I see so many women hate on the word “competition”.
An Aussie woman, Ashleigh Barty, just won the French Open… Do you think she shies away from a little competition? Congrats Ashleigh, while I am here, you are amazing! Pretty sure Ms Barty competed her ass off to win this award!
Our Olympic winners, do you think that they don’t compete? Every day they compete with themselves and their personal best, to be just a little better than before. We celebrate them, and if we don’t, we certainly should.
So that is okay, so maybe it is just when women compete.. what… with each other? That’s what Olympians do also. There is a first, second, third, and all the others. Sometimes the others get a mention, like when they just keep going no matter what, but do we remember them? Nope. But we celebrate the Gold Medallist don’t we?
We join clubs and point systems and rewards than give us “Gold class” versus “Diamond” or “Platinum” levels. Isn’t that a form of competition? Who has the higher level? These systems are designed to make sure we compete to get to that higher, glossier, more “privileged” level, aren’t they? But that seems to be okay. Maybe that is competition with the “corporations” because we believe we are getting more out them than most, or maybe that is a competition with ourselves, to “level up”.
So why don’t we women “compete”, when quite clearly, we do, and we do it well in certain areas?
Is it because we compete against other women, and there is already enough out there telling us that we are too fat, too thin, too blonde, too shy, too prosaic, too plain, too pretty, TOO MUCH? Is it that we are just joining the party and using the “women don’t compete line” to actually drag another women down because she wants to be a winner? Because maybe, we, ourselves, can’t compete, so we perpetuate a myth than means we don’t have to strive, to animate, to be better than yesterday, knowing we will better again tomorrow? What is wrong with wanting to win?
I don’t think that is it, I see plenty of women getting their game on, hustling, entrepreneuring, creating, making, fulfilling, being out there in the world.
I saw an article recently that stated :
“leadership has been a predominantly male arena and as a result, typically “masculine” qualities such as decisiveness, resilience and confidence, have been viewed as paramount.”
Erm, they are paramount and they aren’t “masculine”. It is not a gendered word. I am sick of being “masculine”, “feminine” or some other category that I did not sign up to, but someone else thinks that I must be “this way” because of some daft gendered suggestion. I am not masculine because I am resilient, because I can make decisions, because I am confident.
I am these things because I created myself this way, because I chose it, because I wanted it. And I am a woman, heaven forbid! But I rose through the ranks of the construction industry as a female, and I will be damned if I reduce myself in any of these areas because some article designed to sell something suggests I am and have “masculine characteristics” And if I do, what is the big deal with that?
Women raise the children, predominantly, and this is changing, but it is still mostly true for most families. So when you are raising that child each day making decisions, you aren’t being decisive? Of course you are, whether you see it that way or not. Making bad decisions is not less than decisive, it just means you like learning by experience.
Experiencing breast cancer and over-coming the every day struggle that it is to just keep going, have faith, believe that there is hope and recovery – that is resilience even if you don’t have the energy to say the word.
Being on stage and presenting requires a great deal of confidence and we see women more and more taking that stage. Are they really women because they are confident? Or have they embraced being a man, being “masculine”.
Of course not, the suggestion is ridiculous.
And so is the suggestion that these things are masculine in their intent, context and delivery. I really get sick of women creating this divide and then wondering why they can’t be taken seriously in the world arena. If anything, the suggestion of these traits as masculine or feminine are perpetuating the belief that there is one way to be if you are a man and one way to be if you are a women. And that is simply not true. It also perpetuates the myth that men are less than women because they have these traits, and I think that is a pile of bullshit too.
And that denies the rights of women that have been fought over for years, the ability for our ladies to be in the defence force, fly planes, vote, own property, you know, “manly things”.
The entire concept that confidence is masculine is absurd. Confidence is defined as: full trust; trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing, belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance
Are we still in an era where we don’t want that for our daughters? That our sons aren’t as good as our daughters if they have these traits. When you break that statement down like this, it is entirely ridiculous.
I compete every day. I compete with myself to be better, more intelligent, know more, be greater, achieve higher. I compete in my role because I represent a company and I need to be the best I can be for that role, it is what I am paid to do.
I reject the idea that competition is masculine and has no place in a woman. I reject the mythology that surrounds the “feminine” and the “masculine” and that they are somehow less than or worse than the other.
What I embrace is that we can all, both male, female, and non-gendered, non-binary and nonsensical if that is how you roll, is that we can all have these traits if we choose to. We need to stop vilifying words in the attempt to one up the scale and continue the gender divide. And to sell from a platform that perpetuates this divide.
I embrace my resilience, I am confident enough to say it and I won’t be changing my decisiveness to do so any time soon. Join me if that doesn’t make you afraid of being the best version of you, because that is the competition I am in.