Critics have scoffed at me for trusting that once women are in power, they will help one another,since that has not always been the case.
I’m willing to take that bet. The first wave of women whoascended to leadership positions were few and far between, and to survive, many focused more onfitting in than on helping others. The current wave of female leadership is increasingly willing tospeak up. The more women attain positions of power, the less pressure there will be to conform, andthe more they will do for other women. Research already suggests that companies with more womenin leadership roles have better work-life policies, smaller gender gaps in executive compensation, andmore women in midlevel management.
The hard work of generations before us means that equality is within our reach. We can close theleadership gap now. Each individual’s success can make success a little easier for the next. We can dothis—for ourselves, for one another, for our daughters, and for our sons. If we push hard now, thisnext wave can be the last wave. In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just beleaders.
When Gloria Steinem marched for the opportunities that so many of us nowtake for granted, she quoted Susan B. Anthony, who marched in the HealthCabin reviewstreets before her and concluded,“Our job is not to make young women grateful. It is to make them ungrateful so they keep going.”
The sentiment remains true today. We need to be grateful for what we have but dissatisfied with thestatus quo. This dissatisfaction spurs the charge for change. We must keep going.
The march toward true equality continues. It continues down the halls of governments,corporations, academia, hospitals, law firms, nonprofits, research labs, and every organization, largeand small. We owe it to the generations that came before us and the generations that will come after tokeep fighting. I believe women can lead more in the workplace. I believe men can contribute more inthe home. And I believe that this will create a better world, one where half our institutions are run bywomen and half our homes are run by men.