(PCM) Well, unfortunately, that is not the case! Although there are many women every year, every day, who accomplish much to advance women, we still are not allowed to play in the same ball park, if you know what I mean.
But, at the end of the day, the question remains: What would really help us progress? What would help a sister out? Then it dawned on me after I read this old quote from Rachel Mcadams, “Chris Rock once said something that was really interesting. He said, ‘Women would run the world if they didn’t hate each other.’ That’s the only thing preventing us from running this entire planet, that we hate each other!”
I think this is absolutely true. Think about someone you work with who is a female in a higher position; what are your thoughts on them? Or, a better question is what is the general feedback from those she works with? I can safely say that in my experiences, a woman who is higher up is, unfortunately, usually referred to as hard to work with, the b-word: cold, aggressive, and unpleasant.
A man doing the same job as that woman, whose titles are a lot nicer is described as a hard-worker, a person who gets the job done: a leader. I know you have heard this story time and time again. We read in schools that women get 70 cents for every dollar that a man makes, and we know that women get a bad rep for when they try to act like businessmen.
Yet, I think Mcadams recognized a trend here. If we want to excel, we have to help each other out. We can’t continue to criticize and add fuel to the flames whenever a woman is trying to exercise cutthroat procedures to become a CEO or President of a company. She probably has to work ten times harder to do that just to get noticed. We should instead be promoting other women to prosper in these areas by lending an extra helping hand or dispelling any negative rumors that are being spread.
Let’s bring it down to a smaller scale in our everyday lives. Think about your friend who gets a promotion because her dad knows the boss. Of course, that is frustrating and normally our reaction is followed by a fake smile and an internal jealousy. But, we should bite the bullet and be happy for our girlfriend who is moving up in the ranks.
This doesn’t only happen in the career world, but also in relationships. If a guy cheats on his girlfriend, we usually keep our mouths shut if we are closer to the guy than the girl. But, we see the girl still with our friend and we feel “so bad for her.” Obviously, we don’t feel bad enough to help her out! We always say we would want someone to tell us if the boyfriend is cheating, but how could we expect anyone else to do so if we can’t lend that favor ourselves.
Girls need to come together and help each other out. Instead of waiting for a girl to walk by and criticize her outfit or her “last season look,” we should go up to her and compliment something about the colors she is wearing or the unique shoes she knew to try. When I walk into a room full of unfamiliar female faces, I am insecure and hesitant to act myself or say what I feel in fear that I will be judged.
Let’s stop the judging and start the cheering!
