Dear Round-Up Readers,

What a week!  For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving, I hope it was deliciously joyful.  And now...Omicron!?!  This latest twist to COVID, according to the news, is too new to know what to expect, yet governments are acting quickly (impacting travel). 

Before we get to that, the holidays are a notoriously stressful time multiplied by heightened expectations this year due to reduced gatherings last year.  Even harder for women as the "invisible workload" intensifies between juggling obligations of work, home, holiday gift-giving, social organizing, plus the fact that due to COVID women have been disproportionately saddled with domestic labor on top of childcare. Perhaps we all need to take a page from Tiffany Dufu’s 2017 book, Drop the Ball, a manifesto urging women to “release unrealistic expectations of doing it all” and says “If you have too much to do, do fewer things.” 

Easier said than done. If you can relate, read these three articles:

• Why Women Have an Invisible Workload (and Men Don’t) and How to Balance the Scales

• The most guilt-ridden, night-mare time of year: how to avoid holiday burn-out at work, CNBC
• The Life-Changing Magic of not tidying up, Vogue

Well worth a read, two important articles ran this week that address societal changes about women: 

• from the NYT,  "More Women Than Men Are Going to College. That May Change the Economy."
• From the London Sunday Times today "What millennial women want — and why they can’t have it.  Why are the traditional markers of adulthood, such as buying a home or starting a family, increasingly out of reach for Generation Nest?" (Paywall) 

Here are some highlights:

• Women are becoming more educated than men, yet still grappling with lower wages 
• Per week, women do an average of 29 hours of unpaid domestic work vs 16 hours for men
• Women are choosing to have children later (if at all) due to the double-bind of "don't wait until you are too old to have kids/ if you have kids before you are financially stable that's irresponsible"
• Housing costs have outpaced wage growth since 2000 (UK)
• Childcare costs have increased three times faster than wages (UK) since 2018

The New York Times concluded with "Something has to give, and while it could be women’s careers, if they’re out-earning their spouses, it may be their partner’s work instead."

Now on to Omicron!  In short, there's a new "super variant" of COVID which has been identified this week in southern Africa. So far, the variant has been detected in travelers to the U.K., Italy, Australia, Belgium, Israel, and Hong Kong.  Governments have reacted quickly, Israel has shut borders, the UK is requiring PCR tests for anyone entering the country and reinstated mask mandates, and most others around the globe have restricted travel from southern Africa. According to many articles, the news is mixed:

Bad news:

• Scientists are worried because "Omicron has an unusually large number of mutations: around 50, including more than 30 on the spike protein, the structure that the virus uses to attach to human cells and the main target of many current Covid-19 vaccines."
• It seems to be highly contagious, having spread more quickly than previous variants.

Good News:

• Omicron can be detected by a PCR test
• It is too soon to tell how this variant reacts to current vaccines, but it is highly likely they will offer some protection. If needed, a Bio­N­Tech spokes-woman said, the com­pa­nies could pro­duce a new vac­cine ad­justed to any vari­ant within six weeks and ship ini­tial batches within 100 days.

• South African sci­en­tists and health of­fi­cials said there was no in­di­cation that pa­tients in­fected with the Omi­cron vari­ant ex­pe­ri­enced dif­fer­ent symp­toms from those in­fected with other strains. They also said there were no signs so far that Omi­cron led to more se­ri­ous ill­ness.

For further reading, check NYT, WSJ, and this summary of the origins of Omicron from the Independent, "from Patient Zero to billions wiped off global shares."

On hertelier this week:

• From Drag Shows to Speed Dating–GM Sherry Abedi Brings the Buzz to Viceroy Hotels: beyond the rooftop pools and trendy design, Sherry shares how she's turned her DC hotels into cultural hubs. 

• Eco-Minded: Booking.com launches new Travel Sustainable Badge for Hotels: meet the woman, Marianne Gybels, helping to bring sustainable travel to the forefront and learn how your hotel can get involved. 

• F&Be: Bubbling Up from Brooklyn: Marvina Robinson, CEO, B. Stuyvesant Champagne, from Wall Street to creating Bed Stuy's first bubbly, this is a profile you do not want to miss. 
• We've got a new JOBS page!  A new space to post opportunities or find your next move.  Contact me to post your position. 

If you're a new subscriber, you may not know hertelier was featured by the Cornell University SC Johnson School of Business! Please CLICK HERE to read about the community YOU are helping to build for women in lodging!

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Have a great week,

Emily