I wrote some myths for an extra page for our website:
“Women are not ambitious.”
This is a pervasive myth that hurts women’s abilities to own their
goals and work toward them. Women comprise of 64% of the New Zealand’s
university graduates. They outnumber men in almost every field,
including law, accounting and medicine. However,
women’s skills are not translating into significant labor market improvement.
This means women’s skills are under-utilised in the economy, representing a
loss of opportunities for women, their families, and the country as a whole.
Women are under-represented in leadership roles in New Zealand.
Women’s participation in leadership varies by sector, being extremely low in
the private sector, low in some areas of the public sector, high in the
community sector. The percentage of women often decreases as the seniority
of the positions increase.
“Women need to keep
themselves out of power.”
Women are taught that leadership doesn’t align with what it means to
be “feminine” and exhibiting stereotypically “female” behaviors like being
nice, quiet, polite, agreeable, and liked by all. They are taught to keep
them selves out of power, taught not to push, or make waves. Men are taught to
be aggressive.
When analyzing the effects of age, a striking trend appears: as
girls get older, they are less likely to engage in some forms of leadership.
Fully one-third of girls who do not want to be leaders attribute their lack of
motivation to fear of being laughed at, making people mad at them, coming
across as bossy, or not being liked by people. Thirty-nine percent
of girls report having been discouraged or put down, usually by peers and
classmates, when they were trying to lead.
In professional life women are treated differently that their male
counterparts when holding or applying for governance roles. Nowhere is this
clearer than in politics, where pretty much any woman in power is called a
bitch. If Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel had a dollar for every time they
were called "bitches," they'd have enough money to pay off the
national debt in both of their countries.
Women are more inclined to view leadership roles in a negative
light- as having a negative impact on ones personal life, lifestyle, and publicly.
They are more likely to see head roles as unattractive as they increase in
public exposure and personal risk.
“All women leaders
are bitches.”
The ideal qualities of a feminist and our definition of a bitch match
up. Some feminists self-identify as bitches, and use it in their writings. In 1996,
feminists Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler founded Bitch magazine
and, when asked how they chose the title, Zeisler explained: “It would be great
to reclaim the word ‘bitch’ for strong, outspoken women. Elizabeth Wurtzel
echoed the sentiment in her 1998 book Bitch: In Praise of Difficult
Women, where she aligned bitchiness with feminist goals: “I intend to do
what I want to do and be whom I want to be and answer only to myself: that is,
quite simply, the bitch philosophy.”
We want the insult to become a rallying cry, a signal to women that
these things that have hurt us can be changed for the better. All these things
women have been insulted for have now become a goal. If “bitch” is to
become a flagship for women leaders, it first needs women to wear its badge. Women can
self-identify as bitches to indicate they are strong,
assertive and independent. We want women who have previously shied away from
the word “bitch” to start to embrace it.
“We don’t need
more women leaders.”
A leader is defined as a person who leads or commands a group,
organisation or country, these are the people who have the highest potential to
make a difference in our society. Women need to feel empowered to make a
difference in the world by leading. The first serious rise in the usage
of bitch began at 1920 – exactly the same year as another
feminist milestone – The United States Suffrage. Use of the insult has grown so
dominant that it finally forced the literal meaning of the word, that of female
dog, out of common circulation. What remains problematic is the way “bitch”
relates to power dynamics.
When women have too much power, they’re called
bitches as a way to knock them down a peg.
It is clear that “bitch” can be used refer to a woman-laying claim
to their own power. It is necessary
for women to gain a sense of pride in many of the things their opponents
criticise them for: assertiveness, strength, independence, and a willingness to
fight for their own definition of happiness. Women’s visions for the world,
their communities, their organisations and their families are powerful and
uplifting.
“Women have
already attained equality.”
“Stereotypes and discrimination continue to pervade leadership
culture today, and this cannot continue.” says Cate Bell, Auckland University
President-Elect 2014
Women are more educated than ever but we are not seeing the
same positive returns on their education as their male counterparts. Income pay
differentiation remains a problem for women in leadership roles, and many women
find that the high demand of leadership roles makes them incompatible with
motherhood. It doesn’t help that some women with children feel it is their sole
duty to opt out of the workforce. This is not a women’s problem, it’s a
fundamental flaw in our society. It decreases our productivity, dampens our
country’s potential, and weakens families.
"Bitch" has come a long way, sure, but perhaps the reason it
hasn't been truly reclaimed is because conditions for women haven't really
changed, either. Words only make sense in context. When we see the day when the
context is changed, then the core meaning of the word will change, too. If
there ever comes a time when women aren't made to feel ashamed of their
sexuality, when they don't have to fight for fair wages or the opportunity to
speak in a meeting, when they don't constantly fear the possibility of violence
or sexual assault, and when women feel that they have some say in the society
that we live in, then "bitch" will shed that last layer of stigma for
good.
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