Helena Morrissey - A Good Time to be a Girl: Don’t Lean In, Change the System

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018

Copyright Helena Morrissey 2018

Cover design by Heike Schssler

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Helena Morrissey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008241605

Ebook Edition February 2018 ISBN: 9780008241629

Version: 2018-01-10

In memory of my wonderful grandmothers, Irene and Amy, who did not have the opportunities we have today.

Its a good time to be a girl! In all honesty, I dont think I could have written that unequivocally before now. Of course, Ive seen real progress for women over my fifty-year lifetime, thirty-year career in a male-dominated industry and twenty-five years of motherhood, beginning with one son and now (a final tally) nine children, six girls and three boys. Its certainly been increasingly a better time to be a girl. As you read my story I hope you will see so much to celebrate about this progress that weve already made, and how you can create your own opportunities for success, whatever stage you are at in life. I recognise now that I made some lucky choices along the way; by seeing what works and what doesnt, my hope is that you might leave much less to chance.

But todays opportunity is so much greater than the unfinished business of the past and thats why Ive written this book now. Gender equality is a well-worn subject but it is not one we have mastered. Despite the huge body of literature, of advice, theory and opinion, the reality is that still only a small number of women have been making it to the top or feel they are fulfilling their potential. Many more tell me they feel discouraged about their prospects, unfulfilled or conflicted in their multiple roles as mothers or carers with careers. They cant see the linkage between their own reality and gender equality efforts that often seem targeted at a narrow group of white, privileged and highly educated women, rather than at all women.

Companies, too, are frustrated by limited progress in the numbers of senior women after many years of feeling they are doing a lot to encourage their female and other diverse talent. Sometimes, the result of all these special initiatives has inadvertently been to do more harm than good; difference can seem difficult rather than desirable.

And yet, I am more optimistic today than ever before. I believe that we men and women, working together have an unprecedented opportunity to create a new, more successful, quite different approach, one that will not just create more possibilities for girls, but more choices for boys, too a bolder approach to gender equality thats not aimed merely at training a few more women in working practices that have outlived their usefulness. Those women (and even fewer ethnic minority, gay or disabled people) who have made it to the top today are the exceptions, the ones who have mostly played by the rules of the existing game. We now have the chance to reinvent the game not at the expense of men, but by creating new ways of working and living that fit the world of today and tomorrow, not the past. I have spent years listening and engaging with both women and men who tell me very similar things about the pressures they feel to comply with norms that seem habitual rather than right for anyone, or relevant in a digital age.

So our ambitious, shared goal now is to devise ways of working, living, loving and bringing up families together, as equals. A model of partnership and collaboration, rather than hierarchy and patriarchy.

This is not the approach that has dominated gender equality efforts up to this point. Until now, women and ethnic minorities have mostly been playing catch-up rather than leapfrog. For example, more of us are becoming lawyers, accountants and doctors, but in the meantime men are pushing onwards, upwards and outwards, taking more entrepreneurial, higher-risk routes to success. Start-ups run by women, for example, currently account for only 2% of US venture capital firms investments. Following in mens footsteps, emulating the boys but trailing a few years behind them, is not the answer. As women, we have our own strengths to offer.

What makes me so confident? and so out of sync with many commentators, who routinely despair at everything from President Trump to gender pay gaps and the litany of revelations about sexual harassment? The irony is that the new opportunity I see arises from the very state of flux we find ourselves in. Todays upheavals are unsettling in so many ways and may result in setbacks, but they also open the door to a whole new level of progress. Thats not just wishful thinking. My experiences have shown me that people become receptive to new ideas at moments of dislocation in a way thats very unlikely in stable times. Thats a rational reaction: when the path is smooth, there is little incentive to consider a different route, but where there is turbulence, we need to explore new concepts that might show us a way through. The key is to seize the moment.

Todays challenges are certainly immense, driven largely by technology, which is rapidly undermining traditional power structures, changing the nature of leadership, the future of employment, and threatening our physical security. There is no playbook to consult. Leaders in business, politics and communities see the need for new thinking, but are grappling with what that looks like.

This book explains how gender balance is an important part of the solution, not as so many see it another problem to solve. If we can connect the two, the prize is very great, for each of us as individuals, for equality and for our ability to solve increasingly complex problems. The stark reality is that if we are going to resolve the big disconnects, we need to re-engineer our collective thinking, and that means involving more women. Feminine traits empathy, collaborative behaviour, the ability to connect emotionally with those we are seeking to influence can help us find answers.

Of course, men can have those feminine attributes too; what is important is to move on from the macho command-and-control regime that we have become used to for centuries. Today, as politicians are realising, people will not be told what to do by leaders who dont connect with them and they dont trust. That goes for customers as well as voters.

So amidst the current upheavals, we have the chance to develop a new, shared understanding of whats needed to be successful, in our family lives as well as our careers; whats needed for men as well as women to have more freedom in how they live and for these positive changes to affect many people. This is not yesteryears battle of the sexes. Happily, in my experience many men in many countries around the world now want gender equality too and thats key to consigning the whole topic to the history books. Short of a revolution, people on the outside need those on the inside to help them progress. He for she (and she for he) is the right approach.