In the high-stakes environment of executive committees and direction teams, every voice should be heard and valued. However, women in these roles often face the subtle sting of unconscious bias and the banalization of their input during meetings. It’s a pervasive issue that can undermine not only the contributions of women leaders but also the decision-making process as a whole.
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are seen as the fields of the future, with expanding job opportunities creating the goods, services and innovations that shape our daily lives. Yet women and girls form a third or less of the students, employees and innovators in these fields. When they do work in STEM, women earn 85% or less of what men are paid, and they are more likely to be the target of gender-based violence and sexism than women in other fields. Virtually no progress has been made in the past two decades.
María Ángeles Noguera is the founder of OFA, a Dutch-Spanish consultancy firm, which has been helping families, companies and the public sector to reconcile work and family life for many years. She speaks to us about improving our work life balance
Whilst pay is an important marker of a ‘good’ job, other aspects of work – such as the demands it places on workers, the level of control they have, working hours, flexibility and job security – also impact employees’ wellbeing significantly.(Green et al, 2024) This is known as ‘job quality’. Our research shows that mothers, particularly those with young children, face multiple disadvantages when it comes to job quality. We have termed this the ‘motherhood penalty in job quality’.
As a young girl, I (Kortney) loved going to the grocery store so I could sit by the checkout stand and flip through the fashion and gossip magazines. Being young and impressionable, I thought these magazines were the ultimate compass to navigate life. As a teen, I started noticing more articles on sexual empowerment, including using pornography. These were my earliest experiences with the promotion of pornography, but not the last. During a high school sleepover, a group of my friends got into a discussion about porn. One girl stated that everyone watches it, and that it was a great way to show “self-love.”
In today’s fast-paced world, we find ourselves constantly surrounded by a culture that celebrates high achievement and top performance. For many intelligent and ambitious women, this often translates into an unyielding drive for perfection. We push ourselves to the brink, striving to excel in every aspect of our lives and to do so flawlessly.
While aiming to do our best is certainly commendable, the relentless pursuit of perfection can quickly become counterproductive and even harmful to our well-being.
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