On Power, Tokenism & Equality 💪

Hello friend,

Oh my goodness me the weeks are rolling by. Let alone the years. It was our middle son’s 18th birthday this week. Eighteen. It’s such a cliche but I genuinely don’t know where time and life has gone. Five minutes ago he was sitting on my knee at toddler group and now he’s 6 foot 4 and towering over me. It’s all good, it’s as its meant to be, but it’s FAST. 

Anyway. Back to this week’s topic. It’s International Women’s Day on Friday - a day to celebrate and recognise the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. It’s a moment to celebrate all that has been achieved, and a chance to continue to call for gender parity. 

We chat about this on the podcast this week, and use the book Lessons in Chemistry as a basis for our conversation. Have you read it? It’s a most excellent debut of a book by Bonnie Garmus set in the 1960s, centred on the life of Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist, who not only finds herself in the minority, (being a women in STEM) but having to face some life-altering experiences because she is a woman. The book is not just deep - it has a great balance to it - it is also fun, romantic, and has a dog in it so it’s obviously going to be good. 

Our podcast chat focus on a few things:

What’s it like to be in the minority in a situation? How can we be more aware of how it feels when someone in our group is ‘the only one’? Why does diversity matter?

What about tokenism - how does it feel when you wonder if you’ve been selected not solely on your abilities but because you’re helping to bring about a balance of representation? Is this OK, and how do you deal with it when you question whether that’s part of the decision making?

Why do we so often feel like an imposter? This is not just a female only experience - how do we widen the conversation and recognise that so many of us feel like we don’t have what it takes and that we’re just waiting to be found out.

And how about power dynamics? I share a story of a time I led a workshop that went really quite badly and I felt aware of my being the only woman in a way I don’t usually even think about. 

I hope you enjoy listening or watching this week’s episode. And this week’s as good a time as any to show some love and appreciation for the fantastic women around you. 

Love, 

Hannah x