It's Been International Women's Day

It’s been international women’s day last Friday. Every year my organization also organizes a special conference especially for women, though men are welcome too. It was the second time I joined the conference. Up until last year I kept far from it. The reason is that I think we landed at a point where the emancipation of women entered a new era. We’ve come far already and yes, we still have some length to travel. The last few miles, I believe we should be joining forces with the males. In the end we have to do it together and stop setting ourselves apart as a discriminated group.



From this to...


Instead of trying to erase all differences, certain differences should be underlined and celebrated. Fact is, we are different. Fact also is, we’ve been making up human life on this planet together for a long time. We can’t do without each other. Those differences are not new, yet we managed to survive with each other. We should find the strength in the differences and use them to develop on. Therefore I was somewhat thrilled there was a workshop about how a management top with women in it did better compared to a top with only men. In the end I did not join that particular workshop, maybe I should have.

Did you know most of the time the women are their own limit or the once that was the cause of not an equal treatment opposed to the treatment a man receives? It has to do with our own attitude.

For instance, taking the steps towards management. Women are more often inclined to take a step back in their career to take care of the family, while men do this less often. Or women are more careful about what they say than men which means more often women keep silent while they should have said something. In other words, men are more often heard. Or in salary discussions. Women are more likely to accept the employers offer instead of fighting for a better offer while men do take a stronger stand in what they want.

...this and eventually to...

I twice read in a paper about a very popular Dutch discussion show (Pauw & Witteman for the Dutchies) about why not as many women come on the show. The reason was, women were more careful. They thought about what might be asked and choose not to go. A man would more likely think less about that before accepting the invitation.

Another reason there are less women in top management is, women are not as interested as men in working in (top) management. They have other wishes and other things they find important in their job. They want to develop in depth, not in height. This doesn’t automatically mean women should not be encouraged to take that next step, but we should be realistic about how many women should reach management jobs.

this!!!

I find this subject hard to discuss. I don’t have the ambition to grow to a management position. What I believe that women emancipation is, is about getting the same possiblities as men to do what they want. Isn’t that what equility is about?

My favourite quote of the day (paraphrased): “In the future women will be so far developed, they can impregnate themselves and the males become useless and eventually disappear. So what are we talking about in this conference?”