Translator: Florencia Bracamonte Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Good afternoon.
So I'm not sure if I can detect any bristling in the audience
with my somewhat controversial title,
given that we sit here in a diversity-themed event.
What I will say is just please bear with me,
particularly because I'm going to be starting on such a positive note.
There has never been a better time to be a woman.
Never have women had as many opportunities as they do now.
To run countries, companies,
to control their personal, financial and sex lives.
Girls outperform boys at school, more go to university.
Women in their 20s and early 30s are frequently outearning men.
We should feel optimistic.
And yet we're not.
In fact, sometimes it seems all womanhood is depressed.
Faced by an avalanche of information
regarding the ongoing disparity and fortunes between women and men;
by a narrative of disadvantage and societal patriarchy
that runs through Me Too, the gender pay gap,
the glass ceiling, and more.
But how crystal cut are these assumptions?
And what are the possible implications for how women respond
to both opportunities and challenges in their lives?
So who am I?
A woman, yes, and a mother to three children under five.
I'm a successful entrepreneur
enjoying a career where I get to deal with some of the biggest thinkers
and doers in the world today,
in business, in politics, in media, academia.
I'm privileged, no question.
My race, background and opportunities mark me as one of the privileged elite.
What do I know about disadvantage?
And what's my agenda here?
Well, as a woman,
I'm a minority in my field of technology and entrepreneurship.
Hard industries to be a woman in -
or so the narrative would have you believe.
No. Not so.
I don't believe that this has been a disadvantage,
only the most incredible opportunity.
One that has enabled me to stand out and get recognition.
I describe myself as an entrepreneur, not a female entrepreneur,
because I subscribe to a brand of feminism
that told me I could be and do anything the boys could.
And in fact, I've come to resent the move towards positive discrimination,
that might imply that any of my achievements
are due to anything other than merit.
If I look back at all my good fortune,
I can honestly say that to a large extent,
it's been down to the love and support and belief of the men in my life.
My father, my husband, the bosses, business partners, peers and mentors
enabled my journey.
But of course the biggest advantage I posses is self-confidence and belief.
And it's this that I want to look at in more detail today.
Why is it seemingly so much harder to find in women than in men?
And how might modern feminism be further undermining it?
The talk of the gender pay gap is everywhere
and actually incorrectly assumed by 70% of the population
to refer to women being paid less for the same work.
Not true.
Illegal, actually.
And also nonsensical,
as surely businesses would prefer to pay a cheaper workforce.
The median disparity of 18.4% can to a large extent be explained
by the choice of 42% of women to work part-time.
The figure drops to 9.1% when you compare full-time to full-time,
with this figure understandable to a degree
by the fact that women are choosing different profession types.
Women in their 20s and early 30s, as we've heard,
are frequently outearning men.
The pay gap is negligible; it fluctuates; some years women outearn men.
And part-time women actually outearn part-time men.
So in effect, the headline statistic
ignores many of the complicated variable factors beneath it.
And in particular a potential positive: that of female choice.
The glass ceiling -
it's been shattered time and time again
by female heads of state and business leaders,
demonstrating that for those women that do aspire to that sort of career,
it's absolutely possible.
But these are of course hard - masochistic almost - lives,
filled with imbalance, politics, stress, long hours.
We can hardly even whisper any suspicion we may have
that this is a lifestyle that fewer women and mothers aspire to.
And arguably, only the tiniest percentage of men.
Right now, I'm currently observing
a large number of some of my highest-flying friends
quietly leaning out of aspirations of making partner,
away from 60-hour work weeks, with some choosing to quit altogether
so as not to enjoy these early years of family life, myself included.
Two years ago,
I made the decision to step back from the front seat of my business
to spend more time with my three children.
And it's a decision I will never regret.
Having lost two friends recently, very early in their lives,
it really brought home to me the fact that I will never get these years back.
That's too important.
But of course, women like me are partly responsible for the gender pay gap,
and many of us may never go knocking on that glass ceiling
because it's simply not a lifestyle that we desire.
These is just two of the big feminist issues of our time,
with others including Me Too, online trolling,
body shaming and objectification,
and domestic violence -
all issues you'd be forgiven for thinking were exclusively female.
Now, there's been a lot of very well-intentioned campaigning
behind these issues
and some very positive by-products,
such as the light being shone on some of the more insidious ways
in which some men can mistreat and underestimate women,
and of course, on abuses of power.
But my fear is that the broad-spectrum, expanding definition
of prejudice and harassment
is now something that almost any woman can associate with.
And we simply can't cry misogyny
every time we're called out or held back in some way.
I fear for an ideology and a rhetoric that is starting to set women against men,
that focuses on what we can't do and haven't got
rather than what we can and have.
My intention in seeking to shine light on some of the other sides of these issues
is not to deny the existence of discrimination
that may exist in some of them,
but to question the cumulative net effect -
that of female victimhood.
Feminism, like other forms of identity politics,
has become obsessed with female victimhood.
Whereas it once used to be
about the portrayal of women as mature, equal partners in society,
it now seems more to be about girl power.
And yet it disempowers.
It seems that we're weak and defenseless, like children.
Psychologists have long emphasized the power of beliefs
to be born out in reality,
and how stereotypes contribute to social inequality.
Confidence is, of course, self-fulfilling -
something you will all have experienced.
You look good; you feel good.
You're told someone likes you; you're more relaxed around them.
And conversely, if you suspect someone doesn't like you,
then you act in a more defensive, less confident way around them.
Victims believe they are impotent
and that they have no sense of control over the way that events unfold.
Assuming that something has happened to you due to prejudice,
whether right or wrong, it's rarely the most productive response.
It prevents introspection, self-analysis,
and more importantly, particularly if it was due to prejudice,
evaluation of new methods and techniques for circumventing your status quo.
