Coaching Training & Personal Development for Women & Trainers

How Powerful, Sexist Men are Helping Gender Equality

Amidst all the sadness and anger of the current revelations and accusations of powerful men abusing women I am hopeful for what this means for gender equality.

When I was a teenager it was accepted as routine that men and boys would make sexist comments to you; just leaving my home used to feel like running the gauntlet and as a young teenager I was hugely intimidated by it. It was so commonplace to be groped at work or on the way to school that we didn’t report it because we would be told to stop wearing mini skirts, take a different route, ignore them etc. I can remember being told by a teacher that men couldn’t help themselves if we dressed provocatively ie not perfect uniform.

There was a cloak of complicity over the actions of men and boys, even at a very minor level. When men hold the power all men are seen as powerful and all women are less powerful. And the consequences of that power imbalance shows in all sorts of ways; at its worse in the sexual abuse of women with women and girls not being believed by others in power. Or perhaps even worse, being believed but being rebuffed and belittled by the power of a society which accepted that men were superior to women and therefore this was ‘acceptable’ or ‘inevitable’ behaviour. You don’t have to think long to to bring to mind some great men in history and how they fell short when it came to their attitudes to women and the excuses made for them.

But that cloak is being swept aside by the actions of some courageous women; society is being forced to hold a mirror up against itself and it doesn’t like what it sees. People are asking why has this been happening for so long? And as more women and girls see women speaking out and being believed so will they speak out against sexism and the power imbalance. Just read some of the comments on the No More Page Three site and you’ll see what I mean

Wonderful women are speaking out and the times they are a’changing! More power and huge gratitude to them (and to the men who are supportive too). Most have paid a huge price but their courage is moving us nearer to the day when women will genuinely be treated by society as a whole as equals in their own right. True gender equality must surely follow soon!

You might also like to read Is Feminism on the Change?

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Confidence, Gender Issues

How To Worry Less in 3 Easy Steps

Written by Jane 0 Comments

Worrying can become as much a habit as biting your nails. We can find ourselves doing it without realising it. Worrying excessively can eat away at our self confidence which doesn’t help when we try to take control of what ails us.

Generally speaking worrying is not a productive pursuit but here’s three steps to help make it work for you:

1. Identify the actual worry and be as specific as possible. What do you think is going to happen as a result of this worrying? Are you just generally worrying about things outwith your control? If your worry is something you can’t control you may need to remind yourself that worrying won’t help at all.Worrying is a passive activity, however, your worry might stimulate you into doing something positive about your concern so it’s is not all bad as long as you stay in control.

2. Ask yourself is there anything I can do about this worry right at this minute? If the answer is yes, do it or plan to do it. If the answer is no, write down your worry and resolve to look at it at another time and see if there is anything you can do then. In effect, schedule in your worry time!

3. If the worrying persists learn a technique to distract your mind. Distraction is helpful in many areas, like managing pain or controlling unhelpful habits. Worrying has quite possibly become a habit for you so you need to fill the gap the worrying habit will leave. You could try mindfulness or meditation, knitting or some other craft (you could make a worry scarf!).

What’s your best tip for managing worry?

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Confidence, Managing Stress

Is It Time To Be Bold?

Written by Jane 0 Comments

How bold are you?

I have an exercise on my women’s personal development course, RenewYou where we think about how much of a risk we’re prepared to take to get to where we want to be, and it usually produces some interesting results. Women are typically described as risk averse in relation to financial matters, (which is why more women in finance might have acted as a break on the financial crises of recent years, ahem), but is this true of you in your daily life?

Our attitude to risk, of course, depends on our circumstances. A mother will throw caution to the wind and risk everything to save her child in an emergency, and if your job is about to disappear you may risk applying for jobs you’d usually not consider; the fear of unemployment is greater than fear of making a change.

But what about when everything is going, well, just ‘alright’? It’s not too bad, and equally it’s not too good. You’re just trucking along doing sort of OK. ‘Mustn’t grumble’.

These are the times when you need to be bold, to take control of your life and take the odd risk too. However, it’s also the time when it’s most hard to do this as we have no driving imperative to change and before we know it we’ve arrived at where we didn’t realise we wanted to go…. It’s when ‘life happens when we’re busy doing other things’ (Thanks, John Lennon).

Is it time for you take some control?

