"Click"

Struggling down the cellar stairs with a forty-pound laundry basket at the end of a long day, I heard myself say: “I wonder where the laundry would be if a woman designed this house?”
I heard a faint “click” as the waking-up light went on.

Later, in graduate school, I said to myself: “Hey, how come there aren’t any women in this research that defines the successful leader?” Another “click”, louder now.

A casual scan of the nightly news confirmed my own experience. There were few, if any, female voices influencing the critical decisions being made about all of us on the global stage. Hey, we’re the other half. How can this be happening?

It’s not just my imagination. The White House Project on Women in the Media who reported that only 9 per cent of the guests on Sunday morning news shows such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation are women, and even then they only speak 10 per cent of the time—leaving 90 per cent of the discussion to the male guests.

So what? Project president Marie Wilson warned that the lack of representation for women will have profound consequences on whether or not women are perceived as competent leaders, because "authority is not recognized by these shows. It is created by these shows."

This led me to ask other women what they were experiencing about leading in the workplace, on the campaign trail, in their community organizing. Twenty-four years later, I know a lot about what we’re all feeling and thinking as we try to get ahead, while staying sane in today’s world of work.

I also found out why women often feel like they are in “alien territory” at work.

More later about what was found and why it may interest you.

Carlotta Tyler