Brokenness, Hope and Women!
So much is broken in the world that at times I just want to ball up and cry. I mean really, in a time of financial and economic crisis, can you bear to read the story of Governor Blagojevich trying to auction off Obama's senate seat? At the same moment that our President-Elect has been inspiring us to be the change we want to see in the world, this foul mouthed egomaniac was thinking only about "what is in it for me?" Truly, honestly, it makes me sick to my stomach. Where is the hope?
I will tell you where hope is. The hope is in people who know that the world is broken, and feel called in to action to do something about it. Hope was in the faces of 200 women, and two very brave and smart men, at 57 West 48th Street in New York City at 8 AM yesterday morning where I had the honor to deliver a keynote address for the 85 Broads New York City Women's Power Breakfast. Janet Hanson, the organization's founder, calls it is a network of over 18,000 of the smartest women on the planet, and judging by who was in the room, she may well be right. They chose to gather that morning for one simple reason, because they want to change the world for the better. They chose to gather that morning because they saw the title of the talk "("Are YOU ready for a Revolution? "), they paid their money and showed up. The message I gave was at its heart a simple one, invest in women and invest in you.
It is not that men and boys don't matter. They do, of course, but we already know what men mattering looks like. Boys and men disproportionately mattering is what created the world in which we live. Last time I checked men still largely rule. They are the majority decision makers in government and business. Even in the family, where women are primary caregivers and often control the pocketbook, it is still often men who effectively rule the roost. The world we know right this minute is a world led by men, and it is broken. Challenging that view, I invite you to imagine what a more balanced world might look like. Please understand that I love, respect, and value good men, but I simply do not believe that men should be running the world without us. Men and women need to figure out how to run the world together.
Let's start with a local look. In my family there are two male and two females, two adults and two kids. We share responsibilities fairly equally. That is true for the adults and for the kids. We are extremely fortunate that in our work both my husband and I have a lot of flexibility in terms of scheduling which enables us to commit a fairly equal amount of time to our domestic life. We are a bit of a social experiment, you could say. When we did both work at Goldman Sachs for 5 years of our married life and with one child, the same was true; at home we shared responsibilities. In fact that sharing of responsibilities was the deal we struck up front, and has been true for our 13-years of marriage.
He does most of the following: laundry, fixing things, helping the kids with their homework, making breakfast, processing our investments, and managing things outside (yard, bugs, cars). I do most of the following: managing our schedules, bill paying, travel planning, processing all other mail, gifts, meal planning, health care, buying things we need. We complement each other. There are other things we do together, like our investment decisions, our giving, and life planning, as these we view as in need of both our thinking. We use our skills, natural intuitions, and abilities to make our family work. And that is exactly what our larger society needs to do now — to figure out how to leverage and develop the skills, abilities and passions of its population to maximum effect.
What seems to work in our family does not yet seem to work in most of corporate America, nor more broadly, and to that I ask, why not? I offer you three simply reasons as a starting point.
1. In my family, we fundamentally believe that we matter equally. This led us to attempt to share the workload, the influence, and the power. We try to value what each other does equally and when it feels out of balance, as it often does, we talk. That does not mean that everyone does the equal amount all the time or that we will be equally happy. It does mean, however, that that is the general goal.
2. We acknowledge that we have different talents, abilities and interests and we both value those differences and divide the workload based on that. We try to be aware of the 'cost' of that work, financial and emotional, and seek an equitable distribution. My husband finds it painful to sort through the mail, for me it is fixing computer problems. We have our responsibilities and we trade-off favors. This local economy of complementarities is how many families work.
3. We thank each other. Most of life seems to be transactional. Mutual thank yous make for a very satisfying transaction. In the home things need to get done so we can have time for the white space, the down time as my husband calls it, where life is truly lived. Sadly it seems at times that ninety-five percent of life is maintenance so it is easy to take one another for granted. We do things just to keep life moving leaving little time for it to be enjoyed. Gratitude is the key. White space, down time, cannot become recovery time or a space you shove your fun. A constant attitude of gratitude will make that time more joyful.
Now, think about these three concepts — equity, valuing differences, and gratitude — and apply them to our workplaces. Do companies fundamentally believe that it matters equally to have men and women employees fully participate and be represented at all levels of their companies? Second, do they acknowledge that employees have different talents, abilities, and capacities and that the company's job is to maximize a person's contributions based on that? Third, do companies base their reward system, pay and promotion, on how well people do given this framework and provide ongoing feedback?
