Why women not men are the key to our future?

Women have continually (or so it seems to me) struggled to be accepted as equals to men. Ever since I was young there have been women’s rights groups, mass applause when leaders such as Margaret Thatcher bucked the trend and became prime minister in a male dominated political scene. But although significant it always seemed minor successes to me, almost an ‘allowed’ win that men concluded was a level of ‘acceptable collateral damage’, to appease women… I use the term ‘men’ as a general statement there are of course many men who see this differently too.

In truth though, in a world created by men for men could we really have expected anything else? The whole work environment revolves around a fixed routine, one that can’t possibly fit with the role women play in our society. Effectively unless a woman surrendered to behaving like a man, she couldn’t really deliver in a mans world or be taken seriously. So we had the emergence of women in the workplace, ‘ball breakers’ who were tough as men, behaved like men with the same ruthless style and were feared by both men and women. These women had relinquished their role as women, and taken on that of a man. Look… there are always exceptions and this is not in any way clear cut, but we’ve all probably experienced this out there in the business world.

Women (in general) I would suggest want to be women, and men want to be men… we both have innate talents, women are by default much more nurturing and supportive, not just with children but with each other too. Coffee mornings predominantly the domain of women have been around for ages, and I would suggest many a ‘boardroom decision’ had its roots manufactured at a coffee morning discussion. Men on the other hand tend to be task orientated bred in the caverns of finding food, hunter gatherer, single purpose, competitive and surviving… desire to be the best.

We of course need both of these attributes from men and women, they are a good part of the reason the human race has survived this long, but it has got a little out of hand in the past few hundred years since the industrial revolution.

Money, success, competition, greed, ego, the desire to be ‘seen’ to be better than those around us, to have more, more of everything and to express this through ‘toys’, ‘possessions’ and celebrity status has got out of hand. Capitalism has taken men way off track, by feeding those ‘male’ attributes and desires until they have become the sole measure of success. In doing so we have corrupted everything, business, politics, communities, and we have endangered the planet too, in our craving to achieve what we have been told is success… and yet we have never had a more unbalanced world, where 1% hold dominion over the rest. Dominion... because they have set the rules for what constitutes success… money… and the 1% have what everyone else has been told they need, money, and until we break this thinking we are locked in their deadly embrace… Unless…

The world is changing… the world is not quite as fixed and rigid as it was… the Internet has arrived, and as I often say to people, the Internet will change EVERYTHING!! … we haven’t even started yet. It will change politics, countries, relationships, communities, the money supply, business… there will not be one part of the human experience not affected by it… why do you think some out there are still trying to control it? … what they would have you believe is… the Internet it is a dangerous place, and if you fully participate you are giving away too much to ‘those who would control it’ … ironically if we all use it to the max… then maybe there would be safety in mass numbers… if we don’t then haven’t we already surrendered to control… subject of another blog post not this one…

So what has the Internet done? The internet has torn away the four walls of a business… it has torn away the need to be at a place of work (not for every type of business) and so what is the significance of this?

1. enables people to fit work around their lives… not their lives around their work
2. it allows people to be connected 24/7 or at least be able to participate from anywhere
3. people can build significant enterprises with little infrastructure working over spatial distances… even from home

This means quite simply that the ‘workplace’ as defined by men for the past couple of hundred years is about to be scaled back to being the exception rather than the rule. This means that the disconnect between the male created workplace and women’s ability to participate is about to be removed forever. The new workplace suits women better… they can fit it around their lives, they can connect and communicate in a variety of ways and they are taking to it in their droves!

If you consider the above along with some of the other changes the Internet has brought about :-

1. Social Media, the ability to connect and engage with almost anyone on the planet
2. Discover people who think like you do
3. Share your passion (or business) easily so people can know your expertise
4. Stay in touch with friends and family easily (many of them might even be work colleagues too)
5. Learn, so that you can continually develop and be the best you can be

We now have through Social media platforms the capability to ‘parse’ tens of thousands of people, we could have never managed a ‘phone book’ or ‘diary’ like this before. The reason is because we all only have to manage our little bit of the action in a mass connection platform such as Facebook or Google+ and once shared we can keep in touch easily with the people we are connected with…

This enables us to connect more often, be more aware and… support and help others as and when we can… it appeals to women’s support and nurturance and it appeals to women’s ability to give without expecting return. It is almost like a never ending coffee morning…

Women are waking up to the key facts that they can have their own enterprise, they can follow their passion, they can run it from home, when they want to, with the people they like… and be wired into communities that just want everyone to be happy and have a better life (whatever that looks like). This is a massive trend and its flexibility to fit around school runs, holidays, family events seamlessly means we won’t be going back to the old style approach anytime soon!

The existing masculine system we have, designed by men, has run its course. We have made great progress in many areas, but we have borrowed a lot from the future too. The problems we have created in our continual drive for ‘more of everything’ has come with a cost. We have wreaked havoc on the planet, we have plundered resources, we have created a financial crisis which has yet to come home to roost… and worse still we have created nations of slaves to money and therefore slaves to the people who have it! …

Women to the rescue… what we need now to repair this lust for ‘perpetual growth’ is a whole load of people who will ‘give without expecting return’, people who will ‘nurture and support’ those who are suffering and on tough times… people who believe in collaboration not competition, people who think of abundance not scarcity, and people who understand that life is about relationships not possessions. We all have to earn, that goes without saying, but it is the very ‘concept of enough’... where we receive from the world that which we need, not hoard vast sums, many times what we can consume, whilst others starve. We need balance and fairness back in the world… but we can’t look to men to bring this about, there is not enough of them that are naturally attuned to the qualities that are required.

Women can do this, technology and the Internet are the catalyst you were waiting for it has created the flexibility for your time! … and men? yes, you can come too… but first you’ll be needing to drop some of that excess baggage (like competition, ego, control, greed) because where women are taking us, you’ll not be needing it!