Stacey Abrams Georgia, Eventbrite IPO, Spotify Lawsuit: Broadsheet Sept. 20

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Julia Hartz’s Eventbrite is feeling good about its IPO, Spotify is accused of gender discrimination, and Stacey Abrams shares her thoughts on women’s progress toward parity in politics. Have a marvelous Thursday.

EVERYONE'S TALKING

• Stacey's story. New research from Pew finds that despite the wave of female candidates this election cycle, the American public is still unconvinced that women some day will reach parity in elected office. Forty-eight percent of respondents to the Pew survey said men will continue to hold more high political offices in the future, compared to 52% who said, eventually, women will hold as many seats as men.

Who better to weigh in on that finding than one of this year's buzziest names: Stacey Abrams.

In a new piece for Fortune, Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, explains why she's so sure women "are closing in on equality" despite public skepticism.

"I stand as a witness to the capacity of women to carve opportunities out of hardship," she writes, citing her own mother—who grew up in poverty but went on to be a librarian and then a United Methodist minister—as a primary example. "In her tenacity, I saw ambition and ingenuity laying down a road map I still follow," Abrams writes.

Abrams, who will become the nation's first black female governor if elected in November, also considers the underrepresentation of women in business, how with "numbing regularity" we're reminded "how few women lead our biggest companies, and how we can practically fit the name of every CEO with melanin on a single Post-it." There are blips of hope as women break glass ceilings at specific companies or become the first person of color to hold a certain office. Those feats are marked with great fanfare, Abrams writes, which shows us how far we still have to go. "The clever jujitsu of such moments is how we then celebrate these unicorns, forgetting that this is 2018 and long past time for 'firsts,'" Abrams writes. "We can toast achievement, but we must continue to demand more, to demand parity. So let’s get it done."

You can read Abrams's entire Fortune essay here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

• That's the ticket. Eventbrite, led by CEO Julia Hartz, is feeling good about its IPO. The ticketing company raised its IPO price from a $19 to $21 per share range to a $21 to $23 range. The IPO is scheduled for today under the NYSE ticker EB and could raise $230 million. Fortune

• Hitting the wrong note. Spotify is accused of gender discrimination and unequal pay in a lawsuit brought by sales exec Hong Perez. The music streaming service's head of sales allegedly chose only men to attend Sundance over better-qualified women two years running, and an executive, accused of sexual harassment, allegedly took a group of male employees to strip clubs in Atlantic City. Spotify says it does not "tolerate discrimination of any kind at any level." Fortune

• Ousted. New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma, who published and then vehemently defended an essay by former Canadian radio broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi, is out. Ghomeshi was arrested for sexual assault in 2016 and then accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women. Ghomeshi used his NYRB platform to discuss how that has affected his life. New York Times

• Maternal instinct. Sen. Tammy Duckworth—the first U.S. senator to have a child while in office—writes for Fortune about how we can end the maternal death epidemic. "We’re the wealthiest nation on the planet, for goodness’ sake," she writes. "We shouldn’t be the most fatal for new moms in the developed world too." Fortune

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• Another crisis. When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico a year ago, many women faced a crisis of domestic violence. The storm and its shut-down of power grids left women vulnerable and isolated. One organization saw a 62% increase in requests for assistance from domestic violence survivors. Refinery29

• Make 'em sweat. Microsoft EVP of business development Peggy Johnson keeps the upper hand in business negotiations by taking clients for runs, where she picks the perfect pace so that they can't talk that much and she can dominate the conversation. The marathon runner sticks to her five-mile weekday routine while traveling to Sydney, to Paris, and around the United States. Wall Street Journal

• No funny business. A few weeks after Louis C.K. made his return to the comedy stage almost a year after he admitted to sexual harassment and misconduct, a story out of Denver offers a few pointers for how gatekeepers can better handle that scenario. When disgraced comedian T.J. Miller showed up to a long-running open mic, the hosts took jabs at him and his behavior—"Give it up for a comic you won't be reading about in Jezebel"—until he left. Denver Westword

• Take this into account. The wage gap, the equity gap—and now the auditing gap. In audits of S&P 500 companies by the Big Four accounting firms, only 15% were led by women. That's significant for more than accounting: top accounting firms often turn out future CFOs, controllers, and numbers people at public companies. Wall Street Journal

Today's Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe. Share it with a friend. Looking for previous Broadsheets? Click here.