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Happy Tuesday!
I was listening to NPR earlier about the #banbossy initiative by Sheryl Sandberg and the Lean In movement. Basically, the #banbossy is a continuation of Sandberg’s Lean In movement for women and girls to create for themselves more opportunities for career success, and for the world at large to stop viewing women leaders as bossy, but rather as deserving, fully competent…women leaders!
This year, God willing, our family will be welcoming a new baby girl, and I will be an auntie again. A couple of my dear friends are also preparing to welcome little baby girls of their own. These little girls already are the women leaders of tomorrow.
Yet still in many parts of the world, from Africa to India and the Americas, the birth of a baby boy is heralded with more hope than that of a little girl. Still in today’s modern America, little boys’ participation in class is more welcome (and expected) than that of little girls’.
As we look at women’s place in contemporary society, as we keep pushing through an elusive glass ceiling that keeps receding from view, are we failing to start at the beginning? Are we missing the start line in this race against ourselves by focusing on where we wish women would be by now, rather than uncovering the many false starts in women’s and girls’ education?
As a corporate sister, a double-minority in a less-than-favorable environment, I strive so that my own first-born daughter will have a better start than I did. So I push towards an elusive goal of career success, without at times realizing that the most significant part of the work is not achieved as young girls reach leadership levels, but before they actually even know what leadership is.
Tackling the problem in schools and other institutions of learning, as well as in the professional sphere, by banning certain words may not be as effective as actually raising young girls to face the certainty of the world’s pre-conceptions and stereotypes. Not as effective as teaching ourselves as parents to rid our subconscious of our own pre-conceived notions about the place of boys and girls in society. To understand why it is that, after all and after centuries of gender equality, we still believe a man stands a better chance in the world than a woman.
So yes, do not call young girls bossy, encourage them to raise their hands in class and lead in life, but most importantly, teach them to expect the world to call them bossy and still be the BOSS!
