It’s (Still, Sometime, Unfortunately) A Man’s World

I’m a sucker for anything related to women’s empowerment. It’s like my kryptonite. Send me an invite to anything that even vaguely hints there will be a room full of women inspiring and supporting each other and I’m there with bells on. Maybe it’s because I work in the male dominated financial industry (fun fact: only 5% of financial advisors are women) or that I was raised by my awesome mom the former hippie (but forever feminist). Whatever the reason I am always down for a women’s event.

So last week when I attended a seminar for women in my industry I had high expectations. A whole day of girl power? Sign me up! However, my ADD got in the way (squirrel!!) and I failed to read the entire invite. So you can imagine my shock when I arrived at the event only to realize that the entire day of workshops would be led by (wait for it. You know where I’m going with this, right?)…men. Yup. No joke. Okay, but it gets better. Not only would we spend the day being taught by men but the second half of the day was a workshop on (again, wait for it. And no, I swear to you that I am not making any of this up)…how to golf.

It is so delicious I am actually giggling deliriously as I type.

So I spent the first half of the day listening to a man lecture me on how to communicate as a woman and to women. At lunch I asked some of the attendees if they thought it was weird at all that a man was delivering this message and come to find out no one else had given it a thought. So just goes to show that I might be a bit overly sensitive. Yeah, I’ll go ahead and blame my mom and Gloria Steinem for this one. Because all I could think the entire time is “they couldn’t find a woman capable of delivering this message?” And there was no way I was going to stay for the freaking golf lesson. Golf? Seriously? But turns out they had flown in one of the only African-American head golf pros in the country to give us our tutorial which I found intriguing. I was sold when he gave us the overview of what he’d be covering with us because he was so genuine and intelligent and without ego that I had to stay. Plus the girls talked me into it.

So I stayed and took the lesson wearing office attire and barefeet. Evidently they don’t allow heels on the golf course. Who knew?

But I digress. So let me just be brutally honest and cut to the chase. I spent the day feeling like I was in some school for Stepford Wives. As if I was being taught how to fit into a man’s world. Men would teach me how to talk, how to listen, and how to enjoy the sport of men. And all I wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs that “I DO NOT NEED TO FIT INTO YOUR MOLD!” I am not a donkey you need to put lipstick on. I am a woman and I bring an entirely different set of perspectives to the table. And I ask that you honor them as I want to honor your perspectives as men. Don’t shove me into your box and I won’t demand that you conform to mine. Let’s work on listening to each other and creating a new set of rules where we value each other’s strengths.

And if we can do that I promise not to launch my series of lectures designed to teach men to learn how to communicate like women with the second part of the day spent at the spa sipping mimosas.

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