Dismantling Patriarchal Conditioning - Women, Power and Leadership (Guest Sarah Schneider)
SHOW NOTES:
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Sarah Schneider & Co. Coaching: Website - Want a Boost in Self-Trust and Power? - Freebie
Kelly Diels - Website
Cynthia Nixon: Be a Lady They Said - Video
Kimberly Crenshaw - Ted Talk
Statistics Referenced: Forbes Article
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Female Stereotypes in the Media
It’s sad to say, but the systemic conditioning needed to be dismantled often starts at birth. Even though I consider myself a feminist, my conditioning runs deep. Media played a huge role in this. As a child in the 70’s, I remember having the Battleship game, it had belonged to my older siblings, so that version of the game came out sometime in the 60’s. The artwork on the box, is totally ingrained in my head. It had a large drawing on the cover, which showed in the foreground, a dad and son playing Battleship at the dining room table, and in the background were the mom and daughter washing dishes, smiling as they as they did their chores, while happily watching the men of the house play and bond over the game.
This style of conditioning was so commonplace that most of us grew up thinking it’s the way it should be. The wife’s place is in the kitchen; she exists to cook meals and morally support her husband. Like in the ads where the man is relaxing in his chair as his wife in heels, pearls and a form fitting dress in leaning over taking off his shoes, while dragging a bar cart with a stiff, chilled martini perfectly perched on top. Afterall, he’s been working at a desk all day, his feet are tired and needs to wash away all the stress of office life. What did she do all day? Just clean house, take care of the children and grocery shop. Who cares if she did all that and in heels? Besides, she’s not allowed to take them off; it would ruin her appearance.
Women on television were often caricatures, like the dutiful mother, June in Leave it to Beaver. Or what about sexy, crime fighters who worked for the man, like in Charlie’s Angels.
Women in film had the same issues, such as all the Walt Disney movies with the princesses who need her prince to save her from the inevitable evil, ugly queen.
Back when I was in college, I took a woman’s studies class that was called Gender in the Media and our big thesis assignment was to write a critical analysis of a film. I chose Basic Instinct; a movie in which I have a love hate relationship. My paper was about female power and I carefully examined each of the female characters to theorize whether the powerful woman in the film were actually powerless. It was a damn good paper and I received an A+. This was a big deal because this teacher did not give out A’s very easily. I can’t remember my exact argument, it’s been decades, since I wrote that paper. Who knows, maybe my opinions have changed. I would have dug out a copy, but it was stored on floppy disc probably stuffed away my attic. It’s been years since I’ve seen that film, but based on my what I remember, the director portrayed “powerful” women in a few key ways.
In Basic Instinct, as you may recall, Sharon Stone’s seductress character didn’t wear underwear, but carried an icepick. Or at least had one under the bed.
Then there were the Lesbian stereotypes, such as the violent, man-hating Bull dike killer, that was still feminine enough to turn on a man.
Of course, there was the jealous, mentally unstable female doctor, who was driven mad by her bisexual relationship which caused her to pretended to be someone else, someone prettier.
When this film came out in 1992 bisexual and gay characters were not a frequent portrayed in large studio movies. On the surface the film may seem progressive for having lesbian characters, however its depiction is not. This film plays into the trope of the femme fatale, but also depicts women who have any type of bisexual or lesbian tendencies to be unhinged and maniacal. The overall arching message, is that women can only be powerful through weaponizing sex and partaking in violent behavior. Also starring Michael Douglas, was the film Fatal Attraction, which had the same message, but included the act of jealous woman boiling a child’s rabbit due to her rage over a man.
Basic Instinct was written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Paul Verhoeven who both later brought the world Showgirls. Need I say more? All of these warped portrayals of women come from the male perspective fueled through their dominance in the media. Over the years, and even today, Hollywood is largely controlled by men. I’m not saying all men have evil intentions, but this imbalance is how the patriarchy perpetuates these twisted portrayals of women as psychopathic, overly sexualized bitches who will stop at nothing over a man…including boiling a child’s pet rabbit. Now there are plenty of psycho, white men depicted in film, I’m not saying women are the only ones represented that way, but side note - Norman Bates dressed as his mother.
We are talking about women, power and leadership on this episode of Get the Balance Right. Our guest is Sarah Schneider who is a Professional Certified Coach. She works predominantly with women leaders, helping them break free from their cultural "good girl" conditioning in order to step into their desired leadership roles. Sarah holds an MBA and spent a decade in the male-dominated IT space.
This episode explores the challenges women have in a male dominated world, especially in the workplace. The way women are portrayed in the media as caricature stereotypes is also explored. Through years of conditioning women are burdened with mental constraints that hold them back. This episode focuses on the need to dismantle the patriarchal conditioning so that women can be the badass leaders they were meant to be.
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Be Part of the Solution, Not the Problem
Based on a statistic from 2017, women only accounted for 18% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors who worked on the top-grossing 250 domestic films of that year. But it’s not just the movie industry, for the Fortune 100 companies, only 7% of women are top executives. And this one is not for lack of trying, in 2018 women earn more than 57% of undergrad degrees and 59% of all master’s degrees. Tech is another area dominated by men, and as recently as 2016, 43% of the 159 highest earning public companies in Silicon Valley had no female executive officers.
The world is changing and these numbers will get better over time. But the inequality is still pronounced and worse for women of color. We might be telling little girls they can be whatever they want, but they grow up with mixed messaged. Research shows when you ask a six-year-old girl to draw a picture of a genius, scientist or corporate CEO, they typically draw a man.
“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.” Gloria Steinem
This stuff is so ingrained in us. Luckily its unraveling, but those old patriarchal ways go deep. As the saying goes, if you’re not part of the solution, then you must be part of the problem. This statement could be used for any type of inequalities. Today I’m focusing on feminism, but there are other inequalities, regarding gender, such as transgender, non-binary, people of color, indigenous people and immigrants. Unfortunately, inequalities come in many flavors. But as entrepreneurs, we have the opportunity to be part of the solution and help close the gap on these inequalities. Whether it be through the staff we employee, the contractors we hire or the vendors we buy from; we as business owners can make a difference.
What will your difference be?
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