98: What We REALLY Need to Be Talking About on International Women's Day

This episode is a bit controversial.  I think there's this an expectation that if you are a woman, you are onboard with everything International Women's Day stands for.  But I'm not known for just getting on board with something simply because of an expectation.  Do I want women to rise? Yes.  Do I want there to be equitable pay in the workforce? Yes.  Do I want to see more women at the top?  Absolutely! 

At the same time, there are some aspects of IWD that I look at from a different perspective.   I'm sharing all my thoughts on this episode and I'm curious about your reaction. 

You'll hear me discuss:

• how I won't strive for equality, but I will strive for equity
• that I refuse to fight for equity and why
• why I don't expect men to solve this for us
• how to actually create a world of inclusion

References:
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northrup

Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca

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Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca

Chapters

• 2:52 The four key concepts for today's episode
• 7:00 Equality is not the same as equity
• 16:23 Fighting for women's rights is masculine energy
• 19:00 Men are not going to solve this for us
• 25:33 Inclusion starts from within ourselves

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today's episode feels pretty controversial. With International Women's Day coming up, I've been thinking a lot about equity, equality and women and their place in the world, and I absolutely love that we have a day to celebrate women, even though I don't think we should have to have one. But over the last couple of years, since I really started delving into what patriarchy means and how it shows up in our society, there's something that's been niggling at me about this day and in fact, now that I've started to uncover and get to the root of that niggling feeling, I've realized that there are actually a few things that need to be called out. So if you wanna have a hear me, have an honest conversation with myself about International Women's Day and hopefully you'll chime in. Stay tuned. Hi, I'm Sherry Johnson and you are about to discover how to embrace your life as a childless woman who wanted to have a family and never could. This is where we combine mindset shifting tools with practical tips so you can break free of outdated societal norms that condition us all to believe that women without kids just don't measure up to the moms. It's where we take action on processing grief and accelerating the healing journey, so you can feel free when childless women awaken their self-worth, they transform from hopeless and inadequate to worthy, accepting and purposeful. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of light bulb moments that will shift your perspective as a childless woman, about yourself, about your innate power to change yourself, your future and maybe even the world we live in. If that's what you want, then keep on listening. Welcome back to the Awakening Worth podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:57

I am gonna talk about International Women's Day today because I have a lot of thoughts about it and so I don't know. This isn't gonna be a short episode, but I hope you'll stay with me because I'm really curious about what your thoughts are about this as well. So, international Women's Day they're a key mission there the day, whoever runs the day, whoever started it, is to create a gender equal world, and here's the things that I've really been tossing around in my brain over the last year or two. First, I don't actually think I want an equal world. I want my unique strengths as a woman to be recognized and valued as much as the more masculine strengths, whether physical, emotional, mental, whatever. But that's not equality, that's equity, and I think we need to understand the difference. Then and I'm gonna talk more about all of these things.

Speaker 1: 3:08

The next thing that I've been thinking about is this idea of fighting for women's rights, fighting for equality or equity, whichever one. You're calling it. Fighting, battling, I'm a warrior. These are all words that are very masculine. They represent masculine energy, and our words mean something, they send a message, and I'm not on board with fighting. I've stopped using those words, even when it comes to things like fighting cancer, battling depression, whatever it is that, this warrior language that we use in our society, that alone is very masculinizing.

Speaker 1: 3:57

So, and then the other thing two more things that I wanna talk about are further to this fighting for women's rights, this attitude, this I don't know perspective, places blame on everything around us, and it's this idea that we have to take back what is ours, and other people should start complying. And the thing is, equity actually comes from within. Until women feel worthy of being equal or equitable, we will continue to see inequity. And then the last thing that I wanna talk about is this theme. The theme this year is inclusion, and we hear this word a lot diversity and inclusion over the last number of years, and what I am seeing is that we are not even aware of how we, as women marginalize other women. We compete, we separate ourselves and we become really aware of it when we're forced to embrace a life without children and even if we're not forced, even when you choose it, because women without kids are a marginalized group that is often excluded.

