When will it finally be our time to lead?
Why is it such a long shot for women to be leaders?
“You’re a woman. You’re Asian. You’re young. And you’re ambitious. Your path towards leadership will be very difficult.”
I vividly remember those exact words from a mentor of mine. He was a senior leader who I had confided in about my interest going into leadership. I respect him as a leader and a person. His words were not filled with malice. Instead, he was telling me to be cautious. From what he had observed in his own experience, systems traditionally built by white men were not primed to elevate people who posed a threat to them. This was nothing new to me, but his words echoed louder for me today after hearing the results of the presidential election.
One step forward, two steps back
Say what you will about Kamala Harris’s policies and how she ran her campaign. I’m not here to debate that. As a fellow Asian American woman with the audacity to want more, the VP’s defeat hurts. I observed the apparent double standards she had to undergo that her opponent had not, from people mocking her laughter, to how she was perceived as fake, to how she wasn’t “tough enough,” to how most people referred to her as Kamala and not Vice President Harris. The list goes on. But honestly, it doesn’t surprise me that women are always placed on a higher standard than men and still not considered good enough.
If she — a vice president, former senator, former attorney general, and prosecutor with no major scandals — couldn’t become president, then what woman can?
Will we ever have a female president? People will say that she wasn’t the right woman to lead, and that’s why she lost. Tell me then, who is the right woman to lead? Does she exist, or is it just an age old excuse justifying why incompetent men are in positions of power? Why are men able to make mistakes but women can’t? Why are men expected to have flaws because it makes them human but women have to be perfect in order to be socially accepted?
As you can see, I am still processing the results. I am frustrated that despite one step forward (Kamala Harris’s historic nomination), we have found ourselves, once again, two steps back.
Introducing Women in Tech Consulting
I never thought my first post to start off WiTC would be this, but life has a funny way of not going according to plan. The idea of Women in Tech Consulting came to me when young women in my company started asking me for career advice. For so long, I had been the recipient of mentorship from female directors and managers, and I had always felt that their advice was more catered to who I was because of their own experiences with gender bias, motherhood, and career decisions unique to women. I am so grateful to the female mentors I had, because they shaped who I am. I am now in a position where I can start giving advice and guidance to a new generation of women, so I thought a newsletter would be a fun way of doing so!
Harris’s defeat also made me realize that even though there has been significant progress in female educational attainment and financial independence, there are still barriers women face today that restrict them from reaching their fullest potential. I want to tear those barriers down by empowering individuals and organizations with the tools and knowledge to better support the female workforce.