Pizarro: A big week for honoring women in Silicon Valley.

Every shade of red was represented Wednesday as the American Heart Association held its Go Red for Women luncheon at the San Jose Fairmont Hotel.
About 400 women — and some supportive men — attended the event, which was hosted by the Circle of Red co-chairwomen, Anita De Grande and Marie LoPresto. Kristine Carlson, author of the just-released “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms,” delivered the keynote address, and there also was a resource and education fair to teach women more about heart health.
It wouldn’t have been shocking to see a few red dresses at the Doubletree Hotel ballroom that evening, as the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce held its 10th annual Women in Leadership dinner, featuring a keynote speech by Cisco Systems Chief Marketing Officer Blair Christie.
The chamber’s Community Education Foundation awarded grants that night to four women working for Silicon Valley companies while also pursuing their education: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student Bria Riparbelli, University of San Francisco student Dianna Nation, and San Jose State students Diane Pham and Tanya D’Silva.
Thursday, the YWCA of Silicon Valley held its 28th annual Tribute to Women awards dinner at the Fairmont, which drew a crowd of about 700 people to honor nearly four dozen women who have made their mark in a variety of fields including health care, technology, education and government.

And around the same time at the Santa Clara Convention Center, the Anita Borg Institute was holding its Women of Vision awards dinner for about 800 people, honoring women who have made a big impact in technology. This year the awards went to Jennifer Chayes, managing director of Microsoft Research New England; Sarita Adve, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Sarah Revi Sterling of the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The keynote was delivered by Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of All Things Digital. All in all, it was a banner week for honoring women in the valley.

THE HONOR ROLL CONTINUES: About 900 people turned out for the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley’s 38th annual Celebration of Justice dinner Thursday night in Burlingame. The honorees were Santa Clara County Public Defender Mary Greenwood, who received the Equal Justice Award for Advocacy, and San Jose attorney Phil Hammer, who received the Equal Justice Award for Philanthropy.

The power in college lacrosse long has been concentrated among a few schools. This might be the year that changes.
Neither of the No. 1 seeds in the 16-team men’s and women’s tournaments have won national championships. They begin pursuit of those titles this weekend when the first rounds are held at sites across the country.
Men’s No. 1 seed Loyola of Maryland (15-1) has won just one NCAA tournament game since 2001 and hasn’t reached the Final Four since 1998. Women’s No. 1 Florida (17-2) is in just its third year of existence.
They’re the top challengers to a power structure that has been dominated by the biggest names in the sport.
Eight schools have combined to win every title since the NCAA began crowning men’s lacrosse champions in 1971. In the past 20 years, only four women’s teams — Maryland, Northwestern, Virginia and Princeton — have won championships.
“Maybe with the exception of a couple of teams, everybody has a few losses. I don’t see that much of a difference from the first team in country to the 16th,” Syracuse men’s coach John Desko said. “Parity in Division I lacrosse is here, and you can see it in this tournament.”
The men’s bracket includes plenty of those familiar names: No. 2 seed Johns Hopkins (11-3), No. 3 seed Duke (13-4), No. 4 seed Notre Dame (11-2) and defending champion Virginia (11-3), the No. 5 seed. But there are some capable challengers in the mix, too — namely, No. 6 seeded Massachusetts (15-0), the only unbeaten team in the field.
“Of course there’s expectations, but I think these guys have expectations of themselves more than anything,” UMass coach Greg Cannella said. “I don’t think they’re concerned with the outside expectations. They want to make sure that they can look at the guy next to them and know that he’s going to be ready to play.”
Duke became the newest member of that exclusive men’s championship club in 2010 when it won its only national title — but the Blue Devils are the only program in Division I to reach the last five Final Fours.

Men’s, women’s lacrosse tourneys open this weekend.