Speaker 1: 5:27

So those are the four concepts that I'm gonna talk further about, and before you hit the pause or the stop, stick with me, because you might find that there's some things here that you resonate with, or maybe you don't, but I think it's at least worth having the conversation, starting the conversation, and maybe it starts here. Maybe you've heard the things that I'm gonna talk about somewhere else, I don't know, but I would love to start a conversation, an honest and open conversation, not one that is about right or wrong. So let's unpack some of these four concepts and, before we even start, I'm gonna say that, for the purposes of being succinct here I'm going to use the word men to mean anyone who identifies as such, and the word women women or women in the same way, anybody who identifies as such. This is a way more complicated conversation than I can really, than I have the scope to discuss or the expertise, when we start talking about the entire spectrum of preferences and identities, and I've got about a half an hour here, so I'm going to. That conversation needs to be had, for today. I'm just gonna focus on women's day and women and men and those who identify as such.

Speaker 1: 6:59

Okay, with that said, let's talk about the first concept. You will not find me striving for equality. I will strive for equity. So let's talk about the difference. Equality means that each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Sounds great, right? Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and is allocated the resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Do you see the difference? I'd rather strive for equity versus equality.

Speaker 1: 7:50

Now, I found on the when I Googled this a while back, so I can't remember where I got this image from. So, if you know, drop me a note and let me know so, because I don't know who to give the credit to. But what I found was an image, a couple of images, of two apple trees. If you can envision this Picture two apple trees full of apples and in front of one apple tree stands a woman and in front of another apple tree, the other apple tree, stands a man. There's an equal number of apples on the tree, and so that would be equality. Each person has the same resources, same opportunity to harvest the same number of apples. The problem is the man can reach all of the apples in this particular image because he's taller. The woman cannot. Equity would mean giving a ladder that allows the woman to reach all of the apples on the tree, whereas the man might not need that because he can reach all of the apples on the tree.

Speaker 1: 9:08

So, given the difference between equality and equity, I want to be recognized for my unique strengths, but also my weaknesses. If I'm not tall enough to reach all of the apples or have some other you know, this is a metaphor for all of the things that we might not be able to reach then I want to be given the opportunity to get there. I want my weakness to be recognized, or my lack of resources or my lack of strength, whatever it is to be recognized. I don't want equality, I want equity, and there are times when a male has more resources or strengths or opportunities, and there are times when females do so. I want my unique resources or strengths recognized, but and I also like being a woman, but there are many instances where I don't want to actually be treated like a man and I also want the same for them. So if there is a time when they have fewer resources, less strength, less mental capacity, whatever it is, then I also want equity for them. So let's talk about this in the workplace, which is, I think, where the conversation most often goes when we talk about International Women's Day.

Speaker 1: 10:35

I don't actually want to behave in a masculine way, which is the way that women have been taught to do in the workplace. We're taught to defy our feminine cycles, you know, suppress them with birth control or IUDs or whatever, so that you can go to work on a nine to five schedule and not be bothered by wherever you are in your cycle and you don't have to worry about the pain of that. Suppress the pain, suppress the cycles, everything so that you can get on the nine to five schedule. We're taught to be assertive, to be logical, to be analytical, to look for data, data-driven decisions, and those are all very masculine traits. I would like to be able to use my feminine traits, my feminine strengths, to tap into my intuition, to allow my nurturing side to come through without being chastised for it.

Speaker 1: 11:34

So in the workplace, I do want to be treated differently. I do want to be able to use my feminine strengths and have those valued equally to the traits that men typically display. I also want to be paid equitably absolutely. But I don't necessarily want to be paid the same as men, because if my skills and my background and my performance are superior to my male counterpart, then I don't expect to have the same pay. I want better pay. But if the reverse is true and my skills, background, performance, experience are not at the same level, they're lower than my male counterpart, then I would expect to be paid less. So that's equitability, not equality. And the other thing that I would say about the workplace is that if my skills are not as suitable to a leadership role as a man's, I don't actually want to be given that promotion just because the company has made some announcement or has put a policy in place that they're gonna have a certain percentage of women at the top. That doesn't actually promote equity. It breeds separation and competition between males and females and it breeds resentment from males towards females. So I'm not going to strive for that. I'm not going to try to one up the men in the workplace or the men in my life. I'll strive for equity, not equality.

