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WHAT WAS IT like to have been the only female working in male-dominated sector? It’s a question I’ve been asked many times over the course of my professional life. The answer I used to give was that as a business journalist, being female was an advantage, as stories sometimes came my way more easily than with my male colleagues. Also, I’d reply, I achieved much in my early career thanks to a highly supportive male boss.
Asked the same question today and I’d answer it differently. I’d cover low self-confidence, my tendency to play down my achievements and to agonise over how well I was reconciling a full-on career with family responsibilities. I’d also call out the macho culture that prevailed in media and how disconnected I felt from it.
I would talk about the influence that the male boss had in a very different way. Today, I’d describe him as my sponsor who advocated for me and helped me to overcome resistance to the promotion of a woman to a senior role.
What I realise now is how much of what I was experiencing in my early career, and which I kept to myself, was no different to other women. More importantly, I now know what I could have done to improve my coping skills and my ability to overcome some of the barriers women face in advancing their careers.
Little has changed
Through my involvement with WoW, a voluntary female leadership initiative, I’ve explored these themes in depth. It has led me to realise how little has changed in the last number of decades and how, despite the noise about gender diversity, that women continue to face infinitely more workplace challenges than men.
Corporate culture is in a time warp and was designed for our fathers and grandfathers. It doesn’t take account of major demographic changes such as more women at work and more parents trying to juggle family and work responsibilities. Unconscious bias – quick judgments and assessments of people and situations based on our backgrounds or our personal experiences – prevails and negatively impacts on women’s promotional prospects.
The transition from education to the workplace can be difficult for women. While outperforming men academically, women enter the workforce as equals but within a few years they begin to fall behind their male counterparts.
Confidence and an ability to promote yourself
In the workplace, women find that the diligence and competence do not always produce the payback they did in college. Confidence and an ability to promote yourself are attributes that are valued – and are among the many reasons why men move up the corporate ladder more quickly than women.
The academic research is compelling. It shows that in comparison with men, women lack
confidence, continuously underestimate their abilities and are loath to own their own achievements.
“There are still days I wake up feeling like a fraud,” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO admits, in a textbook example of what’s called Imposter Syndrome.
So what can women do to overcome confidence and indeed other barriers they face in the workplace? Here are some of the tips recommended in #WomanUp, an action plan on female leadership which WoW has published based on extensive research process and the learnings from WoW’s development programme, designed to build confidence and leadership skills among aspiring female leaders.
Firstly, it’s important to recognise that a lack of confidence is often a default setting. Taking a simple confidence test like this one can help to give you a baseline. Getting support and even coping mechanisms from trusted colleagues and friends helps.
Confidence Code
Of particular value, though, are more formal relationships with mentors (whose role is to provide a safe space and give unbiased support) and sponsors (usually more senior executives who put you forward for opportunities).
Improving confidence is hard work. According to the authors of Confidence Code, a highly accessible book that we consider a “must read”, you can improve your confidence but it does require taking risks, determined persistence, and sometimes bitter failure.
“Nothing builds confidence like taking action, especially when the action involves risk and failure,” the book recommends.
Women don’t need to behave like men to succeed in the corporate world. Instead, they should play to their considerable strengths and “flex” but not compromise on their natural styles by:
One of the many reasons why gender pay gaps prevail is that women tend not to negotiate as well for themselves as men. But you learn how to plan and handle your own pay negotiations – and not under-estimate the value you bring to your employer.
When it comes to reconciling work and family responsibilities, our advice is to work out what’s important to you – family, career, sport, health and well-being – and strive to achieve the optimum mix that works. If the “always-on” frenetic culture of some organisations works for you, then go for it. If it isn’t, then select what does, set boundaries around your working life and stick to them.
Aileen O’Toole is one of the founders of WoW, a voluntary female leadership initiative, which has published #WomanUp, an action plan on female leadership. The plan can be downloaded here.
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Every second article is anti male.
@JJ: looking for equality is anti male? Insecure much?
@Dermot Lane: Well it would be nice to have a bit of a balance. It seems to be all one way.
@JJ: and you can’t figure out why that is, no?
@Dermot Lane: Please tell us.
@JJ: Balance?! There is no balance because women dont treat men like shïte.
@GameOverMan: now you are talking Shiite
Both men and women are capable of treating others badly
@GameOverMan: Do you have some personal experiences, because most men haven’t a clue what you are on about!
@GameOverMan: I worked in an office with three women, utter ghoulish creatures.
@JJ: Yes JJ it would be nice to have a bit of balance, that is the entire point, it *has* all been one way for quite some time. Believing that there should be a balance is not anti-men.
