Kay White – Career Coach and Mentor for Corporate Career Women

Website: https://www.kaywhite.com

“International Women’s Day truly brings positive awareness, attention and conversation to the subject of women and how they’re treated in society.”

“Someone scathingly asked me “When’s International Men’s Day then?” to which I responded, “Err, every other of the 364 days seems to be”. Now that was a while ago. Now there’s less suspicion about why the day is significant.”

“I see a three pronged approach to accelerating equality as critical and good for business.”

  1. Men as allies or advocates
  2. Women expecting opportunity and
  3. Parents encouraging children with opening discussions about how boys and girls are conditioned to behave.”

“The landscape’s changed dramatically, opportunities widened for change for both sexes and there’s opportunity for all:

  • Shared parenting / maternity & paternity leave
  • Single parenting being more the norm
  • Working from home will be more accessible hence balancing home/work more achievable
  • Women being the primary breadwinner and certainly the shared breadwinner being the norm.”

“One of the fastest ways to believe in yourself and to seize opportunities is to consciously surround yourself with other women, supporters, mentors.”

 

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“With the International Women’s Day 2021 theme being Choose To Challenge there are many ways to implement the challenge. You could:

  • Challenge your assumptions you make of what you can do and when
  • Challenge how you’re speaking to yourself (whose voice is it and why pay attention)
  • Challenge the way you’re being treated at home and at work
  • Challenge the beliefs you have about what’s right for you
  • Challenge – it’s a great word. It can mean compete, dare, object. It’s about choosing to challenge and making a case for what you think is right.”

“For women who feel they’re struggling in a male-dominated industry, it’s about deciding. Deciding it’s your time, deciding to push-back and ask for more, more opportunity, more interesting projects, more money and, not doing it all on the same day. It’s a life-long muscle to build and to exercise.”

“There’s never been a better time for a woman to put her foot down and insist on fairer opportunities. Not because it’s nice but because it’s time, it’s the right thing to do and it’s good for business. Apart from anything else, the male-dominated industries are going to look like the Dark Ages if they don’t start – or continue – to have a more balanced pipeline of potential.”

“Choose to challenge. Indeed – and keep going. It’s time.”