We Can Only Learn From Other Women

Recently, I was thinking of the wonderful proliferation of organisations and communities across the globe which support women in business, but one of the things that really struck me was that very few of these organisations acknowledge the role men can play in helping women achieve their goals. I started thinking about events and conferences focused on women in business and there is a distinct lack of male presence (why is that? Do we think all the women will turn on him as soon as he enters the room??).

Just as men can learn a lot from women about how to run a business, likewise women can learn a lot from men. The danger with having an ‘exclusive’ mindset around this is that we succumb to a form of ‘group-think’. This is where the need for harmony in a group can over-ride a realistic appraisal of alternatives. The challenge is we then create a situation that is the same as where women have been excluded. For me, that’s not the point of progressing women’s rights and opportunities just so we can exclude the other 50% of the population.

Why do we assume that just because it’s an organisation that supports women that there is no room for men to help play a part? There are many inspirational and savvy men out there who have a huge amount to contribute to the female experience of business and we should welcome this with open arms.

Now the opposite is also true. I was recently at a conference where the speaker line-up for 3 days was all-male with one woman. This was abysmal. The main organiser was a man and I was really disappointed with the lack of female role models on the stage and that’s something we need to think about too – could it be that some women are only comfortable with a female audience?

I think we have a long way to go before we can truly say the business terrain is an equal field but let’s think about how we can collaborate with each other rather than pursue the exclusivity mindset or worse, exclude members based on their biological differences!