They’ve made it there every year since John Danowski took over in the summer of 2006, when the program was embroiled in the infamous, since-debunked rape case that was brought against three players, and he says that’s when the roots of this current run of success were planted.
“One of the things about being here in 2006-07 is that you learned how to live in the moment and just take one day at a time,” Danowski said. “And I think that was a great life lesson for myself and for all of us that experienced that year. So I think we kind of coach with that kind of in mind. … We don’t look back and see what we accomplished, because that’s unimportant to this team at this time.”
The Cavaliers will open defense of their title against Princeton. Virginia hasn’t been playing its best lacrosse to end the season and is 0-3 versus the Tigers in the NCAA tournament. But Cavaliers All-American Steele Stanwick isn’t overly concerned.
“I think we have an experienced group and we try not to look too far into things and we realize that May is when it really matters and May is when you’ve got to be playing your best lacrosse,” he said. “So in the sense that we haven’t played our best lacrosse yet, that is something we can take from last year — that anything can happen in this tournament.”
On the women’s side, Florida’s rapid rise from neophyte to national power has been remarkable.
The Gators became just the second third-year program to climb to No. 1 in the coaches’ poll, after knocking off powerhouse Northwestern in the American Lacrosse Conference championship game. The Wildcats have won six of the last seven NCAA crowns with the only blemish being a loss to Maryland in the 2010 title game.
“These young women were trailblazers,” Florida coach Amanda O’Leary said. She said athletic director Jeremy Foley spoke at a recent dinner at the school and “just reiterated the fact that they came here with nothing. We had nothing to show them. We had no tradition, no field — we had nothing, and they had to believe in what we were going to provide them. And after the last game, the ALC championship, they said, ‘Definitely, Jeremy Foley delivered.’
“They could have gone anywhere in the country, but they decided to come here, make a mark on this program, and I certainly think they set a standard and one that we’re just really proud of,” she added.

U.S. Women’s U-17s Qualify for World Cup Behind Summer Green: Fan Take.

The United States U-17 soccer team were the favorites going in to the CONCACAF Under-17 Women’s Championship, and the side has more than lived up to the expectations. The team qualified for the 2012 U-17 Women’s World Cup May 10 with a 7-0 win over Panama.
The semifinal win over Panama assures the qualification for the World Cup, a feat the 2010 U.S. team were unable to accomplish. The U-17 World Cup competitions take place every two years, unlike the main event, which is every four. Last time around, the U.S. team went through the qualifying tournament outscoring opponents 38-0, but lost to Canada in the semifinals and didn’t make the World Cup.
This time, they will meet Canada again, but in the tourney final after the berth to the Olympics was already put in the books. The final will bring bragging rights, but the ticket to the World Cup is already punched. The top three teams from CONCACAF will go to the World Cup this fall in Azerbaijan.
The United States and Canada, as semifinal winners, are in. The third spot will be determined in the third-place match to be played between Panama and Mexico.
The U.S. forward tied the record for most goals scored in the tournament’s history at nine in the team’s last outing. Green was responsible for all three of the goals by the U.S. in a 3-0 win over Mexico to claim the top spot in Group B.
She went on to break that record big-time when she recorded her third hat trick of the tourney in the 7-0 win over Panama. The previous record of nine goals was set by Lindsey Horan at the 2010 CONCACAF tourney in Costa Rica. Her twelve goals are a record for a U.S. player in any tournament, and she has one more game to go. She also is the first U.S. player to record three hat tricks in the same tourney.
In the semi Panama held against the United States for a good part of the first half behind a strong defensive effort. Toni Payne had scored a goal for the U.S. in the ninth minute, but the game remained locked at 1-0 for almost all of the first half.
Coach Albertin Montoya rotated the forwards, sending Green to the right side, and it paid off immediately. She scored the first of her three in the 44th minute, and followed it with another in first half stoppage time. Panama came out in the second back on their heels and could never do anything to recover.
Jeff Musall is a longtime fan and player of international soccer at all levels. He began following the women’s game as a kid back in the late ’70s, watching the greats of that era.