Apply those same questions to our global economy. The new paradigms around sustainable economic development are about providing human and economic security to women and girls. It is a proven fact that when you invest in women and girls, providing them with education, a means to make a living, basic human rights, rights to own property and freedom from harm, communities thrive. By investing in and empowering a woman's life, you in turn enhance her families well being, her communities, her countries, the thus, the world.
So much has to change in order for ours to be a more just and equitable world, and that change must occur in all levels of society for it to be sustainable. This theory of change is well summarized in the work of the Women's Funding Network which argues that "a bottom up belief that the whole community cannot be improved or changed without the full participation of women and girls and the full participation of women and girls cannot be achieved without bringing women and girls from the margins in to the mainstream."
We can talk about new appointments and new administrations, but it is in valuing men and women, boys and girls equally and in enabling their full participation in society, that we will set the course for the positive change we need to see in our families and our public and private institutions.
In Washington, as we witness this changing of the guard and hope that better decisions will be made, let us drive change elsewhere, in all realms of our society, from where we each stand. Where leadership is not diverse, strive it make it so. Where the culture is toxic, commit to changing it. Where talent is being underutilized, develop programs to change that. The solutions are there but what is missing, often, is the will, the commitment, to see such change through. What is missing is the equitable participation of women as solutions are being enacted. This is the message I delivered yesterday to over 200 women and if you can pull together a group of 200 interested men, call me, and I will deliver the message to them too. This is a world view when good men and good men both win. Do you see a broken world? If yes, then begin to see the world differently and then move forward to make the world different. Invest in women and girls. The time for real change is now.
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Yes indeed, but STILL NO FUNDS FOR FEMALE TECHNICAL VENTURES from your website or venture.
We need great people to lead us out of this mess. Yes that includes women, but the reality is, at the greatness end of the spectrum..
Fantastic blog. I love the analogy to family. In essence, you are talking about taking a "team approach." If the entire team (both parents and children) are invested in the outcome, success usually follows.
All these bad men have women who stand by them.
In response to some of the previous comments, yes, as human beings women are not perfect. But there are stark differences between the behavior of women and men in the world. To see the difference all we need to do is imagine that all the men in the world went to sleep for a while. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Congo ( including the mass rape of women and girls) would come to a halt. In fact, rape, pedophilia and the sexual exploitation of women and children would be basically non-existent. Genocide would cease and organized crime would be reduced radically. These are just some examples. And yes, some women would still engage in some of these atrocities, but certainly not on the same scale. Another important point to keep in mind is that the structures of civilization itself are a product of patriarchy and women, just as easily as men, are indoctrinated into its ideology, so that the .01% of women who have held positions of power, have functioned within patriarchal parameters (the media is no exception). This means that the real challenge is not only for women to participate equally, but to counteract the values of the patriarchate.
I would point you to Anne Colter's remarks on War. Not pretty.
Again,I will point you to some of the female leaders of recent and ancient history. Gender did not stop them from war or enslaving peoples,or sexual perversion. Read history. The myth disappears.
Genocide- Queen Izzabella of Spain completed the greatest mass genocide in recorded history in1492. The extinction of Moors in southern Spain was completed in that year which opened her coffers to fund Cristobal Colon's(Christopher Columbus) voyage across The Atlantic. During the next ten years she precided over the pillaging,murder and enslavement of Carib natives.
See Jacki Zehner's Profile
Thank you all for commenting. UncleDave I seem to have you fired up.... cool. The main point of the piece is this - It is through trying to create equity ( being fair), valuing differences, and having an attitude of grattitude - that women and mean have a hope of working together to solve the problems of the world. We need to draw out the BEST in people, and pull the BEST people in to positions of leadership. The BEST is not either male or female but the best of both. We need to expand our thinking. Strong but compassionate, willfull not overly aggressive, decisive after collaborat
"women and mean..."? Freudian slip, I hope not.
Lol, I was thinking the same thing...."
I don't see how giving birth makes us superior either. I wish most of us would STOP giving birth.
