.

#onegarmentatatime
How One Label is Fighting Fast Fashion
by David Zax at Fast Company

#helikesflorencetoo
Barack Obama Just Joined Spotify
by Noreen Malone at New York Magazine

#mendonthaveto
When it Comes to Business, Women Who Ask Get Ahead
by Ilene H. Lang at Forbes

#homegirlcafe
A Restaurant That is Changing Lives
by Laurie Kaufman at Organic Authority

#thenewdigitalreality
Plug In Better
by Alexandra Samuel at The Atlantic

Want more? Catch all our recommended reads in the We Heart This section, updated daily. Want to tip your editors? Send links to tips@ecosalon.com

The post Fighting Fashion, Asking Nicely and Plugging In Smarter appeared first on EcoSalon.