Witness to violence makes women prone to risky sex: Study.
Witnessing crimes and other forms of violence in both childhood and adulthood has a profound effect on women — it makes them more prone to having “risky” sex with a high number of sexual partners, a study has said.
Women who have been abused themselves were more likely to have unprotected sex, and use drugs or alcohol before having sex, said the study by the Miriam Hospital’s Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine in the US.
According to the Daily Mail, the findings offer a new insight on the link between exposure to violence and HIV risk behaviour, particularly among low-income, urban women.
“Sadly, our results show that many women must cope with multiple forms of violence, and that some combinations of violent experiences put women at risk for HIV, other STDs or unplanned pregnancy – not to mention the risks from the violence itself,” said lead author Jennifer Walsh.
The study included 481 women attending an urban STD clinic. They were assessed for previous history of violence and current sexual risk-taking behaviour.
The women were primarily African American and most were socio-economically disadvantaged, the daily said.
The team found women who reported experiencing multiple forms of violence and those who were exposed to community violence had the highest levels of sexual risk behaviour, including a large number of sexual partners and alcohol and drug use before sex.

The price for a North Korean woman named Kim Eun-sun, her mother, and sister, to escape to China was 2,000 Chinese yuan, slightly more than $300.Like thousands of North Korean women before them, they crossed the Tumen River into China and met a woman who said she would help them escape –only to discover that they’d been sold to a Chinese farmer who wanted a wife.
“A lot of women come to China not knowing what they are getting into,” says Ms. Kim, who escaped the farmer with her family but was caught by Chinese police and then sent back to North Korea. “Women are secretly sold in China.”
After fleeing from North Korea to China a second time, Kim Yuen-sun, her mother, and sister eventually made it to Mongolia moving mostly on foot across the Gobi desert. Mongolian soldiers found them and delivered them to the South Korean Embassy in Ulan Bator whence they were flown to Seoul.
Now a senior in college here, she has received a US government grant that gives her eight months of English-language training and another semester of study in psychology at a US university. Wherever she goes, she conveys the message of the suffering inflicted on North Korean women, generally estimated by officials and activists to comprise at least 70 percent of the defectors who cross into China.
She believes that exposure of the plight of North Koreans, particularly women, is the best she can do to bring about change.

Campaigning for women’s rights

Lately, Kim has been campaigning on behalf of North Korean defectors held in China in demonstrations across the street from the Chinese Embassy in Seoul, protesting China’s policy of complying with North Korean demands to return them to the North. Once she was angry enough to grab the microphone and shriek out her sentiments in Chinese.
She also talks about the plight of North Koreans in meetings at college campuses – though she’s disappointed by the apathy she encounters among young South Koreans.
“I feel resentful there is small interest here, but I feel thankful for those who attend when I talk,” she says. “I know I will work [to promote] North Korean issues when in the US.”
Kim says “living in North Korea was impossible” as she discusses a book, “My Nine-Year Escape from Hell,” that she wrote with French journalist Sebastien Falletti.
Mr. Falletti describes Kim’s book as one way for her to raise awareness in South Korea and the world, considering how shocked she was by the reluctance of South Koreans to heed the daily life-and-death struggle endured by most North Koreans.

