Wingtips for Women: Success Without Compromise

If you have read “My Story,” posted earlier in this blog, you know that I was already in the work force before I learned that men and women were treated differently. Thankfully, my parents had protected me from that expectation-limiting message. I am the eldest of four children, two girls, then two boys. My parents held the same degrees (PhDs in physical chemistry–not for the faint hearted!) and the same jobs at the university. They were both fabulous cooks, campers, tutors, parents. I simply saw no differences other than my mother preferred sewing to my father’s gardening.

So it was a rude awakening and, quite frankly, very confusing to me when I encountered the first colleague to create the impression that the two of us were different in the eyes of the boss, the client and the world. Although I did not really understand why he thought we might have different opportunities, I was in no way deterred. In fact, it just made me more determined.

At the same time, I became aware of other women who had learned this message of difference much earlier than I and who had taken the comments on as not just chips, but boulders on their shoulders. Truthfully, I wanted to distance myself from those women as fast as I could. That is where attitude kicks in.

Women on successful career tracks don’t have to, and quite frankly should not, be like men to succeed. It is our differences that often make a team more successful than an all-male or all-female team. We do think differently. We act differently. We look different…but all for a good reason that the good Lord decided way back in the beginning!

But male or female, our attitude about ourselves and those around us speaks louder than our gender. No one wants to work with someone who lives assuming everyone is against her (or him!). So lighten up and be all that you were made to be. There are few limits you don’t have major control over.

The women in the book know who they are and they take the hill, day by day, always giving their very best, rarely thinking about gender. These women are the role models for both men and women coming behind them, beside them and one day ahead of them!

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