Sometimes, women and men are different. And that’s OK.

I was being interviewed on a podcast this week when the host suggested that many people get upset at the idea that men and women are different when it comes to their aspirations and ambition in the workplace (we were specifically talking about the corporate world and large scale organizations)

The comment got me thinking… if a study reports that the majority of women like the color red, while the majority of men like green, or if someone makes the observation that young boys are more rambunctious than young girls, it’s usually accepted or even ignored. But if a study reports that women don’t want to be a corporate CEO to the same degree as men, it makes people very angry. But what specifically makes them angry about such studies? Is it that they believe men and women are the same in all respects, so they object to anything otherwise? If that were true, they would also be upset about the color study and any suggestion that young boys are more rambunctious than young girls. But studies and comments like that don’t provoke the same kind of ire as the study about CEOs.

It seems that saying ‘men and women are different in X, Y, Z’ is OK unless it’s around power or money. People misinterpret “women don’t want to be a corporate CEO as much as men” to mean “women don’t want power,” which is not at all true. Power is a much broader concept than just CEOs and income. For example, I’ve felt more powerful as a writer than I ever did during my 15 years in the corporate world, even though I was making 100000000%x higher income back then. If women don’t find the role of corporate executive a worthwhile aspiration, it doesn’t mean they don’t want power. It means they experience power differently, and wield it in different ways.

We need to embrace the idea that men and women may want different things at work. After all, isn’t the whole point of diversity to accept and honor the variations in personality, background, perspective, and experience across the tapestry of humanity? We need to broaden our understanding of power to include all the different ways people relate to it, and embrace those differences instead of getting angry at the suggestion they exist in the first place.