It's International Women's Day, and how exciting that we get to not only celebrate women on the day, but we get to move our gender forward. Today, I'm going to be sharing about the things you should be doing around this time, the ways you can be, and the things that you must be doing for us to be moving forward as women. We have lots to do if we are going to be moved forward as a gender and be able to have gender parity and equality before the year 2154, (which is the year that has been estimated). It’s definitely not going to happen before I die, but what if it could? What if we looked at appreciative inquiry and we said,
We amplify that. We multiply that by many. I’m going to share nine things today: three things you can do, three people you can be, and three things you must do. 3 things you can do #1: Attend an event Well, firstly, for International Women's Day, I don't know how many events are happening. Maybe hundreds, thousands, or millions. Attend an event, whether it's in-person or online. Be there to be educated. Be there to hear and to support. Just attend an event. I'm always getting multiple invitations. This International Women's Day, I am very honored to be speaking for the Vancouver Region Construction Association for their International Women's Day event called Leap. I'm going to be talking about leaping forward and the tools that we can use to be able to break barriers and elevate success. #2: Implement one action Just one action. What's one thing you can do that will help to move women forward?
There are so many different things that you can do. You don't need to look to me. Go attend an event. You'll find something out. It might even just be something that moves you forward. #3: Educating yourself just 1% more In putting the final details on my presentation that I'm going to be doing this week, I wanted to grab some stats. I am in Canada, so I grabbed a bunch from Stats Canada. I'm going to let you know them so that you can educate yourself and know 1% more. 89 cents is what women working full-time and part-time make for every dollar men make. That's from Stats Canada in 2022. I like to think it went up, but not sure that it actually would. The next one is women in Canada hold about a third, to be precise 35.6%, of management occupations, then only 30.9% of senior management level occupations. This is from Stats Canada 2022 as well. One of the first times I heard a stat that just astonished me was that there are more CEOs named “John” than there are female CEOs. That really ticked me off. That's part of why I talk a lot about women's empowerment and confidence, and I want women to talk more about their successes so they can be seen as the ones who are a perfect fit for the job. I wish they wouldn’t be so humble and downplay their accomplishments. I'm not blaming women by any means, that is why I do the work I do. The reason why we have Dynamic Women Global Community is because I want women to be able to feel confident to step into these roles, and not wait to be asked. Another stat is, according to Stats Canada from 2019, one and a half million women live in poverty in Canada. The horrible thing is, a lot of times, these women are also single mothers, and so their children suffer as well. That's not okay. Let me give you one more stat, which for me was pretty shocking. Everyone talks about the glass ceiling, but there's actually something called the “broken rung”, meaning the rung on a ladder. It's actually just that first step, that management role, that rung is often quite broken, meaning women aren’t getting into that role so they're not even able to move up the ladder, which is pretty sad. Here's the stat that goes with it. “For the ninth consecutive year, women face their biggest hurdle at the first critical step up to manager. This year, for every 100 men promoted from entry-level to manager, 87 women were promoted. That's 13 less, and this gap is trending the wrong way for women of color. This year, 73 women of color.” It’s 14 less than what I'm guessing they're saying is Caucasian women. “73 women of color were promoted to manager for every 100 men, which is down from 82 of women of color last year.” Crazy. This is as a result of the broken rung. Women fall behind, and they just can't catch up. There's also mommy's penalty, meaning that when they leave the workforce to have children, then they come back, it takes them 10 years to catch up in their pay. When men leave to take care of a child on paternity leave or when they have a child, their pay doesn't change. Then again, worse for women of color. Horrible, horrible, horrible. The three things you can do:
3 people you can be #1: Be a trailblazer You be the one to step forward and to speak about inequality. You be the one to say, “I'll take that manager role. I'll take that supervisory role.” You be the one to say, “That's not okay.” You need to be following the rules if that's the case. Be a trailblazer to speak up about these things, maybe not in your company, if that's uncomfortable, but maybe to other people around you to be a trailblazer. If you want to know more about how to be a trailblazer in different ways, you can always grab the Trailblazer Secrets book. # 2: Be an ally This is really great for the women who are already in a position that they're really happy with, already making the money that they want to make, and already have the life they want to live and also for men. You can be an ally. You can be speaking up for others. #3: Be a mentor When you’re a mentor, you have a mentee. You're going to put that hand out to give a help up to someone. Not to do things for them, but…
