Times are tough but doesn’t mean this isn’t our time to shine. We are warriors, fighters, child-bearers and providers. So there really is no better time than the present to capitalize on this changing climate. All across America and abroad, women are tapping into their gifts to start taking charge of their financial lives.

In Georgia, for example, retired flight attendant Lolly O’Dorisio plans to turn her living room into a women’s clothing boutique four times a year to distribute the Etcetera clothing line. And realtor Christina Catalano started a home-based kids’ sneaker business to help pay the bills during the current housing slump.

In corporate America, women are also making their mark. In a New York Times article this week, there’s quite a bit of agreement that women make better managers than men. The article asked both men and women experts from various disciplines: "What does research show about the differences between women and men as managers?" Elle Group senior vice president Carol Smith thinks so. Here’s a closer look at the experts’ responses:

Alice Eagly, chairman of the department of social psychology at Northwestern University: "Female managers are more collaborative and democratic than male managers."*

Gary Powell, management professor at the University of Connecticut and author of Women and Men in Management: "Female leaders tend to display a ‘transformational’ leadership style, which has been demonstrated to contribute to leader effectiveness, more than male leaders do."

Sharon Meers, former managing director at Goldman Sachs: "The best thing about female managers? They get you paid more. Women bosses tend to fight harder for their subordinates, according to negotiation research, getting better raises for their teams."

And about that recession … here’s some news that should make you say, "You go, girl!"

Harriet Harman, the British Labour Party’s deputy leader in charge while Prime Minister Gordon Brown is on vacation, is blaming men for the depth of the global economic meltdown and credit crunch, and recently said at least one of her party’s top two jobs should always go to a woman. Asked whether the financial crisis would have happened if more women had senior financial jobs, Harman referred to the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, whose collapse last year began the horrible domino effect.

"Somebody did say … that if it had been Lehman sisters rather than Lehman Brothers then there may not have been as much," she said, quickly adding: "I have to say it was not me that said that."

Is Harman verbalizing what the rest of us are thinking?

*Correction: The quote in the Times article by Alice Eagly was mistakenly attributed to Leora Tanenbaum on wowOwow.com. The editors of wOw apologize for this error.