Three frogs sat on a log; two decided to jump off.
How many were left? Still three.
Just because we decide to do something doesn't mean we do it.
It's hard to encourage behavioural change. Awareness is the first step. In the beginning, this is usually done by angry people who've had enough. Militant feminists became derided and scorned for their actions, but we couldn't have got here without them. We need angry people to light the fuse of whatever change we want to make.
So now, we live in a time where there is a lot of awareness of the need to create equitable workplaces, societies, homes, classrooms and sports clubs. Women are talking about it; men are talking about it, the discourse about compliance measures, targets and quotas is building.
But still, there is not enough action. Not enough frogs jumping off logs. Last week, I had an unsolicited bounty of men telling me what the problem with women is. They have babies; they don't put themselves forward enough; they ask for and expect less.
Women are not the problem; women are amazing. So amazing, that at the recent Women in Entertainment Awards in Hollywood, Will Ferrell suggested, given men's track record for leading the world, it might just be better if the women took over for a while.
But so many men are unsurprisingly afraid of that concept, afraid of the zero-sum game, afraid of obsolescence, afraid of emasculation. The research tells us that in more equal societies, men are freed from the tyranny of toxic masculinity and allowed to be truer versions of themselves. As Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir told me, after ten years of being the world's most equal country, 'We're a better society now, with better values'.
I call myself a friendly hand grenade because I can get people (I mean men) to think and act differently without scaring them. This means creating systemic change, disrupting the way we've always done things in a world designed by men. But we need faster change. The World Economic Forum states that, at the current pace, it will take 131 years to close the gender gap.
Sometimes, it's very hard not to be angry.
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#equality #diversity #inclusion #litrendingtopics #genderpaygap #workequal #liftireland WorkEqual
Senior Marketing Manager for B2B + PR + Social Media + B2B Communications + CSR
8moIt was a real honour to share some learnings with so many fantastic and smart women. I was craving an event like this . What a great atmosphere in the room. . I am looking forward to more .