Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Carmakers are ditching booth babes, the next Warren Buffett could be a woman, and Hope Hicks is out as WH comms director. Have a fantastic first day of March.
EVERYONE'S TALKING
• No Hope. Hope Hicks, White House communications director and one of President Trump’s longest-serving advisers, has announced that she's leaving her position. Her next move remains unclear. Hicks has been described as one of the few people who understands the president and is able to convince him to change his mind. (Indeed, Axios's Jonathan Swan describes her as "like a daughter to Trump.") She resigned the day after she testified before the House Intelligence Committee in connection with the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Arguably one of the most powerful people in Washington—and certainly among the most powerful women in the Trump's White House—Hicks kept an unusually low profile while holding a high-profile job. She was also known for bringing order and brokering compromise, suggesting that she will leave the White House a more chaotic and discordant place. Her departure will also leave the upper ranks of the president's key advisers far more male. New York Times
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
• A seat at the cap table. #Angels, an all-woman investing collective that includes Twitter vets Katie Jacobs Stanton, Jessica Verrilli, and Vijaya Gadde, among others, is launching a new initiative, #TheGapTable. The movement aims to call attention to the paucity of women and underrepresented minorities in startups' cap tables—the documents that record who owns shares in a company and how many. Why is that so important? "The cap table holds the roadmap to wealth and power in Silicon Valley." Medium
• Bad education. Terry Karl left her job as an assistant professor of government at Harvard University in the early 1980s after the school dolled out a lax punishment to Jorge Domínguez, a senior colleague who was sexually harassing her. Unsurprisingly, Domínguez continued to harass other women. Now the Chronicle of Higher Ed asks: "Did the university’s handling of one professor’s sexual-harassment complaint keep other women from coming forward for decades?" Chronicle of Higher Education
• DeLauro's demands. In this Fortune op-ed, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who represents Connecticut’s Third Congressional District, praises the Parkland students and calls for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as the closure of the "gun show loophole." Fortune
• Buh-bye, booth babes. A number of big auto manufacturers, including Toyota and Nissan, have (finally) decided to stop using booth babes—i.e. scantily-clad female models—at the Geneva car show. Fortune
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Dina Powell, who until January served as a top national security adviser in the White House, will rejoin Goldman Sachs as a member of the firm's management committee. Marie Gulin-Merle, formerly CMO at L'Oreal, has been named to the same position at Calvin Klein, effective this spring. Rachel Rosenfelt has been named publisher and vice-president of The New Republic.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
• Warren as a woman? This Bloomberg piece argues that "the next Warren Buffett" will be a woman. Why? "Buffett always takes the long view... He doesn't panic or make knee-jerk reactions, and he's not overconfident. Actually, everything that's made Buffett the most celebrated investor in the world lines up with what we've learned about the tendencies of female investors." Bloomberg
• The plot thickens. Harper Lee's will was unsealed earlier this week (and two years after her death), yet many of the questions around her life and work—Why did she decide to publish a second novel 55 years after To Kill a Mockingbird? Who will inherit her literary papers and estate?—remain unanswered. The will directs that the bulk of her assets be transferred into a trust she formed in 2011—and all trust documents are private. New York Times
• Decades of discrimination. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Marketplace's David Brancaccio talks to Gillian Thomas, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, about the history behind the law and how discrimination against pregnant workers has changed over the past four decades. Marketplace
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ON MY RADAR
How women are rethinking the tattoo parlor New York Times
1 in 14 women still smoke while pregnant Fortune
What if the Oscar were a woman? 12 interpretations The Hollywood Reporter
Stitch Fix launches new feature that picks the right bra for that dress Elle
QUOTE
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| The French Academy, on the Harvey Weinstein accusers. The Academy has launched a white ribbon campaign, #NowWeAct, for Friday’s Cesar Awards to combat violence against women. |
