Do women in the boardroom face a double standard? Do we have to be extra attentive to self-improvement to appear to be competent and recognized as effective?
Here are some comments that we’ve heard over the years regarding ‘self-improvement’ that are necessary for women to stay in the boardroom:
- Women need to learn a more positive approach to leading, encouraging others, thus being less bossy than men.
- When it comes to women in the boardroom, clothes speak volumes. It takes only a few seconds for people you’ve never met to form perceptions about your female authority and abilities by judging your attire.
- Women need to learn skills that will bring positive and powerful emotion to the workplace, and be better relationship-builders and better communicators than men (and apparently we can do this because our brains are more networked for language).
- Women need to learn alternative approaches to leading teams — encouraging more open discussion, cultivating talent and sharing credit. In fact, it would behoove women to read books on inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. Perhaps sitting at the middle of the conference table rather than at its head and saying, “We are all in this together and I am part of it”.
With all of this emphasis on self-improvement to become successful in the boardroom (and all of it is good, no doubt), are we spending so much time trying to ‘measure up’, that we actually never make it there in time to make a real change?
Wow! Learning how to have authority in a mostly male dominated position, is a subtle and far reaching issue, indeed.
And, we haven’t even touched on how a woman’s skin and hair is supposed to look in the boardroom (trust me, being in the skin care industry, we’ve seen and heard an earful)!
Are you in the boardroom? Would you like to be? Please share us your thoughts on what you think is necessary for a woman to stay there!
At least once a week, I don’t straighten my hair. I have a heard of, what I like to call, a ‘multicontinent mane’. It’s a plethora of Afro-Euro-Alien hairs that all have a mind of their own. When someone sees me on my ‘natural hair day’ (I used to call it a ‘bad hair day’) it’s usually accompanied by a “Whoa – I didn’t know you had…. (pause to find a descriptive)….curly hair!” Growing up, I hated the attention my full, crazy hair attracted. Throughout early church school years, when I was supposed to be praying for world peace (which I regularly do now), I would instead supplicate for either “black girl” or “white girl” hair. “Your choice, God! Just get rid of this poodle perm my Afro- Euro-Alien blood has cursed me with. Amen.”
God had a much larger agenda, so hair drama followed me into high school. Straight, parted-in-the-middle-with-a-hippie-headband was the trend, and to get the ‘look’, I’d spend hours literally ironing my hair on the iron board and that was after I had already rolled my hair on frozen orange juice cans and slept in them all night. Of course, I’d seal the deal with Dippity Doo and Aqua Net.
Then the world turned on its axis . . .
The blow dryer was invented!
I do think its funny – the expressions I get on my natural hair days. I appreciate how many crazy textures exist on my scalp – at least once a week I do. I don’t call it a “bad hair day” anymore. My granddaughter loves playing ‘in’ it.
Please tell us about your unique hair and how you have found fun ways to enhance its natural ‘mind of its own’.
Recently, there was an article in Vanity Fair about a guy who moved here from the UK and decided to ‘Americanize’ by, among other things, do like teeth straightening/whitening, getting a sunga – the male equivalent of a female ‘Brazilian’. Actually, the colloquial term for the business is ‘sack, back and crack’! He described the experience this way: “The combined effect was like being tortured for information that you do not possess, with intervals for a (incidentally very costly) sandpaper handjob . . . Il Faut souffrir pour être belle, as the French say. Without suffering, no beauty.”
It’s an interesting generation – this age of costly and painfully invasive hair removal procedures. Maybe it’s an evitable and natural step to distance ourselves from our hairy ancestors - the timely end of the expression “We’ve all gone ape”!
How do you feel?
Last week we were overcome with the responses to our request for ’10 things you love to do’. The personal stories and lists of little things that matter, were – well, inspiring to say the least. In fact, some of us here at SkinAgain have adopted some new ‘loves’.
We would enjoy hearing from you again. Please share with us how you feel about this whole ‘hairless’ trend. Do you prefer a curly, hairy chest over the stubble of post-shave?
Do share…………(and don’t be shy)!
