The Pink May/June issue includes the results of a poll the magazine did of more than 2500 women who attended a series of conferences in six cities during 2007. Among the findings is that 98% of those polled believed that they have a responsibility to help other women.

So, if you too feel a responsibility to make the workplace a better place for other women, don’t just think about it, take action.

• If your company has a formal mentoring program, consider participating in it. If it doesn’t, think about starting one. Or at least mentor another woman on an informal basis.
• If your company has a women’s affinity group, join it. Volunteer to help in whatever capacity you can.
• If you lead people, be sure you offer the same opportunities to the women on your team as you do to the men. Don’t be blindsided by the gender schemas that affect both men and women.

What other suggestions do you have? What kinds of help have you given to other woman? Let’s make each other’s day!

TAGS: competition, Cultural diversity, look and sound of leadership, servant leadership, Volunteering at work, Women at Work, Women In the Professions, women leaders, women not trusting women, women role models, women working for women

Nearly everywhere I speak a woman in the audience asks why women are so difficult to work with/for or why we stab each other in the back.  I always respond that this has never been my experience (my colleagues on The Thin Pink Line and I hope we are testament to the fact that women can be and are each other’s greatest supporters).  Sure there are women who are difficult to be around in any capacity, but then there are just as many men I’d put in that category.  We just expect more from another woman and when she behaves badly toward us it creates a disappointing dissonance between our expectation and reality. 

Then a woman I met at last week’s Raleigh-Durham Chamber of Commerce Women’s Conference forwarded me an article entitled “We Scream.  We Swoon.  How Dumb Can We Get?” by Charlotte Allen writing for The Washington Post.  It almost made me doubt my confidence that women really do support one another.  You’ve got to read the article because there’s no way I can do justice to Ms. Allen’s venom, sarcasm, and condescencion toward women.  When I read it the first time I swore the author was an angry man using a feminine pen name.  I still hope that’s the case.  If not, it makes me wonder if Ms. Allen is projecting onto all women feelings she has about her mother (or perhaps Irish Grandmother) that would be best left for a therapy session.  Her statistics about women, men and cognitive ability are patently false.  And her suggestion that left to our own devices we would gravitate toward home and hearth is ridiculous.  Which just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read.

Next time you think a woman is your worst enemy or you can’t trust women, think again.  The playing field is already artificially narrowed for women.  Each time one of our own plays at the edge she widens the field for all of us — whether we personally like her or not and whether we personally want more space on the field or not.  We should be thanking Hillary Clinton for her efforts on our behalf.  We should put Meg Whitman’s picture on the dollar bill.  We should have a national holiday to celebrate Rosa Parks’,  Wilma Mankiller’s, Margaret Sanger’s and Harriet Tubman’s birthdays.  Are there some women jerks out there? Sure.  Ignore them and you’ll find many more women who can be your allies and advocates.

TAGS: Charlotte Allen, Hillary Clinton, Raleigh-Durham Chamber of Commerce, Washington Post, women not trusting women, women working for women