Speaker 1: 16:21

The second thing that the second concept that I wanted to talk about, is that you won't find me fighting for equity. So, even though I want equity, I'm not going to fight for it. That is, as I said before, masculine energy. It's warrior energy, and I am not a warrior, for sure. There are women now in the military. There are female warriors, but the men in the workplace are not there's. But the metaphor, the usage of that language continually in our society is. It continually brings up the masculine energy. It masculinizes our society. I would like to see unity in our society, reference for each other.

Speaker 1: 17:15

As I said, fighting breeds competition, not unity. Whenever you fight for something, whenever you're, you know there's I envision two heads together, two bulls. You know fighting, there is going to be pushback, there's going to be defensiveness. As soon as you fight, you create a defender. When you let that go, the other side goes as well. There's a meeting in the middle versus a fight. So I think that that fighting actually breeds more competition, not unity. It does nothing for equity. It actually tears it apart because it breeds defensiveness.

Speaker 1: 18:04

What I will do when it comes to equity is put a voice to my opinions and beliefs, which is what I'm doing right now, and I will stand in my feminine power. I will ask for what I need, in the same way that men do. Men seem to have no problem asking for their needs to be met. Women push their needs aside, so I will ask for what I need. I will ask for what I want in the same way that men do, and I will also love men and women equally. I will value them equally in our world, because we all have equal value equal worth. But dismantling the patriarchy that has bred this inequity and equality does not mean quashing men. It doesn't mean competition. It means unification.

Speaker 1: 19:01

The third concept that I wanted to talk about is that you won't find me expecting men to solve this. Whenever we tell ourselves that the circumstances we're in are someone else's fault, we place blame and we expect them to fix it for us. When we do that, we give our power away, and this day is about our feminine power. I'm not going to give that away, so I'm not going to expect men to solve this. In the same way as a childless woman, I don't expect the mothers to make me feel included. I actually need to work on myself.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Let me elaborate. Equity does not come from outside of us. It doesn't come because we've asked for it. It doesn't come because we've fought for it. It actually comes from within. This is probably the most important point that I want to make today. Until women feel worthy, fully worthy, we will continue to see inequity. So let me explain.

Speaker 1: 20:20

Women have been told that they are second best for millennia. Right from day one, the Bible tells us that a woman was made to serve man. Woman was made from man's rib. Woman was first to sin. And sure, I know that there are going to be people out there who will defend the Bible and that is totally okay. I am not. I grew up in a religious home. I am not trying to diss any religion out there because really right now I'm referring to the Christian religion, Christian Christianity in general, not necessarily one particular religion within it. So in the Christian Bible, yes, there are references to women being companions to men, but there are so many subtle messages that women are less than what we have, are less than messages that we have internalized. Just the simple fact that God is presented as a male figure in many religions I'm wondering whether it's even most religions the fact that man was made first, woman made second. These are concepts that we have internalized, that man comes first, man is better than woman and we spend our lives subconsciously believing that we've done something wrong just by being born.

Speaker 1: 21:49

So I want to reference this book that it floored me. I was reading Dr Christian Northrop's Women's Bodies, women's Wisdom, and if you don't know Christian Northrop, she is an MD, she is an OBGYN. In the book she talks about how she's delivered hundreds, if not thousands, of babies and she talks in the book about how often a woman, after giving birth to a baby girl, would turn to her partner and apologize for having a girl instead of a boy. What does that say about our society? The fact that we, as women, will actually apologize for having a girl instead of a boy? That floored me and that tells us how deeply ingrained this internalization of men are better than women really runs. It runs deep.