There are so many ways you can be an ally and be a mentor and really help women to step up. A lot of times women will only step into roles where they see role models. Where they go, “Ah, that person has done it. That woman's done it. I can do that too.” If you are willing to put some time in and some care and share some of your expertise, or some of your cheerleading, with a woman in any industry, the one you're in or even a different industry, that would make a huge difference. 3 things you must do If you don't do these things, I’m going to be ticked, and you'll understand why. #1: Say someone's name in a room that they're not in You can't say, “I really wish that there would be more women in upper management” if you are in management, and you're not going to say a woman's name. You can't say that you think women should be earning more, and then again, not put a woman's name forward. We could go on and on and on and on. This is something you must do even if it's not, “I think this person is perfect for the role,” but “I think this person is showing promise.” Or “I think we could invest in this person to get some more training.” Say their name. I experienced this recently with someone in my speaking community. She's also a client of mine and a dear friend now. A couple of times, she has said my name. She has put my name forward in areas where I'm newer to it. What a joy it was to receive an email that said, “Hey, so and so said these things about you.” Wow, that made that email to me more of a warm introduction, rather than “Will I be able to talk this person into hiring me.” Say someone else's name when they're not in the room because the only way they can get in the room a lot of the times is if you do say something. #2: Hire female speakers and pay them There has been a big debate in my speaking community, CAPS or the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. Without naming names of people who are speaking up about this, a bunch of women were invited to speak for International Women's Day events, for no fee. What are we saying about that? “You're good enough to come and speak to our people for International Women's Day, where we want you to inspire others, and we want to move gender parity, equality, all of this forward, yet, we're not going to pay you. We don't have a budget for you.” Now, all the speakers I know if there's an organization that is in alignment with us, we might work out an agreement. But if you're going to ask someone to speak, if you're going to ask someone to train, to coach, to use their expertise, especially on International Women's Day, please pay them. Also, please don't underpay them either because by underpaying them, you're really devaluing them. If you're going to do a women's event, please make sure it is worth the while of the women that are coming. Their time and expertise matter. #3: When women have the courage to speak up about the ways they were wronged or in the ways they want to move forward, their dreams, their goals, and their aspirations, listen to them. Listen to what they have to say. If they were wronged, validate their truth. If they are desiring to move forward, validate that truth. We need to do that because what happens is, if the women speak up, and they're not listened to, they won't speak up anymore. If they speak up, and we listen, but then we don't validate the truth, or do something about it or connect them with someone who can, how can we move forward? You can even just emotionally support them or cheerlead them on as I mentioned, when you're an ally or a mentor. Now, I've shared with you the three things you must do:
Wrapping Up These are the nine different things that you can do not just to celebrate women on International Women's Day. That's just not enough to actually move the gender ahead. I get that you may feel that you’re just one person, “What can I really do?” It just takes one person doing one thing to impact one life and then inspire. That ripples out. When one helps one, the other one will help others. That often reminds me of when a very, very simple act of me speaking and coming off the stage and someone speaking into me positive words and saying, “Diane, you really have a gift. You're going to go places.” I was like, “Oh, I'm going to go places like, what's that mean?” We know that means, “You're going to go do great things and have great opportunities to have success.” But to hear someone else that I admired, they didn't know I'd admired them, but that I admired and looked up to, speak inyo me was powerful. Bonus: Compliment those around you There's my bonus to you because I want to round it up to 10. Compliment those around you. Tell them what you see in them, tell them the skills they have, the personality traits that are coming out, and the positive things so that they latch on to that and do them more and then they're be boosted. Because being a woman can be really hard. There's an uphill battle. We know for our BIPOC ladies, it's even harder. Then, if you're also an immigrant, even harder. If English is your second language in Canada, it's even harder. If you have multiple kids, you're a single mom, you have an illness, it's even harder. When we speak that into others, that's something amazing. You won't even know the impact and the power that you've had. Let's share one last thing. Here’s one last example of that. Last weekend, I was at an event for the launch of another book that I'm in and the organizer of all of it said to me, “Diane, you look really happy. Since the last time I saw you, you seem really happy.” I said, “I am really happy.” Probably helped that I had a “Life is awesome” shirt with sequins all over it. But her sharing that, and witnessing who I was showing up felt really, really good. I encourage you to do that today. Every day compliment, speak into at least one woman. You can speak into men too but make that the bonus. Just make sure you compliment a woman every day. Not just about her appearance, but who she's being and what she's doing. I hope you're going to implement some of these things and that you’ll celebrate International Women's Day to help to move our gender forward. Read my other blogs:
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