@JJ: this one is just “pro female”. Not male bashing, it just highlights how men have higher self confidence in the workplace. She’s more or less saying that some women have to “buck up their ideas” if they want to get ahead
She would answer the question as to what its like working in a male dominated industry now as it looks like she has now been bitten by the feminist victim bug.
She goes in about gender pay gap also when that has been debunked many many times.
ENOUGH of this constant flow of women complaining and moaning. Every single bloody day now theres another article. Change the record
@Steve: what are you scared of?
@Dermot Lane: what’s he got to scared of ? .. even I’m sick and tired about all this ” aw poor women ” lark !
@Siobhán Ni Mhurchú: #wokechick
@Dermot Lane: Scared of been bored to death!
@Steve: you first.
@Steve: Record changed; The ‘masculine mystique’ – why men can’t ditch the baggage of being a bloke
@Siobhán Ni Mhurchú: me too.
@Felicity Hensen:
The reason why there are more women looking after the children is because that’s what mother’s want to do.
Even if we allow couples choose who takes the parental leave, the majority of mothers will still want it.
I also know a lot of mothers in stable relationships who don’t want/trust the father to do anything with their children. That needs to change
“Women underestimate their abilities”. Well that’s not surprising when they are constantly fed nonsense like this article which pushes the gender pay gap myth which makes once rational thinking women feel somewhat inadequate and inferior to men, which again, is nonsense. How does telling women they need support groups to succeed in business empower them?
@Dj: I would”ve imagined it would make them feel more inadequate .
Yawn, same article different day, how many ways can you blame men for everything, it’s just repetitive at this stage
Aileen.. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”.. (Eleanor Roosevelt).. If you feel like a fraud then you might need to address why you do. I am sure Donald Trump, Lionel Messi and even Marty Morrissey question themselves. It happens. They just dont whine about it.. They get on with it..
Cool story sis.
Linda Burnham:
“To the extent that having it all means having a brilliant, fulfilling, highly compensated career plus a load-bearing partner and a happy home life, that conversation is dead on arrival for the 99%. Most expect to driven hard, paid little, burdened by debt and, eventually, cast aside. While leaning in at the managers’ meeting might move a woman up the corporate jungle gym, it’s not going to change the fundamentally exploitative work environments that require workers, male and female, to be chained to their computers and cell phones during every waking hour, devolving to the pathetic state wherein their identities are co-terminus with their job titles. There’s no amount of leaning in that will solve the riddle of how to juggle multiple low-wage jobs plus a family. Nearly every working woman who chooses to have children knows that she will spend years of her life scrambling like a maniac, with a partner or without, figuring out infant and childcare, after-school care, summer activities for when school is out of session, what to do when the cough turns into a fever, etc., etc., etc. However endowed we are with confidence, courage and ambition, short of having the cold, hard cash to solve some of these problems by throwing money (and probably some other woman’s labor) at them, it’s awfully hard to find the wherewithal to lean in”
Divide and conquer.
How is this article anti-male? Its an article about empowering women to feel as confident in their work place as their male counterparts, nothing anti-male about it!
@Catherine Hughes: Do you not think it’s a bit patronising to women at least? Are their figures available which show that women need this empowerment?
@Catherine Hughes: Agree wit you there. It’s not anti-male, but it does play on stereotypes for both men and women and so can’t be taken too seriously.
I actually liked this article in many ways.
@Number 15: as a woman working in a male dominant industry myself, no I don’t think it’s patronising. I think it’s good to know that there’s other people out there who might be going through similar situations.
@Catherine Hughes
The article makes it out that men have it so easy while everything is stacked against women.
Truth is everyone faces the issues highlighted in the article.
We all have the opportunity to succeed. If we work hard enough, are capable and ambitious we will succeed. How far you go in your career is down to you
@gjpb: that’s not the impression I took from the article but agree that it’s down to yourself to succeed
Designed and built by our grandfather’s.
I know plenty of confident young women in the work place. This woman, article and support group would not in my estimation represent confident (sometimes overly) and competent women in the workplace. Pay work life balance is a separate issue. Waters being muddied. Learning by rote and sticking to a framework are not skills that help gain career momentum. Creating a framework and creative problem solving are higher valued skills so this would stand to show academic success doesn’t translate often too well to work environments.
Position filled based on merit and not on gender quotas should very the way of all walks of life. Most notably you end up with the likes of frannie fitz as minister of justice to even out genders
Thank you for linking that confidence test, I certainly feel less confident after getting my results. I wish I knew more about the American questions.
@Free comment ratings: This was very much an American test LOL what is the population of Columbus Ohio??? Only people in Columbus would know that!!!
The Yola Language was common in south Wexford at one time.
The Yola word for woman was “mawen” – pronounced moan.