Speaker 1: 22:54

We don't even I don't think most of us are even aware of how deeply ingrained these beliefs are that women are here to serve. We have to put ourselves last. That means we don't go after the promotion, we don't ask for the raise, we don't ask for help, we don't allow ourselves to have our needs met or, in case of me, to even acknowledge that we have needs. That was something shameful for me to acknowledge that I even have needs. I'm not supposed to even have needs. So when we do get a raise or whatever it is that we've asked for a promotion or something at home, something whatever, wherever it is we then feel the need to prove that we are worthy of it. How often have you gotten a promotion and then felt like, oh my gosh, I got this promotion. I now have to like, I have to do everything I can to make sure they know I'm valuable, that I'm worthy of this promotion. And so we do this. We try to prove our value, we try to earn our keep. We don't ask for help because that would mean we can't handle it all and that keeps us busy and overwhelmed and burnt out.

Speaker 1: 24:19

This feeling of not being as good as is actually amplified for childless women. We not only feel like we don't measure up to the men, we don't measure up to a lot of the women, the women who are moms, and it's all this not measuring up that makes us too busy and overwhelmed and burnt out, and that is why I believe that our self-worth is at the heart of all of this. We have to strip away all of this feeling that we are not valuable, that we are not as good as the men and that, as childless women, that we are not as good as the moms. It's why we need to heal that first before we will ever find equity in the world. That's why I talk about it so much. It's why I started a podcast called Awakening Worth. It's a core component of my coaching programs is breaking free of all of this internalization of patriarchy and pro-natalism so that we can develop our worth.

Speaker 1: 25:36

So the fourth thing that I wanted to talk about is this year's specific theme of inclusion. We hear a lot about inclusion these days, and yet we actually need to work on it ourselves. So let's tie in how this works for childless women. There's a lot of talk about including marginalized groups, and when we talk about those groups, we automatically think of black women. We might think of other women of color. We might think of those in the LGBTQ community. If you're really advanced, you might even think of the disabled, but we are not talking about the women without kids, and we need to start talking about this. You might look at the white women without kids which is me and think well, what's the big deal? How are they marginalized? How is this a group that's comparable to black women being marginalized? Well, it's not. And again, this isn't about equality or comparison. But if we don't start looking within women and within ourselves, we won't develop our own, we won't create equity Women.

Speaker 1: 27:09

I don't think we're even aware of how we marginalize other women, even within our own groups. We compete, we separate ourselves and, as childless women, we become very aware of it when we're forced to embrace a life without children or even when we choose it, because women without kids are a marginalized group that is often excluded. We're treated differently in society, in the workplace, in churches. There is a very big difference and I'm going to give you an example of how that we actually breed competition within our own. When I start talking about being busy as a childless woman on social media, the mothers do they ever come out of the woodwork and start defending their title as busiest? And I don't deny that they are busy.

Speaker 1: 28:12

Motherhood is not easy. I recognize that. I see it in my siblings when they are with their kids. I see it within my friends. It's not easy and I'm not denying that, but the fact that there is such a distinct separation and competition here on who is the busiest tells me that we're not all on the same page. We're not all on the same side. We're separating ourselves instead of unifying. So what we need to do as women is start dismantling not just patriarchy, but this subset of it called pronatalism, because as long as we have pronatalist policies coming from our government and our religious leaders, as long as we have society continuing to buy into this programming that motherhood is above all else, then we will continue to see inequity in our society.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Okay, so that is my soapbox for today, and I think I've managed to keep this under a half an hour. As I said, I am really interested in hearing your thoughts about this. This is sort of me ranting about what's going on inside of me, what thoughts are coming up for me, what I'm feeling as a childless woman who really becoming that embracing that has caused me to really look at my beliefs and the beliefs within our society, and I'm really curious to hear what you think about all these things that are rolling around in my head and whether they're rolling around in yours as well, if you are a childless woman and you're on board with me. If you want to actually start breaking free of patriarchy and pronatalism and working towards being worthy in a world that tells us we're less than then, head over to Instagram and hit me up at Sherry Johnson coaching. Dm me the word episode 99 and let's start a conversation about that.

Speaker 1: 30:26

That's it for today. I hope you will join me next week for the 100th episode. I have something really special coming and to celebrate the 100th episode and a special guest will be joining me on the podcast. So stay tuned for that. I am really excited about it. Bye for now.