I attended a dear friend’s birthday party this past weekend. Let’s call her Ann. Ann truly is wonderful person.
As the speeches flowed, so did the tears, as one after the other different women toasted Ann’s warmth, her humor, how she is always there for them, how she is always thinking of others, how she can always be counted on to brighten your day, to dispense the perfect nugget of childcare wisdom. All of these things are true. Ann is special. Yet even as I wiped away a tear, I had this little nagging thought…
If Ann were a man these toasts would be very different…
Ann is wonderful. Ann is a caring, giving person. Ann is also smart, capable and powerful. A woman who effortlessly asserts her authority and has navigated a long, successful career in high pressure, public jobs. (She was my boss for a short period of time so I can personally attest to all of these attributes). Why, I wondered, hadn’t anyone, not her colleagues, not her friends, mentioned any of those qualities in their tributes to Ann?
I turned to a friend who I had brought to the party, let’s call him Bob, and told him what a great boss Ann was. How effectively Ann dealt with conflict, lead meetings, responded to crises and managed her staff. Never having met Ann before, and knowing only what was said about her that night, Bob was visibly surprised. This was not what he imagined of the woman described in those speeches. And interestingly- Bob had had his own nagging thought. To him, a disinterested third party, it seemed that many of the women used their speeches to try to publicly establish themselves as Ann’s very closest friend. hmm…. stereotypical female competitiveness? Maybe.
But I wonder. Would they have been so competitive if the words that were used to describe Ann were smart, powerful and ambitious rather than loving, nurturing and kind?
While this is only one example, I can’t help but wonder if the ways in which we as women value other women may do a great deal to inhibit our success. I can’t help but think of the huge advent of mommy blogs. What is interesting to me about mommy blogs is that there doesn’t seem to be a corresponding growth of “daddy blogs”. Men tend to use blogging to establish themselves as an expert – in social media, in marketing, in law, in technology, in photography. Many of them are also dads but the word dad rarely makes the header. While many women are also experts in these areas, it seems to be our instinct to conflate our professional expertise with our role as nurturer.
Are we women afraid of women who are powerful, strong and ambitious? Do we discourage those qualities in one another in subtle but pervasive ways? Do we feel that it is only acceptable to own our expertise if it is couched in our role as mother?
As long as we continue to gravitate to the traditionally feminine qualities in one another are we defeating any possibility we ever have of holding our own as leaders in this world? Are we victims of our own self worth? Or have we just not yet figured out how to wield our greatest strengths?