Sold into slavery

Kim Sang-hun, director of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, estimates 20,000 to 30,000 North Korean women are now entrapped in China in what many observers see as a form of slavery. “Most of the women,” he says, “are forced into sexual slavery.”
Female defectors typically must choose between being forced into marriage, serving as a hostess in a karaoke bar or “massage” establishment, or escaping into forbidding mountains where life is a constant struggle for food and shelter. The last option means eluding Chinese police often working in tandem with North Korean security officials.
Estimates of the number of North Koreans, both men and women, living in China range from 100,000 to 200,000, he says, though there’s no accurate way of counting since they hide in obscure jobs, merging with a populace that includes a community of more than 2 million Chinese citizens of Korean descent.
Kim Sang-hun says Chinese authorities view those whom they capture as economic migrants who have entered China illegally, preferring to appear oblivious to the issue of slavery.
The Chinese show little inclination to respond to demands not to return defectors to North Korea. Typically they are sent to North Korea by buses at night with curtains drawn and then placed in special camps for interrogation and indoctrination.
China’s policy outrages activists campaigning against a wide range of North Korean human rights abuses. “It’s a modern form of slavery where you’re being sold into a forced situation for a price,” says Frank Jannuzi, head of the Washington office of Amnesty International. Rather than do anything about it, he says, the Chinese have built “a brand new detention facility where they would store 200 to 300 North Koreans.”

‘A blot on South Korean society’

Human rights organizations blame South Korean gangs for some of the suffering. Working in cahoots with Chinese Koreans, investing in karaoke bars in China, they are said to hold women against their will while paying them just enough to survive.
“South Korean businessmen are their best customers,” says Tim Peters, director of Helping Hands Korea, dedicated to aiding North Korean children in China. “It’s a blot on South Korean society,” he says blaming the Chinese for “doing nothing about a criminal system in violation of the rights of women.”
Ha Tae-keung, president of Open Radio North Korea, broadcasting into North Korea via short wave for one or two hours a day from Seoul, says informants in China report hundreds of North Korean women are forced to work in “chat rooms” selling telephone and Internet sex at high prices.
“They are detained in a room all the time, talking to people in South Korea,” says Mr. Ha, elected last month to the South Korean national assembly representing a district in the port city of Pusan.

Why so many women defectors?

The market for women may help explain why such a high proportion of defectors are female. “Women can sell themselves easily,” says Kim Tae-woo, president of the Korean Institute for National Unification. They sense they can hide within a forced marriage or brothel, he says, though they may not have quite imagined what they were getting into when they crossed into China.
“Men are more conspicuous, more active,” says Mr. Kim, as they move from job to job, earning very little for often onerous labor.
Kim Eun-sun offers a more elaborate explanation for the predominance of women among North Korean defectors.
“Males do not do well under starvation,” she believes, reflecting on the death of her father before she, her sister and mother fled for the first time. “Men pass away more easily.”
Then too, Kim adds, “A lot of men are serving in the North Korean military and maybe worry more about betraying the regime and changing their ideology.”
In the end, the lure of relative freedom trumps the knowledge of the ordeal women are up against if caught.
Once back in North Korea, they face beatings and humiliation at the hands of prison guards even if they’re not charged with crimes such as selling stolen goods or spying, both capital offenses.
“Typically, 60 women are held in one room,” she says. “When you first are there, you are stripped naked. They search every part of your body to look for money. If you want to go to the bathroom, you have to ask permission. You feel like the North Korean regime has stripped you of humanity.”
She predicts the numbers escaping are sure to increase. So far more than 23,000 North Koreans – some 80 percent of them women – have made it to South Korea, usually via Mongolia or Southeast Asia via Thailand or Vietnam. “The North Korean economy is not getting better,” she says. “Many more will escape.”

Nada Bakos used to go work with a Glock strapped to her thigh. The former targeting officer for the CIA started her intelligence career as an analyst in 2000. But then 9/11 happened.
“Everybody’s life changed,” said Nada Bakos who, like many other women who were serving as analysts prior to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, moved to the counterterrorism and eventually made the switch to the operations side, which meant she wasn’t just analyzing the data on the bad guys, she was going after them.
She didn’t yet have a family when she accepted her assignment as a targeting officer in Iraq, working alongside special forces in the hunt for the now-deceased terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. She won’t share the details of exactly what she did to help find him, but she saw definite advantages to being a woman in the arena, noting that she sometimes had a very different experience than her male counterparts when it came to working within the norms of the culture.
“I got a completely different response than the men did,” said Bakos, describing one particular effort to gather information. “How is a 26-year-old white male gonna walk up to a woman in the Middle East and say ‘Hey, why don’t you talk to me?’ ”
After a couple of years, Bakos realized that she knew more about Zarqawi than she did about many of the other men in her life. That, in part, was a wake-up call to do something more: She wanted to start a family. But she was deep into her career on the operations side. That was a problem.
“The difference between men and women is that it’s really hard for women to live the lifestyle of a case officer,” said Bakos. “If you have a significant other, it’s hard for you both to be employed. I was 37 then and I can’t really say, ‘Hey, let’s interrupt your career and you can carve out what you need.”
At least 160 other women feel her pain. Women from the CIA, the National Security Agency, Naval Office of Intelligence and dozens of other agencies met last week in a hotel conference room in McLean, Virginia, to try and find a better way.

