Closing the confidence gap means being honest about your abilities, not constantly undervaluing them.
Katty KayRead
Every woman dreams of a workplace where her boss doesn't suggest they grab a drink after work, where there isn't that colleague you'd just rather not get stuck in the office with alone and where your job prospects don't depend, however subtly, on whether you put up with lascivious comments from a man who has power over you.
Interpretation
Women desire a professional environment free from harassment and inappropriate advances.
This quote by Katty Kay highlights the importance of a respectful and safe workplace for women, where their professional growth is not hindered by unwanted advances or inappropriate behavior from colleagues and superiors. It emphasizes the need for a work culture that supports equality and protects individuals from harassment, ensuring that everyone can pursue their career goals without fear of compromising their integrity.
In practice
During a seminar on gender equality, this quote can be used to illustrate the challenges women face in the workplace.
Closing the confidence gap means being honest about your abilities, not constantly undervaluing them.
Economists argue about the relative impact of immigrants versus robots on wage stagnation - voters don't care much. They blame immigrants. It's easier to get mad at a person from Macedonia or Mexico, taking your job than it is to get mad at a piece of technology from Silicon Valley.
Ive lived and worked in developing countries so Im particularly interested in helping women in oppressive societies. Our problems can pale in comparison to theirs, the more we can do to empower them, the better off all women will be.
I honestly do not know a woman, in any profession, at any level, who has not at some point, often at many points, had to repudiate the unwanted advances of a man they've worked with or for. We shouldn't have to.
It sometimes feels like the workplace is immune from social upheaval. We go to work and do the best we can, and at the end of the day, we return to our lives. We don't abandon who we are, however, when we begin and end our workday. Who we are shapes how we are perceived in the workplace and, in turn, how we perform in the workplace.
I've had my own moments in front of designers when I've actually said, 'You know, there's a market here for expanding your work, and here it is. And frankly, there are two markets: The women who are larger than the 12, and then there are women who are petite. And most designers that I talk to have absolutely no interest in addressing either of those populations, which I find repugnant.
The gardener had a dread of small women; he'd always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.
The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, 'Men never know when things are dirty or not;' and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, 'Women will have their little nonsense and needless cares.'
The women's movement and the result that I get to benefit from and my generation gets to benefit from is that we might be doing housework, but we might not be. And we get to choose, and we get to negotiate and work that out with our prospective husbands or with our husbands.
Violence against women is fundamentally about power.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.