I muttered "What the f**k?!" so many times while reading Julie Zeilinger's recent Forbes piece, "Why Millennial Women Don't Want to Lead," that I almost got kicked out of Starbucks.
Julie, a 19-year-old Barnard student, argues that young women of our generation shy away from leadership roles because they don't consider themselves "perfect enough" to lead. She identifies societal pressure for women to be perfect and the supposed subsequent lack of self-esteem it breeds in us as the reasons why Millennial women "choose" not to lead.
The pressure to be perfect certainly exists, and I agree with Julie that women are often more likely to not consider themselves ready for leadership roles because they aren't perfectly qualified. But thinking you're not ready for a position and not wanting it are two entirely different things.
To say that Millennial women don't want to lead is at best wrong -- just look at the comments from other Millennial women on Julie's post -- and at worse, damaging to the cause of equal opportunity. By perpetuating the myth that women on whole prefer to be in the background, playing the supporter or follower role, Julie harms the work that generations of women and men have done to prove that neither gender is homogeneous in its desires -- and neither has a monopoly on leadership ability.
I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by incredible Millennial women who have aggressively pursued and achieved leadership roles. The CEO of Mobilize.org (where I work), Maya Enista Smith, is a powerhouse in the nonprofit community. Then there's the White House Project, which seeks to advance leadership of women in business in politics, led by the incredible Tiffany Dufu. And the story of the week has been Yahoo's appointment of Marrisa Mayer, a 37-year-old pregnant woman, as its new CEO. These women may or may not consider themselves perfect, but they certainly want to lead, and they've worked hard to do so.
The real issue isn't a lack of desire in Millennial women to be leaders -- it's a lack of access to leadership positions. Because it's still a man's world, where men hold the vast majority of leadership positions, breaking in to the upper echelon presents a unique set of challenges for women -- stereotypes to overcome, different societal expectations of work/life balance and a lack of other females as mentors and in-house validators to help bring us up the ladder. Plain and simple, women have to work harder to get to the top.
Instead of blaming each other and ourselves for the dearth of Millennial women at the top of organizations, in Congress or on boards, we should be working hard to mentor each other, fundraising for female candidates, improving the work environment to allow men and women equal opportunities to be active participants in family life and educating our male friends and colleagues on what they can do to make the next generation of leaders more diverse.
As a start, Julie -- you're invited to Mobilize.org's upcoming summit in North Carolina, which will convene Millennial leaders from across the country to ignite a conversation about how to get even more of us engaged as leaders in our communities. I guarantee that you will be overwhelmed and inspired by the number of intrepid women you will meet who are driven to become leaders in their fields and on their campuses. Send me a note at goodwin at mobilize dot org if you're interested.
Follow Amber Goodwin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@goodwin4texas
And kids?
If a woman doesn't want a baby she basically has to spend the rest of her life alternately defending and apologizing to other women for that "selfish" decision.
Personally I'm thankful I was born male and have the freedom to do what makes me happy without worrying that I need to apologize or defend my lifestyle choices to other men.
Has the Girl Power Movement become a prison for the younger generation?
Once again the problem is women setting false and unrealistic expectation for other women. It's not men setting these crazy, unrealistic goals. Yet the explanation for they lack of exact 50/50 ratio of women to men at super lofty positions is sexism. Is it sexism or is it that women have no desire to do it just like 99 percent of men don't? There are almost no female rodeo clowns either - is that also proof of an "old boys network" or is it that most women (and men too) have no desire to actually spend their days hiding in a barrel getting kicked by a bull???
We live in a patriarchal society, and honestly, IMO, if we are going to blame something, let's think about religion. Something pervasive enough the atheists I know still catch themselves saying, "Bless you" when you sneeze. Religions set the male as head of the household and women as keeper of the home. We are seeing the rise in popularity of Purity Balls. Heck, even the Catholic Church is busy telling their Nuns they have become too uppity.
Men who are considered to be gentlemen walk on the street side of a couple, are expected to pay for dinner, and hold the door for you. All of this behavior stems from the idea that men are stronger and more capable, which stems from religion. It's often why they make more money at the same jobs-men are the head of the household, so they need more money to take care of their assumed family. These reasons do not come from media-driven perfection.