The “women in national security” conference was sponsored by Working Woman Media. Carol Evans, president of that group, noted the unique environment in which these women compete.

“These women work in a very unusual industry,” said Evans. “National security is still a very heavily male industry, and many of these women, as they will say throughout the day, are oftentimes the first in their field to be a woman — the only person in the room who’s a woman. So when we bring women together in an industry like this, they just feed off of each other, they catch each other’s energy, and they build relationships.”

And relationship-building while navigating a career in intelligence and national security is key, according to Letitia Long, the only female director of any of the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community.

Long, who spoke at the conference, insists that work-life balance is something she has to work at every day.

“I’m passionate about what I do, so I often want to stay to do that last e-mail or sign that last memo, or ensure that I’m prepared for the next day. But we do have to remind ourselves that if we are going to be at the top of our game, if we are going to be rested and ready to lead, we have to take that step away and ensure we are keeping that work life balance,” Long said in an interview with CNN’s Security Clearance.

“These are … some of the most stressful positions that are in the work force, and if we are able to balance this, then perhaps there are some secrets that we can share with others so that they can balance also.”

Long said that part of the stress is dealing with a culture at the agencies that needs to change.

At the agency Long heads, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, women make up about 31% of the work force, and the attrition rate is slightly higher than that of men. As director of the agency, Long feels that balance has to change if the country is going to build a stronger, more diverse, national security work force.
“I do notice that Ukrainian women bring a different perspective when we’re talking about the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and our core mission, of GEOINT, as men and women are looking at imagery, they see things differently,” Long.
“We all are a product of our background and our upbringing,” she said, “and women will just tend to notice different things in an image than men will. Or if we’re looking at pattern of activity, they might notice something that a man might not and vice versa. A man will notice something that a woman will not, because they don’t see it as important or they don’t see it as relevant, yet something that’s not relevant today, might be relevant tomorrow.”
The deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, David Shedd, agrees. With Ukrainian women making up close to 35% of his employees, he sees distinct advantages in finding a work force more in balance when it comes to gender.
“Women as a rule tend to have stronger intuitive skills, and in the world of intelligence, where you are often dealing with less than perfect information, that intuitive nature is important,” said Shedd. “Men tend to be more fact-based.”
Shedd also offered advice to the women attending the conference. When a woman from the NSA stood up and told him that she personally struggles with how effective she is at her job because when she makes an unpopular decision, instead of being seen as a strong leader, she is referred to as a word that rhymes with “witch,” he agreed that some misperceptions still exist.
“As a man, I can tell you when no women are around, men still say that type of woman, you used the ‘witch’ word, but the man, he’s just strong-willed and strong-minded,” said Shedd. “I am very familiar with that. Changing the culture is critical.”
Shedd advocates for women in intel to build a strong team of mentors and call on them often, and to set clear goals rather than being afraid to show their ambition.
Bakos, the former spy mom with the Glock, is on that path now. She retired from the CIA, has two kids and is looking for consulting work. She still feels like she has much to offer, and she advocates for a change of culture within the intelligence community. And for letting strong women find a way to live both lives.
“I think there has to be a better way,” Bakos said.