Why we have too few women leaders.

Why we have too few women leaders.

To be honest, there is no logical explanation to answer this question. In the history of the human race, women have always had a secondary role to respect to men. Until not too long ago, women around the world did not have civil rights and there are still some places where they do not possess them. This video talks about some of the issues the women of today face in the workforce. It also presents three different ideas on how to confront them and be able to have a successful career.

As I mentioned earlier this problem comes from way back. Women have been treated unfairly for a long time. Why? When it comes to starting a family, for example, women have to make the hard decision of having a child, meaning they may put themselves at risk of losing their jobs. This video also shows some statistics of the difference of time spent by fathers and mothers doing house work and being with their children. We have made this a women’s job. Furthermore, we criticize when we see men do it, thinking “poor guy” or “life probably didn’t go well for him”. The thing is, it is not a woman’s job to take care of the kids and do all the house work. This is NOT right, the distribution should be equal.

In the past, we had some similar problems with racism. Some people decided to think that they were better than people with dark skin and that they had the right to enslave them. Luckily enough nowadays that idea has vanished. The same is happening now with women. Some people think women are objects and they can do with them as they please. However, the vast majority believe in the equality of gender. I like to think that in a hundred years (hopefully less), we will look back and think, “How could we have been so stupid?”.

I really like the point Sheryl Sandberg makes in the video about “sitting at the table”. Women have less confidence than men when they enter the work force. In relation to that, when men and women are successful, men attribute their success to themselves while women attribute it to external factors or other people. The lack of confidence women have is due to the continuous depreciation of their capacities. But luckily, change is here!