Working with women: Expecting and achieving more
First published on Staffrm as part of the #WomenEd #digimeet, 13 September 2015.
At a recent Future Leaders Trust ‘women into headship’ day, I heard too many stories of aspiring female heads being held back and undermined by the very people who should be championing them – other women. So much for sisterhood! How could this be?
Digging a little deeper, it wasn’t necessarily that women behave worse than men (though they sometimes do), but that women’s expectations of other women are higher. And rightly so! It’s bad enough that women are judged harder than men, without those judgements coming from other women.
Women and men should be better than that. But as women leaders we have a duty to ourselves and each other to be exemplary in showing our male colleagues, husbands, boyfriends, male students and sons – not forgetting our female colleagues, wives, girlfriends, female students and daughters – the way.
The world would be a better place if the conduct of the female party leaders during the general election became the norm. For me, the women won that contest hands down. In the leaders’ debate particularly they were respectful, they listened, they collaborated and they showed compassion – and they got their points across more powerfully than any of the combative men simply seeking to score points off each other. Nothing illustrated this better than the women's combined effort to tackle Nigel Farage’s disgraceful claims about HIV.
I celebrated this female tour de force during the election campaign because it is something I’d like to see more of in politics and because it is exactly the behaviour I expect from women. When it happens it is both powerful and pleasurable.
I had personal experience of the joy working with women can bring at a recent meeting of the Leading Women’s Alliance about a summit we’re planning for 15 January (save the date, more to follow!). We were only a small group and we hadn’t all met before. What made the meeting great was the time we invested in getting to know and really listening to each other. Egos were left at the door and we built on each other’s ideas to come up with a far better plan than we could have devised individually or in competition with each other.
If I have a dream, it is that all of us working to champion women in education can join together as a force for positive change. The nascent Leading Women’s Alliance - which includes @vivienne for WomenEd - is a step in this direction. But more than that, I’d like us to work together in ways that model what the very best of women working effectively together looks like, feels like and can achieve. And if I were to dream even bigger, I’d like this to become the norm, not just for all women, but for everyone. Who’s with me?
At a recent Future Leaders Trust ‘women into headship’ day, I heard too many stories of aspiring female heads being held back and undermined by the very people who should be championing them – other women. So much for sisterhood! How could this be?
Digging a little deeper, it wasn’t necessarily that women behave worse than men (though they sometimes do), but that women’s expectations of other women are higher. And rightly so! It’s bad enough that women are judged harder than men, without those judgements coming from other women.
Women and men should be better than that. But as women leaders we have a duty to ourselves and each other to be exemplary in showing our male colleagues, husbands, boyfriends, male students and sons – not forgetting our female colleagues, wives, girlfriends, female students and daughters – the way.
The world would be a better place if the conduct of the female party leaders during the general election became the norm. For me, the women won that contest hands down. In the leaders’ debate particularly they were respectful, they listened, they collaborated and they showed compassion – and they got their points across more powerfully than any of the combative men simply seeking to score points off each other. Nothing illustrated this better than the women's combined effort to tackle Nigel Farage’s disgraceful claims about HIV.
I celebrated this female tour de force during the election campaign because it is something I’d like to see more of in politics and because it is exactly the behaviour I expect from women. When it happens it is both powerful and pleasurable.
I had personal experience of the joy working with women can bring at a recent meeting of the Leading Women’s Alliance about a summit we’re planning for 15 January (save the date, more to follow!). We were only a small group and we hadn’t all met before. What made the meeting great was the time we invested in getting to know and really listening to each other. Egos were left at the door and we built on each other’s ideas to come up with a far better plan than we could have devised individually or in competition with each other.
If I have a dream, it is that all of us working to champion women in education can join together as a force for positive change. The nascent Leading Women’s Alliance - which includes @vivienne for WomenEd - is a step in this direction. But more than that, I’d like us to work together in ways that model what the very best of women working effectively together looks like, feels like and can achieve. And if I were to dream even bigger, I’d like this to become the norm, not just for all women, but for everyone. Who’s with me?
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