If you want to support women, don’t do these things
Those that know me, know that I am not big on victimising and complaining. I deeply believe in growth mindset & solving problems. However, recently, there is a list of things that keep happening and I just wanted to throw it out there with the kind ask “Don’t do it, it’s really annoying” in the hope that this will help not only me but also other women out there hustling.
1. When you meet a female founder or a woman with a C-Level title, don’t say “Wow, you are the CEO/COO/CTO?” and act surprised. I get it there is not that many, but if I were a girl and would constantly see surprised faces when my mum introduces herself, I’d not exactly be encouraged to push beyond limits.
2. When introducing yourself, don’t first make eye contact, say ‘hello’ and then stretch your hand to the next male person in the circle, instead of following through and reaching out and simply giving your hand to the woman next to you (you’d be surprised how often that happens).
3. When a female founder pitches to you what she does/builds/dreams of don’t switch to looking at the risks immediately, focus on the opportunity. Ask her what she wants to achieve? What’s the best outcome she can achieve with that? How does success look like? Building new shit is tough. You have to have monster resilience. When people constantly remind you of all the things than can go wrong, its easier to give up. I wish I would have been asked these questions more often when pitching Bunch.ai.
4. Women often are good in juggling many different things and bad at asking for help or even speaking about all the things we do on a daily basis. Don’t take this for granted, don’t take advantage of it. Help women hustlers around you to protect their time. Nudge them to delegate. Support by taking problems off their plate and solving them. That counts for everyone who collaborates really, but women will appreciate you more for it.
There is many more little things that just make us more tired than we sometimes are. If you want to be an ally, give it a thought.
Which things do you experience that if removed, would make it easier for you to execute and kick ass?
