POST #1
SHE-FORCE
How can women work together in a new way that’s based on genuine trust, support, and integrity?
I am 39 years old and have grown up, like probably most of you, assuming that I am a free woman. Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, ‘That Girl’, ‘Bewitched’…everything I saw on TV reinforced what I felt all around me – women are equal and free! And in many ways that is completely true. But what I am most interested in exploring in this series is where we still may NOT be free. Now put down your tazers, I’m not going after the guys here, nor the media. This runs much deeper. What am I talking about then? Maybe this will ring some bells…
You’re at work and you start up a conversation with the new girl/woman, or maybe someone you see a lot but haven’t talked to before. She seems really nice, friendly, smart and before long you’re getting along great – laughing, hitting it off. You think “wow, she’s cool. A new work friend, perfect!” Then that guy, (insert name here of any guy you work with that you have a mild flirting relationship with, or is in any position of power) walks by and, ignoring you, says something flattering to your new “friend” or chats it up with her. Then that familiar feeling starts to kick in…your thoughts go from “she’s so nice” to “I hate her! I want to kill her! She’s such a bitch, thinking she’s cute, man is her nose big or what?!, ohmygod I’m ugly, I hate myself, I’m so fat…I need to eat.”
If that sounds at all familiar, then you know what “enemy” I’m talking about. It’s the very real and very deep structures or motivations that are still within us women that are preventing us from really working together, no matter what jobs we have. Not our fault, nothing to be ashamed of – it’s just that we haven’t really ever gone in there with the lights on bright to look. Lots of reasons why, more on that later – but for instance, our biology is still a huge motivating force in us that’s it’s almost hard to see. For very, very good reasons women have meant ‘threat’ to each other. We’ve had to rely on men for just about everything until very recently and so “man stop liking me and like her” meant death or close enough to it. I know for me, I used to think it was ‘personal’ – that I just suddenly didn’t like my friend or the girl in class that I thought was so cool and nice. I would believe my thoughts about her as my emotions began to constrict and rage. But now I have learned that this is universal to women. We have social, legal, and economic freedoms like no other time in history. But the next frontier I think is for us to take on these deeper structures in us that keep us from really working TOGETHER. When the pressure is on, when it counts most, do we have each other’s back for real? Do we know we can count on each other as a true sisterhood of working women? What would our workplace look like if we did? What would our experience at work be like? What would that unleash and allow for that isn’t accessible at this point? It’s something I’m exploring and I hope you’ll do it with me. All I know is THAT would be a real SHE-FORCE!
Looking at women in the workplace and uncovering how women REALLY relate to each other. We may have equal rights but there are still very primitive responses in all women that have yet to be exposed, owned, and transcended. Don’t believe me? Ok, remember that time that you were talking to someone new-ish at work or someone visiting – she is very sweet and you are getting along very well, standing in the hall laughing and having a good time. Then that guy you have a mild flirting relationship with, or any man with more power than you, walks by ignoring you and really chatting it up with your new “friend” – that rush of “I’m going to kill her, I hate her, she’s such a bitch, oh my god I’m so ugly…and fat…I need to eat.” Right? Ok, that’s what I’m talking about. And every woman knows it, which means it’s universal to what being a woman still is…unless we take that on and change it. How can women work TOGETHER in a new way that’s based on REAL trust, support, and integrity? THAT would be a SHE-FORCE!
