We Need to Talk About Women’s Successes Instead of Focusing on Their Victimhood

A Response to Yini Chua about International Women’s Day.

This past week we saw the very well publicized International Women’s Day blow through with great media fanfare. This year the day seemed to garner more attention in the U.S. than even last year, when it functionally arrived in the US. Likely due to the #March4Women and #MeToo movement awareness around the nation, I saw friends on Instagram and Facebook with pictures of their daughters with the hashtag #theworldisyours” and photos of their moms captioned #thisiswhotaughtmetobebrave. While these both show great devotion for daughters and mothers, they also show a high level of assumed victimization of women that we would be wise to dial back.

When we play in campaigns that make sweeping assumptions about how all women are held back and make particular categories for women, we are giving into the expectation that women are indeed the weaker sex. As Yini Chua demonstrates in her article, The Ugly Side of International Women’s Day That Nobody Talks About, the special awards, categories, and political protests “further entrench the fact that women who make it are out of the norm.”

However, are we really out of the norm? While I agree wholeheartedly with Yini that the unique rankings, such as “Women Entrepreneurs Who Make It Happen” and “Top Female Chefs Who Are Breaking Boundaries,” actually have the opposite of effect of elevating women, I do believe that women in the U.S. have a much greater position in society than we give ourselves credit for.

The special organizations that are just for women, such as Women Broadcasters, Women in Construction, and Women Accountants, do provide networking opportunities, but also present a front that women cannot hack it in a mixed gender environment, and therefore need to have our own bubble.

To be clear, many women-based organizations have considerable merit. I believe wholeheartedly in affinity groups for people. As a woman, I enjoy socializing and learning from other women who are in similar life circumstances (sororities, moms clubs, charity organizations, other ladies who like champagne), but I do not believe that the female-first agendas of many professional women groups actually advance our calling to be on gender parity. They divide us and lead us to believe women need extra help to succeed.

As the numbers show, women are graduating from college at a higher rate than a generation ago. Women are not only more educated than ever before, but women outpace men in all levels of education, attaining more degrees than men in undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees. And, women are less likely to drop out of high school than men.

Women hold crucial Fortune 500 leadership positions as well — Mary Barra is CEO of General Motors, Ginni Rometty is President and CEO of IBM, and Indra Nooyi is Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, to name just a few corporate women leaders. And, it’s not just Fortune 500 companies. In January 2017, there were about 11.6 million women-owned businesses in the United States generating $1.7 trillion in revenues. In the past twenty years, the number of women-owned businesses has grown 114% compared to the overall national growth rate of 44%. Let that sink in for a minute. Women-led businesses are doing fantastically.

Circling back to Yini’s piece, the U.S. is not perfect and we can continue to improve, but women are doing really well. While there are countries, particularly in the Middle East, that do not treat women with respect and equality, articles and features that depict women as still having far to go to reach parity seem out of place in the United States. I’m tired of women being portrayed as weak, as victims. Women have made tremendous strides in the recent decades, and we should be showcasing that, not marching in pink pussy hats and dividing ourselves from men. That is not equality, that is just creating a new type of segregation.