Time to work out what you really want from life and then set about achieving it?

Don’t wait until you have to be bold.

Be bold on your own terms!

It’s your life, your career, and no one cares about it as much as you do.

Be Bold Now!

If you need a bit of support for your boldness take a look at When Work isn’t Working

Confidence, Managing Change, Motivation

Cameron’s Fine Words Butter No Parsnips Unless He Takes Action Re Gender Equality

Written by Jane 0 Comments

It’s so rare that I find myself in agreement with David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, (in fact, let’s face it, it has never happened before) that I felt compelled to note it. It seems me and Mr C share a viewpoint over his dismal failure to appoint women into senior posts in his cabinet, with just five of the 32 ministers being women. He had pledged pre election that at least a third of his cabinet would be female.

David Cameron was in India when he was asked by a female employee at a factory he was visiting if Britain could teach India anything about opening up opportunities to women.

To his credit he replied:

” We still have a long way to go. If you look at the top businesses in Britain, there still aren’t nearly enough women around the cabinet table.

I think in every walk of life, whether the judiciary, politics, or business there is a lot further to go. My own view is it isn’t enough just to open up and say we will treat everyone equally, when you are starting from such a position of disadvantage. Companies, political parties and other organisations need to actively go out and encourage women to join in, to sign up, to take the course, to become part of the endeavour.

Just opening up and saying ‘You’re welcome to try if you want to’ doesn’t get over the fact that there have been alls orts of barriers in the way”

Correct, Mr Cameron. So can we expect to hear an announcement about quotas for women on boards soon?(You might like to check this out from EU Women-on-boards (EU and has some good info on what quotas are for) Oh hang on, you’re not that keen on EU directives….)

But something has to change and it’s no good hand wringing and going for the female vote by simply saying the right things. We are judged on what we do, and the time has come to DO something. I believe that ‘something’ has to be the introduction of quotas.

NB Mr Cameron does not advocate positive discrimination as a means of addressing the imbalance but the Labour party has selected an all women shortlist in South Stockton. The Green Party are advocates for quotas as you can see in this interview with the leader of the Green Party Natalie Bennet

Why Women on Boards? The Evidence Quotas for women on Indian Boards (India)

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Photo by Giselaroya Stock Exchange

Confidence, Gender Issues

It’s Definitely Not Your Fault! And Maybe It’s Not Their Fault Either….?

Written by Jane 6 Comments

Blame. I’ve been cogitating it on its usefulness quite a bit this week having had something tricky to sort out. It’s a natural human reaction (even though I’ve illustrated it with a cat…); something goes wrong so we look for someone to blame.

Definition of blame:

1. responsibility for something that is wrong or deserving censure; culpability
2. an expression of condemnation; reproof to blame to be at fault or culpable

verb (transitive)
1. (usually followed by for) to attribute responsibility to; accuse ‘I blame him for the failure’
2. (usually followed by on) to ascribe responsibility for (something) to ‘I blame the failure on him’
3. to find fault with

There may be times in your life when it’s appropriate to seek a culprit, in legal matters perhaps when we need to bring someone to justice and to stop further ills.

Most of the time, however, we tend towards a knee jerk reaction to events that happen to us. Someone must responsible. And if we can’t make an individual responsible we make events or whole group of people responsible. I’ve done it and I’m pretty sure you’ve done it. It absolves us from responsibility and it can be quite comforting “Not MY fault“. Therefore I can’t be expected to do anything.

That way victim-hood lies. We can get stuck in a place unhelpful to us and our personal development.

Sometimes when we find ourselves in a pickle, or affected by a change outwith our control we have to say to ourselves: this matters to me more than anyone else. It’s a mess, it needs fixing, looking for someone to blame is unproductive and sapping my energy.

Sometimes you have to stop looking to blame someone, take responsibility and just get things sorted.

In your life who do you find yourself reflexively blaming, and how might it benefit you to stop?

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Communication, Confidence, Managing Change, Managing Stress

Will You Help Me Celebrate?

I want to hear about you!

How Powerful, Sexist Men are Helping Gender Equality

How To Worry Less in 3 Easy Steps

Is It Time To Be Bold?

Cameron’s Fine Words Butter No Parsnips Unless He Takes Action Re Gender Equality

It’s Definitely Not Your Fault! And Maybe It’s Not Their Fault Either….?