I’ve been writing this blog post in my head for a couple of days. It is not at all techie so if that’s why you’re here, save some time; no hard feelings.
This article I’ve linked to in Time Magazine is about the new “revolution” of passing laws to require a certain percentage of board members of large corporations to be women. This just flat out pisses me off. Yup.
There are plenty of women, like me, that insist on being treated as an equal where we are one. I don’t need a law to get me a job. I need my brain. My confidence. My education. I need to advocate for myself, demand the salary I am worth.
(ladies, get your house in order. Make sure that you are not always the parent that stays home with a sick kid. You can’t blame your boss if you always take time away from work, regardless of the reason. If you are a single parent (I’ve been there) you need to work harder, sorry but it’s what you signed up for)
What we do need… programs to teach little girls that confidence they need and little boys to respect little girls as the equals that they are. We need to change perceptions that a professionally confident competent woman is not a bitch but simply a professionally confident and competent woman. We need to actively recruit women in non-traditional jobs, our brains are just as good as the men. We possess the problem solving, logic, reasoning needed for the high-tech jobs, upper management/executive jobs, we can (and do) run successful businesses.
(I will concede that when it comes to brute physical strength I cannot compete with a man. That’s ok, let’s see them nourish and breastfeed a child. It evens out.)
We need to help each other. We is the full collective in the workforce, men and women alike.
Men, do you want your wife, mother, daughter passed over for a job because of her gender? Or maybe even worse, set up for failure because she was given a job she was not qualified to do simply to meet a stupid quota? Raise your daughters as intellectual equals. Treat your wife and mother as intellectual equals; because they are AND because your actions teach far more than your words to your children. Take your turn taking care of the sick kid (no one likes this job, so quit whining about it).
Women, stand up for yourself. Advocate for what you know you can do. Let that voice in your head that tells you that YOU ARE CAPABLE speak for you. It’s right. Demand equality at home and work, and give it also. Those toxic women that give us all a bad name, stay away from them unless you can find a way in to help her get past her toxicity. Find the women in your life that need your confidence, help them start their own journey. Teach your sons to respect women, they will see how you allow yourself to be treated and they will treat the women in their life this way.
And finally, be the example you want your daughters to become.
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