Jacki. I appreciate your personal comment to me. I agree with your main point-Very Much So. I agree that diversity is imperitive all over the world,if We are to begin solve our problems. I agree totally in womens rights. As i said,i am more of a feminist than my wife. And That was My point. Wome tend to label men in a certain light that is not helpful,as the commenter who stated that if 'women had ruled empires and nations' history would have been different. It is that mindset that turns smart women into slaves. My other point was that women hold back other women from success-I have seen it all my life. For women to excell in this world,that culture must change. I believe in the awesomeness of women. I've had arguments over the years with men on the obvious superiority of women. Women are superior to men for the fact that they can give birth. My musical tastes always flow to women in that the songs and the stories are much more interesting. I'll stop my blabbing. I'm on your side. Thanx again for your personal attention. Much appreciated . Good Luck . dave
The !Kung of southern Africa (also known as the Kalahari "Bushmen") would honor a new mother as a warrior, for in giving birth she risked her life so the tribe could survive.
i think you'll start to see more dramatic changes in terms of male/female power sharing in 10-20 years when this generation's kids, like Jacki's, come of age... progress is happening in numerous ways - from more women going to college than men to the female factor in this year's presidential election. one thing that would help a lot, in addition to heroic grass roots efforts, would be to get more women in senior positions in media to take up the challenge. major media sets the agenda for much of the thinking and perceptions. if women in media were up to the mission, we could see dramatic positive change much more quickly.
You really are kidding,right? 'the media' is run by huge corperations. The women in media are corperate shills mouthing fluff for the women who make the biggest moronic shows on TV blockbuste
Yeah, right. Just what we need. More shows like "America's Next Top Model" or "Desperate Housewives"!
Begin to see the world differently and then move forward! As always, a true inspiration. To see more proof of how this is spreading take a look at this:
Go to: http://onl
And click or search "Best Advice"-We asked 10 women leaders to
share their best advice with the rising generation of women.
Here's what they had to say.
Jacki I believe you will really resonate with Sarah Ferguson and her poem..
Well. Ever since my wife(my one and only wife) and I lived in sin,as good liberal hippies did,and then married SHE was The Boss. She allowed Me to try and usurp Her majesty,all with hopeless results. I am in fact,more of a 'feminist' than she is. As I commented in a similar post yesterday,It's Not Men who keep women down- in general terms -It is women themselves. Women are more suspisious of women leaders than men are. Women now hold more power in this country than ever before. Nancy Pelosi holds much power,as does Hillary Clinton ,who will be Our go-between with world leaders. The most stable government in Europe (Germany) is run by a woman. The fiction of 'if women ran the world,there would be no wars' is silly. Golda Mier of israel led the most sucessful 'preemptive war' in Middle East history. The Falklands War was led by a woman PM of Britain. Catherine the Great of Russia and Queen Elizibeth of England expanded empire by warfare. Cleopatara of Egypt.....
I've seen more brawls between women than men. I've seen more physical violence performed by women on men than men on women. The 'peacefull sex'. Right.
As a woman, I must agree. The people who keep women down tend to be other women. At least that's been my experience.
And That Sucks.
The entire barbed-wire, territorial piss-marking mentality would disappear. Working with and respecting nature precludes private property, inheritance and the delusion of war as a solution to anything.
I totally agree. I get annoyed with the way history has run and wonder what it would be like if more women had run countries and empires.
Heck, I look at all these Fortune 500 companies going bankrupt and wonder what it would look like if they had more female CEOs and board members.
Don't know much history much,do You?
Back in the 1980s my girlfriend at the time told me she would never, ever vote for a woman. Why? Becaue she grew up in Great Britain during the reign of Margaret Thatcher.
Men and women ARE equal. Why? Because we are human. Therefore, women have in EQUAL measure qualities that make up HUMAN NATURE. Bad qualities such as greed, jealousy, over inflated ego, violence are just as much part of human nature as love, compassion, selflessness and patience. Are you saying that women are not capable of these negative qualities once in power? power corrupts.
Women are as capable of abusing their positions of power as men, but I think the difference may come down to leadership styles. Women are generally more collaborative leaders, I suspect because they are not often overflowing with the sometimes unwarranted self confidence and bravado that men are. Collaborative leadership lends itself to transparency and therefore there is less potential for the abuse power.
I think the overarching point, although the author did not specifically include it above, is that diverse talents and leadership styles will yield the best results, whether we're discussing a family, a corporation, or a government.
'Women are more collaborative' ? You jest. Woman collaborate from a position of selfishness-ie. 'my family's needs'. Women NEVER collabrorate on giving power to another woman.
And may i say,there is NO more self-confident person than a woman who has run a family succesessfully.
You have the key to defeating Islamic radical terrorists, without dropping another bomb:
Spreading the notion of women's equality GLOBALLY.
Women are like kryptonite to those guys.
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