We have been sick with religion for thousands of years; let's not blame a short-lived side effect.
Affirmative action is leading to the hiring and promoting of women to positions that they aren't qualified to hold, at the discrimination against more experienced/more qualified men.
It also has the added problem that no one respects a leader who never worked to get to their position.
Get rid of AA, and let women earn their position like everyone else, and that will build their confidence, and the respect of their peers/subordinates.
Here's reality for you: I became a manger in my company before age 30, and was one of the youngest in the country for my company (a national, multi-billion dollar company with about 14,000 employees). I was the top in the country for my previous position as well as in my position after my promotion while having an area much larger than most managers in my company (most are men) and I am responsible for more revenue than most managers. I earned that responsibility and revenue, AA didn't make those dollars and grow the business.
I am a woman, and you can kiss my respected ass.
Now, as someone who has put forth all of this effort and work to EARN your place, to battle it out with your peers and prove yourself worthy.
Doesn't the whole idea of Affirmative Action and "Female Empowerment" just tick you off? You've fought and sacrificed and earned your position, but no one respects you because they don't know if you really belong there. They don't know if there were 100 men better suited who were discriminated against to "empower" you, like so many other women in high powered positions.
Do you really want these unqualified, babied, privileged, "empowered" women who are in over their head as your peers? to cast doubt on your own adequacy? You're better than them.
This is the key step. Will you sacrifice the hours, and work until 10pm, or on saturdays, and on holidays? In order to get to the top, on has to.
The idea that you can balance work and family won't work in this game.
So, in their teenage years, we would have to convince the brightest girls that they should Not pick careers which balance career and family. Don't become a nurse, study harder and become a physician. Don't study public health, study medicine.
So many women pick family friendly careers, and that is an invite to non-leadership roles in the economy.
Once legions of women begin to think like this, they'll quickly rise to prominent positions, from CEO to owner/entrepreneur.
We need the next Microsoft of Apple to be started by brilliant, enterprising young women, who'll sacrifice everything, including the use of the womb. That's the reality of the trade off. If you want to bake biscuits with your kids right after school, you will not run a major organization.
I realize my post generalizes about millennial women, but it was not my intention at ALL to suggest that there aren't ANY millennial women who want to lead. I run a blog for young women - fostering leadership amongst girls is very important to me and I know numerous young women who want to and are leading, including myself. In retrospect, I wish I had been clearer about that.
I also agree that there are structural forces that prevent women from leading. However, there ARE many young women who, though smart and capable, shy away from leadership. I believe that this is wrong and must change, but dismissing the way many girls feel is detrimental to progress. Since publishing the post, I've gotten hundreds of tweets and emails from young women who were glad to see the way they feel about leadership explained and want to do something about it.
The intention of my article was to elucidate an under-discussed reason why there are still women who feel discouraged from leading when they SHOULD be leading and WOULD want to lead if these societal forces not exist. It's highly reductive to suggest that my argument claimed women inherently aren't interested in leading.
That being said, I appreciate your dedication to women's leadership. Mobilize.org seems like a fantastic organization and I would love to attend the summit!
I realize that my post generalizes about millennial women, but it wasn't my intention at ALL to suggest that there are NO millennial women who want to lead. I run a blog for young women and fostering leadership amongst girls is very important to me. I've been fortunate enough to encounter young women who are leading in impressive and significant ways. In retrospect, I do wish I had emphasized the fact that of course there are young women leaders out there. I'm truly sorry if that wasn't clear.
However, I do believe that there are far too many young women who, though they are smart and capable, shy away form leadership. I believe that this is wrong but that it's reality and that dismissing that reality ultimately prevents progress. I meant to highlight a pervasive yet under-discussed reason why there are young women who feel discouraged from leading when they SHOULD be leading and WOULD want to lead should these societal forces not exist. Simply put, i's highly reductive to suggest that my argument claimed women inherently aren't interested in leading.
That being said, I really do appreciate your dedication to women's leadership and am glad to see other perspectives on this discussion brought to light. Mobilize.org seems like a fantastic organization and I actually would love to attend the summit!
What a powerful post! I am so lucky to be able to work with you. You inspire me everyday to do, and be my best!