By Dr Renate Volpe
Woman’s day (the 9th of August) and woman’s month is around the corner.
The question remains, what is it that women want?
The answer is highly complex - if not totally elusive.
The macro perspective.
Modern casual conversation and perception would have us believe that there is equality between the sexes. Never a less true word has been spoken. One just has to look at the top structures of large organizations to see a dearth of female representation at the upper levels. I believe the current figure is 14 women (yes, 14 women - not 14%) head up JSE registered companies (BWA census).
What concerns me more than this frightening figure is that the women who get to the top of organizations seldom are sufficiently resilient to serve significantly long terms in order to make a real difference. Somewhere along the line they change jobs, start their own businesses and become coaches or entrepreneurs. The reasons cited are disillusionment, loneliness, lack of supportive networks, having to maintain the political games, life priorities, family demands and pure physical and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, this lack of tenure does not make the case for senior female advancement any easier!
Why is this so?
Why does this divide continue to exist between men and women?
What are the influencers? The reasons?
For me they are multiple. They have to do with:
- the women themselves
- male suppression and hidden agendas
- our psychology and development
- and, most significantly, our social, traditional and religious spheres.
Organizational scenario:
We establish legislation and policies for gender equity. We make popular gender-friendly statements in our company vision and mission - yet everyone knows that the informal company culture is the only one that counts.
A typical real life scenario follows from an organizational perspective. Company A decides that it needs to take a stand to recruit and retain their senior women. A steering committee is established. Everyone who is anyone has a place on this committee. All the formalities are put in place. Yet when it comes to brass tacks, like sourcing exit interview information (which would have provided deep insight into why senior women leave the company), this information surprisingly suddenly became unavailable. From a politically astute perspective this is an example of “the informal culture rules”. The overt statement was that change was desired - yet the system and the people representing the system ensured that no such change would occur.
Leadership imperatives:
Men are masters of the game at work. It has oft been said that the place of work is a place designed by men, for men, with wives! Over the last seven years I have qualitatively researched the arena of female leadership - to find that indeed men are unquestionably, currently more suited to functioning in the corporate context. Women can learn much from men in the fields of:
- Corporate politics and game playing.
- Strategic thinking about career advancement.
- Negotiation tactics.
- Networking transactionally instead of confusing networking with friendship.
- Being visible and credible and branding themselves in a manner that is acceptable to the organization.
The senior women that come to me for coaching appear to be singing from the same hymn sheet. They have serious intellect and are multi-competent. They are proud of their integrity, display deep values, and have an inherent bent towards honesty. They are however somewhat naïve, are mostly politically illiterate and surprisingly, their intellectual ability has outstripped their emotional maturity. It is the emotional back-log that brings them into coaching. Once they unpack their confusion, and mature somewhat emotionally, they are then once again able to fly. Should they not be wise enough to come for coaching at this point, many of them will become job hoppers or simply leave the corporate world.
Two competencies which are non-negotiable for higher level thinkers are:
1. The ability to work with radical and persistent change and
2. The acceptance of ambivalence, uncertainty and ambiguity as a constant.
People who think in terms of black and white, right or wrong, find themselves severely challenged (if not traumatised) by the corporate context.
Developmental challenges:
Even in this day and age (generally speaking) boys and girls are raised significantly differently.
- Boys from an early age are taught to go after what they want.
- They are competitive, goal oriented, and spend much time playing team sports.
- They are often excused from the finer details of home care.
- They are taught to take care of themselves and are expected to stand on their own feet.
- Burping and f…. are regarded as amusing and typical of male behaviour.
- Expected to care for others.
- Expected to suppress their own needs.
- They are dressed and raised preciously.
- They are not encouraged to express their needs, but are reminded to be “nice”.
- Their activities involve participation and inclusion of others.
- Home care tasks, and expectations of sibling or house care, fall within their influence.
- Many are still raised to expect a man to care for them financially.
Although a hot topic, one cannot disregard the role of Holy Scriptures, Tradition, Culture and a male God. From birth onwards, these confirm the role of the female as secondary and inferior, they define the role of the woman as secondary, and as supportive to that of her husband or men in general. In crude terms this is known as brain washing.
My wish is that, instead of blind acceptance, both men and women become independent, thinking individuals with the courage to review the impact and applicability of these influencers on the modern day woman. In my opinion this dimension is tantamount to emotional abuse - which we know results in the break-down of a person’s self-esteem and confidence.
Physical superiority:
There is no contest here between men and women. Men win hands down. Sadly, those who are not men of stature or honour, use this physical strength to intimidate, rape, murder and abuse their daughters and wives.
Change in roles and the liberation of women.
With woman making inroads to the workplace and most families requiring dual incomes, a woman’s dilemma has become more complicated.
Now she needs to be a super woman, have a lovely home and garden, keep her youthful figure and face, always have abounding energy, be positive, be an involved and model mum, and be a significant contributor towards the household income.
Nowhere in these multiple roles is there a space for the woman herself. Heart attacks, infertility and an aggressive increase in breast cancer tell their own story. Interview any woman and her favourite refrain when asked about time for herself, or the pursuit of her own passions, relative to the care of others, will be “guilt, guilt, guilt”. A ‘tongue in cheek’ comment from my side: “By the way , emotional intelligence teaches us that guilt is anger, which one does not feel the right to express!”
So what do women want?
It is therefore not surprising that when you ask a woman what she wants, she often has no clue. Her natural roles of child bearer and mother alone dictate the direction of much of her energy. Over and above this, she has spent her life being told by her parents, educators, religious figures and scripts who she may, may not, and should be. She has been influenced to take care of others rather than herself. Her self-esteem is shattered. The connection between her mind, heart and spirit has effectively been broken by these multiple influencers.
The solution?
Every change brings with it a sense of loss. All women need to look around and decide whether they like what and who they see in the mirror. If they spend their days feeling fatigued, suffering from multiple ills, aches and pains, sleepless, depressed, over worked and stressed out, they need to make a start.
Determine the following:
Who am I really?
Who was I born to be?
What are my unique talents?
When do I feel passion and joy?
The answers to these questions will dictate the direction that these ladies need to begin to walk in, so that they may:
• Work like you don’t need the money
• Dance like no one is watching and
• Love like you have never been hurt.