And what about men?
Well, there's actually competition here for competitive victimhood
if we want to play that game.
Men have their own unique set of disadvantages
that are rarely up for public discussion,
including higher rates of school dropout; of mental health;
vastly higher suicide rates;
vastly higher workplace deaths; war deaths; deaths in crime;
higher rates of homelessness;
criminal court bias and sentencing disparity,
where men receive nearly 60% longer sentences than women for the same crime;
near equal domestic abuse rates;
paternity fraud; child custody;
and, of course, reduced life expectancy.
Even now, in this age of aspirational equality,
the cry will go out: "Women and children first!"
Take for example the awful news story of Boko Haram
and the terrorists that abducted the girls.
Did you know that prior to this happening,
those same terrorists had been abducting thousands of boys
and murdering hundreds of boys and young men?
Burned alive in their schools, shot in the streets.
A situation that received no international attention
until the terrorists turned their attention to the girls.
And then, First Ladies, media, celebrities, politicians up in arms.
But why only then?
Why are boys' lives seemingly valued so much less than girls'?
Whoever might have it worse,
I take issue with the debating ground based on competitive victimhood.
It's fruitless; it's destructive.
Women are being encouraged to fear and distrust men,
and men are more nervous and guarded in their interactions around women.
And worse, resentful of a label of "patriarchy,"
one that the vast majority don't recognize,
and who have their own challenges to face.
Already, we're seeing some rather worrying by-products to all of this,
such as five times more men now less inclined to mentor women
in the wake of Me Too.
75% of young girls yet to experience any form of discrimination
talk about anxiety about it affecting their lives in some way.
And working class girls have been deprived of jobs that they love,
such as Page 3 Girls and Grid Girls, because other women disapprove of them.
What happened to "my body, my choice"?
It's OK for Kim Kardashian, but not for a Page 3 Girl.
And men have had their careers and reputations ruined overnight
by Me Too.
Some possibly justly, but without any due process,
no innocence until proven guilty.
And where might all this lead?
Quotas leading to doubts in ability?
Was my recent MBE because of positive discrimination?
Am I on this stage because of it?
Should we ban flirting on campus and in the workplace? -
incidentally two of the places where you're most likely to meet a life partner.
My company started recruiting fewer women into entry-level, lower-payed work
so as to even out their gender pay gaps.
And if 50/50 is the ultimate aim,
then shouldn't we be arguing for quotas for more men
in the fields of nursing, teaching, veterinary science?
More women on the front line, in construction, in refuse collection?
And perhaps the three most important questions of all:
Does power exist solely in the boardroom
and at the highest levels of politics and business?
Or is there the possibility that it exists in choice?
And arguably, don't women have more of that?
Does equality of opportunity have to equal equality of outcome?
And aren't the assumptions
that women need more support, protection, quotas in the workplace
arguably the most patriarchal assumptions of all?
Now, don't get me wrong.
I don't believe that the women's movement has had its day
or that there's no longer a case for feminism.
But I do believe we need to reverse some of these negative trends.
So here are three positive solutions,
as I see it.
One:
Where girls are concerned,
best way that we beat prejudice
is to build up confidence and to show it and demonstrate it to be wrong.
We teach girls strength and resilience to call out prejudice in the moment.
We celebrate successful women,
hold them up there as role models for both girls and boys,
where arguably the impact may be greater.
And we don't do so always complaining about the minority representation.
And we celebrate the unique power that women have today
in schools, homes, marriages, families, and yes, business and politics,
wielding immense influence over the hearts and minds of the future.
Two:
We turn our attention to true gender equality,
stop painting all men with the broad brush of oppressor
and recognize that yes, there are bad, abusive men in this world,
but there are also bad, fallible women.
Sadly, we are all equally capable of inflicting misery on each other.
And in a world
where women are able to participate more equally in the public sphere,
we need to better level the private for men in our homes and families.
And it's here that we should refocus the debate.
And three:
We give more oxygen to the truly deep, profound inequalities
that still exist in this world,
in developing countries,
for women who can't get the same education,
get forced into arranged marriages, can't have access to birth control.
Or here, socioeconomic and educational disadvantage.
And the fact that hiring typically still happens along "people like me" lines,
a much bigger threat to business diversity than gender.
And above all, we listen to each other with open minds.
Play the ideological ball and not the player.
Be kind.
So it's often said that you can't be what you can't see.
No. Not so.
Some of the most powerful figures in history
have been something that didn't exist.
Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat,
so kick-starting the course of civil rights.
Steven Hawking changed the world of science with his brain,
irrespective of his bodily weakness.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos
silently raised their fists on the podium of the '68 Olympics,
so drawing attention to black rights.
And Malala stood up publicly to her oppressors,
and that earned her a platform from which she could educate the world.
They never believed they couldn't.
They never cried victim.
They were strong, resilient, defiant.
Just as a terrorist thrives on terror and the bully on distress,
defiance, ridicule, even pity
is a much stronger antidote to bad behavior than wounded insecurity.
We need to stop thinking of gender as an identity.
We have so much more in common
with those with whom we share values and outlook
than chromosomes.
Our gender, our race, our sexuality, our disability -
they are all just part of the rich tapestry of who we are as individuals,
and none of these things outside of our control should affect our outlook.
There are still a huge number of inequalities in this world,
but our individual right to self-belief is a simple and universal possibility,
and it is this that we need to instill in our young.
Because it's actually not my daughter I'm worried about in this new-world view;
it's my sons.
But that'll be OK.
Because we'll be bringing them up to recognize their individual potential,
to not indulge in victimhood,
and to see that the power they have being born where and when they have
is one of choice.
They'll make all their own,
and they'll deeply respect those of other people.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
(Applause)