[Music] being a woman and being in business is not worthy of remark it is not exceptional nor is it extraordinary let me explain so a few years ago I attended a women in business event held by the company that I worked for at the time and I've been really looking forward to the event it was to be held at a trendy bar in the city with drinks and canopy and we'd all been speaking about it in the office we arrived and our CEO opened the event and enthusiastically congratulated all of us for our achievements as
women in finance he noted how remarkable it was to see how well all of us were doing in the industry but during his talk I remember thinking wait what what is actually happening because at the time I worked in quite a large team and it was pretty much a 50/50 male female split so we all work on the same project we all did the same stuff day to day but only the women were receiving praise and it wasn't even for what we were doing or how we were performing we were being congratulated for being women
and for being in finance not because we were good at our jobs or smart or capable but because we were women and I remember thinking why why am I feeling uncomfortable here why is this weird to me because I know that women have not always had the opport opportunities that I have had I know that for a long time there were no women in positions of power I know that women do still face workplace discrimination unequal pay and I know that for so many women there is still a long way to go that I am
standing here today is a testament to the courage and to the resolve of the many women who have come before me I know all this and I still felt uncomfortable and I could see how much time effort energy had gone into planning the event and to making it an enjoyable evening I was enjoying myself but there was something something that just wasn't sitting right with me we celebrate achievement of women in business because women in business are seen as a high achieving exception which is contrary to the norm I think people believe that glorifying women
in business is the right thing to do it's the way to be Progressive but actually when you really start to think about it when I really started to think about it I felt it was pretty condescending so I have three amazing beautiful wonderful nieces who I love so much and I want to see them grow up in a world where gender has as much significance both in business and Society as eye color or shoe size where they are judged on their ability and not their gender where they are viewed as exceptional because they are genuinely
exceptional now I know that this is not a discussion that we can have in all parts of the world but today here and now in a progressive and institutionalized democracy which should guarantee the equal enjoyment of Human Rights I think the context is shifted and now I think it's time to call it the existence of women in business networks events organizations May inadvertently be perpetuating the very bias that they seek to overcome and now I think it's time to ask ourselves what harm might these groups be doing and why is it that we think that
they are even necessary have these groups which once did help women gain equal footing now become a crutch I feel that for as long as we talk about women in business women on boards women in finance we continue to perceive them that as something that is different but not something that is ordinary benal normal boring and accepted essentially I think we separate women out and we put them into a box and we base achievement on membership of a certain group so it's almost like the more we talk about it the worst we make it because
we constantly highlight and reiterate that divide and there are certain instances where this is becoming less remarkable so Kevin o of Shark Tank recently discovered that the majority of his most profitable companies across multiple Industries are run by women with no intervention from himself and there was a study done of Olympic medal winners which found that countries with smaller gender equality gaps in terms of things like earning and and education tended to win more medals now this wasn't just because the female athletes were winning more medals the men were as well and this is this
could be because there was a wider pool of talent to draw from so think about that equality not only benefits the previously unequal but society as a whole and so of course equality is our goal it is just perhaps the means to that end that we should question so how do we go about making this a non- conversation a non-issue let's really look at the way we speak about it because language is so powerful so there was recently a controversy in South Africa where I'm from about an advertisement which read look like a girl Act
Like a Lady Think Like a Man and work like a boss think about the infl influence that that perception can have so writer and author Jillian tet attended a banking conference with an all female panel and she noted how remarkable it was because it so visibly challenged the all male panel Norm she said that while the mores of Western culture have shifted to accept the idea that some women can exercise executive power our cultural assumptions do not expect that this could be distributed on an equal basis or that women might call the shots so we
really need to try and reach a point at which all female panels all female boards are nothing out of the ordinary merely representative of high achieving individuals and because that stop cutting men out of the picture the exclusion of men reinforces the idea that they are something else do I have any fans of the Netflix series oranges the New Black in the house tonight [Applause] I'm reminded of the scene where the lead character Piper is trying to fix a microwave and a man says to her and you can fix that all by yourself honey to
which she replies I sure can if I concentrate extra hard with my lady brain so excluding men causes them to disengage from a fuller understanding of the various and often subtle ways in which the subordination of women is reproduced equality is not a women's problem it is everyone's problem imagine walking into a boardroom and not noticing whether the people around the table were male or female so let's shift the focus from gender to skills and performance as objective criteria while still maintaining an open and inclusionary dialogue so as I've thought about this I've really started
to wonder why it is that we feel we should participate in these organizations these networks these events do we feel that we need extra support guidance extra recognition do women today still require a different kind of mentorship or do we just think that we do let's ask ourselves these difficult questions and really think about how we view ourselves and our position in society and be open to changing roles to women in the workplace to men in the home to diversity and Leadership positions after a lot of thought I have now decided to resign as a
member of women and business networks and to no longer attend women and business events and this has been a very tough decision because I really have gained value from and enjoyed the events that I've attended but I think that for as long as we celebrate achievement based on race gender sexual orientation or any other constructed identity we unintentionally do a disservice to the overall upliftment of those groups in society and so I'm going to take the position that it is no great achievement that I am a woman and I am in business thank you [Music]
[Applause]
