Women have come far, still have far to go

By Ashley Fehr

Once upon a time I was adamant that I was not a feminist. I refused to put more emphasis on women’s rights than on equal rights for all.

Over the past year, I’ve gained a new perspective through various dialogues, articles and videos. One of these videos is Sheryl Sandberg’s “Why we have too few women leaders,” a talk she did at TEDWomen in December. To help the feminist movement, she makes three important suggestions: sit at the table, make your partner a real partner and don’t leave before you leave. Before discussing these points let’s consider some statistics:

Currently, of all the parliaments in the world, only 13 per cent of representatives are women. In Canada alone, it’s only 21 per cent with 65 female Members of Parliament out of 308. Part of this could simply be because the perception of politicians isn’t a great one, but it’s still telling that in many ridings, there aren’t any female candidates.

In 2009, women made up only 31.6 per cent of senior managers. The Government of Canada’s website boasts these numbers proudly – these are improvements upon the last available date. However, if the last data-set for senior managers is from 1987 and it tells us that women made up 21 per cent of senior managers then women only increased 10 per cent in 22 years. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fabulous that we’re moving towards gender parity but let’s face it, we’re merely crawling.  We are in a time where female students make up over 50 per cent of the student population on most co-ed campuses. If we’re close to half the population, and we’re so healthily represented in post-secondary education, then what happens as we get older?

In her talk on why women are so underrepresented, Sandberg points out that we women seldom own our successes and this lack of responsibility paves the way for our male counterparts. I’m not one to suggest women need to think like a man to get ahead, but women need to know their strengths and they have to be willing to say, “yes, I did that, that was me.” More often than not, we don’t. We generally attribute our successes to luck. On top of this – and as students I think we really understand this a lot more – we need to keep our hands up. Sandberg gives an anecdote about a time when she was going to take two more questions at a speaking event, and after the two questions all of the women put down their hands. The men kept their hands up, so she took a couple more questions. If we want something – including answers to our questions – we have to take the chance and go for it.

When it comes to making your partner a real partner, it’s about recognizing that both parties in any relationship need to share the responsibilities. And this is where the world also needs to be okay with men taking on traditionally female roles. This is where it’s easier for women to make leaps and bounds in equality: we need to recognize that it’s just as important to have stay-at-home dads and male nurses and male teachers  – you get the point. Life is a team effort – work as a team.

Finally Sandberg says, don’t leave before you leave. This is something that we have a harder time understanding because a lot of us aren’t even thinking about having kids. When we’re not considering having kids, many women push themselves further when it comes to our career choices and the risks we take. However women have a tendency of allowing others to step up to the challenge and this is especially true for women who are considering how they’ll fit having kids into their life. Remind yourself to take challenges right up to the day you have to leave your job for your kids – you’ll be more satisfied and you’ll have a better spot to come back to.

Here’s the thing, ladies, Sheryl Sandberg’s talk has one major trend: we need to respect the work we can do. We need to take ownership of our successes. As we graduate and move into our careers; as we start getting married and considering having kids, we have to remember that we’re just as important as anyone else. March 8 is International Woman’s Day and we need to expand that. We have to encourage each other every day to step up – don’t sit back.