[pukka_my]

coming to this a bit late, but I'm glad that you (a) recognize that your wife's gender certainly plays a role in her career trajectory and (b) want to help her without mansplaining like I see most of the commenters so far have done. It's unfortunate but true that women are discouraged from pursuing technical and scientific careers from elementary school on, and once we get into this industry we are dismissed as 'not a good cultural fit' if we aren't interested in halo marathons and competitive cycling. My solution, taken from my consulting background, has been to send out 'contact reports' after meetings summarizing what was discussed and agreed on and making note of who is responsible for what - a paper trail is a wonderful thing, especially when you cc key stakeholders (eg marketing) who weren't in attendance. I also had to learn to take more responsibility for my own development and tell my managers that I wanted to take on new challenges and what specific responsibilities I wanted to have. I also am very assertive about scheduling 1:1 time with senior leaders to check and see what problems they need to solve, telling them how I can help and following through. And when all that seems like it's going nowhere, I have a 'lean in circle' of other professional women once a month for peer coaching. Good luck to both of you!