In coming together, we are stronger and can do bigger and better things. This is what I felt this morning when I attended the US Embassy and American Chamber of Commerce‘s Election Day Breakfast in Stockholm. There was such an air of excitement in the room, and everyone was talking excitedly about the election results. I arrived at 7am, and many people had been there since 4 in the morning. You’d think they’d be tired. They were, but their excitement seemed to sustain them. (That and perhaps many, many cups of coffee, but who’s counting?) What was interesting was that there were at least as many Swedes as Americans there, and everyone was equally excited about the US Presidential election. It was a truly great event, with representatives from many different Swedish and American organizations.

In drawing upon this morning’s inspiration and the exciting results, I can’t help but think, what else can we do if we collaborate? How can we create change? How can we generate more business together? How can we learn from each other and all be better off from it?

Today, I am especially proud to be from Massachusetts, a state that just elected its very first female senator, Elizabeth Warren, a fantastic role model.

During these next 4 years, I hope to collaborate with many different people, and help make both Sweden and the US more gender-equal and accepting of diversity. I truly believe that together we can make great things happen!

The American Dream is based on the idea that anyone can be successful in the US. A key component in this concept is access to education in order to improve one’s lot in life. However, if you’re poor or a minority, it is becoming increasingly difficult to access the education that one needs to make such advances. Which is why it comes as a surprise that the US Supreme Court looks like it might roll back the ability of universities to consider race in college applications, basically undermining the last reserve of Affirmative Action, a program that exists in order to correct for structural inequalities. (For background on the case, see the New York Times).

One example of such inequalities is that, unlike most other countries, the American Federal government only funds about 10% of primary, middle and high schools. (PBS) This means that most funding comes from local and state taxes, i.e. income and property taxes. Because of this, the value of the homes in a certain area often dictates the funding for the schools, thus richer areas almost always have better schools. In many cases, people with enough money will move into a better neighborhood for better schools. This means that educational inequalities start early on. By the time they reach university levels, students from the worst school districts have a harder time getting accepted into high-performing universities with good alumni networks.

Granted, not all minorities are poor, but the rate of poverty in minorities is much higher than in whites. “In 2010, 27.4% of blacks in the US and 26.6% of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.9% of non-Hispanic whites.” (University of Michigan) In addition to this, minorities experience other types of structural inequalities, such as discrimination in the workforce. All of this is all the more reason to continue with a serious effort to instill programs to correct for these inequalities, such as Affirmative Action.

I agree that the program needs to be re-thought. Perhaps, as this article argues, (New York Times) universities have been over-emphasizing race and under-emphasizing students’ family wealth. I agree that the university system needs to re-focus on reaching poorer students. However, it is crazy to think that the concept of Affirmative Action could be taken away completely as a tool for fighting inequality. As it stands, quotas are already illegal in the US. Considering that minorities make up about 35% of the population, but only 3% of our Senate, and 3.8% of CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies, we still have a lot left to do. And everyone knows that without strategies and goals to correct for these inequalities, nothing will change. The poor will stay poor, and the American Dream is as good as dead.

As most of you have already heard, Marissa Mayer, formerly a Google exec, was recently appointed the new CEO of Yahoo!. She’s very pregnant, with a due date in early October. This is so exciting for women everywhere, except that she commented “My maternity leave will be a few weeks long, and I’ll work throughout it.” (NYtimes) This is so incredibly disappointing. Does she really think that this action won’t affect other women? Especially those in her new organization? She claims to want to make Yahoo! the best place to work. This isn’t a very good start, with her basically stating with her actions that maternity leave isn’t necessary. Here’s an article that expresses exactly how I feel about this.

Let’s hope that under Mayer’s supervision Yahoo! won’t become a place that doesn’t respect the need for parental leave, for both men and women.