I work in a male dominated industry, mainly due to the fact that only men apply for the jobs. However, there is a disproportionate amount of women at management level. I have never seen a situation where someone has blatantly got a promotion because they were a man, it is always been the best person for the job. Agreed this may not have always been the case but we live in 2017 and any cases where someone is discriminated due to their sex is an exception to the rule.
Continuously we are bombarded with articles about the struggles women face in life, yet men are twice as likely to commit suicide. Those figures are seriously alarming and there is blatantly something wrong with to cause this embalance. Women will always dismiss the make suicide due to the fact men don’t talk which just brushes over something that must be a lit more complex. Even if we are to look at the fact men don’t talk and reasons why because the perceived role they believe they need to play in society are women not as responsible if not more so for this perception. How many women have used the phrase ‘man up’ and how many have considered the conation’s it has especially to a man who is struggling psychologically. Would they be as comfortable with the term ‘woman up’.
The media need to take responsobitily here as well. It is constantly been shoved down our throats that their is a division in society between men and women, I have only ever seen both as equal, its what just comes natural to me and believe most men are the same. So how about it journal, how about you get off your ass and do some proper investigative journalism and look into why twice as many men commit suicide as opposed to the doing these continuous lazy journalism anti male drivel articles
@Dark Knight: Good rational post. There is obviously some agenda being pushed by someone/people, and the complicit media are acting accordingly. Conspiracies aside, even the lowest IQ person would at least question why male suicides are so high, rather than publish these frivallous, male bashing, boring articles on a regular basis. Both genders are fundamentally equal, but also different as nature would have it.
If this type of self pitying drivel continues to appear in the media there are going to be a lot more men going their own way in the future.
“The academic research is compelling. It shows that in comparison with men, women lack confidence, continuously underestimate their abilities and are loath to own their own achievements.”
If women worked on this in their own lives….rather than tearing down men to try to “equalise the playing field, everyone would be much happier.
Find your confidence. Find self-worth in your abilities. Own your achievements. As the Nike ad says, “Just Do It.”
This is what my dad taught me and I have managed to survive and thrive in the male-dominated world of IT, computers and maths. I am no super hero but I do believe in myself and do not have to de-masculine the men around me to succeed.
In and of itself this is a piece written by a woman for other women. And yes the language used may seem a bit silly to most men, because for various reasons women need the messages and lessons to be imparted to them in a sugar coated way so that they can “feel good” about it. Because feeling good about something is actually important to women for some reason. Men prefer just bare bones facts and we dont need to feel good about something in order to be interested in the message and see its validity. Women for some reason do. It has to be affirmative, strengthening, sugar coated and then it seems it is non threatening and they will open their eyes and see some intrinsic value to it. I mean if you look at any of the myriad of self help books, spiritual healing books, even weight loss books out there for women they all contain a central dialogue which imparts a sugar coated and affirmative message to woman so that she can “feel good” about the message. And yes it seems utterly ridiculous to us men that a message must need to be imparted in such a way but it is the truth. Its like giving medicine to children…they wont swallow it if it doesnt taste good. It may seem infantile, it may even be infantile but unfortunately it is about the only way women will actually swallow and digest a truth which is actually pretty harsh in reality…out there in the real world men arent going to protect you, mollycoddle you and let you get ahead just because you are a woman. In the real world, in the world of work and employment it is person willing to work the hardest, put in the hours and focus on the job who succeeds, and that is a competitive atmosphere. It isnt a structure built by men for men to succeed, it is just the most efficient, intensive way of doing things and promotes those who are best for the job and innovative and it just so happens these are traits most men develop a lot earlier and a lot fuller in life. So men flourish in this atmosphere because we actually rise to a challenge and enjoy it, whereas a lot of females find such things intimidating and threatening. Why? Because women are taught to believe that a man will protect them, take care of them, and will be their support, and they believe men are there to do that. It is an archetype women actually hold onto. Whereas men have no protectors, nobody to take care of us as individuals other than our tribe or team, so we acknowledge that we must fend for ourselves in our individual way and co-operate with others to achieve the best outcomes for both ourselves and the group. Women have always had the problem of not being able to differentiate the intrinsic male domain of competitive play versus being adversarial. They see competition as being adversarial, where the men arent trying to beat the other person most of the time, they are trying to draw the best out of themselves and the people around them in order to succeed, and the workplace is a place of friendly rivalry for the most part, you are in competition with somebody but in a constructive way to achieve a better outcome. It is what every boy understands from a childhood age but women constantly struggle with. Like the song says….a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down….
She admitted that there are more females graduating from college. Where oh where is the inequality? Hey, hang on a minute…
90% of men are sick of this the other 10% are submissive and get turned on by this by this crap…weirdos
@Dean Burroughs: 10% cuckhold.
Such nonsense ha
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