AS THOUGH FEMINISM NEVER EXISTED . . . men and women, more importantly, boys and girls, have little idea of alternative methods of ‘wielding’ authority or brokering power to be more cooperative or nurturant with each other.
They know how to get people to do what they want them to do; they know how to plot, scheme, trick . . . to get their point of view or programme through.
Too many leaders of ours still try to engage us in duping, squeezing out, outmanoeuvring opposition, that it in truth feels like we do not know, nor can we access “different”, “better”, ‘more workable” metings out of power. . . in the workplace. . . in our homes.
We as a people, perhaps as a race, have not yet figured out en-masse how to negotiate and rethink our relationships to engage in bold interdependence.
So many in today’s workforce see it as necessary to tolerate leaders who have no idea how to use their authority to embrace “other” views, enfold “different” ideas to come up with mutually enjoyable solutions, or blend perspectives coming from colleagues or employees to create working environments that actually work and move all concerned forward.
In silence, too many in our workforce succumb to the “nowhere to run, because we en’ got nuh hills nor mountains” thinking, so we “grin and bear it and do “everything we can to bring down de great house”. Meanwhile the “bosses” are maligning, “unfairing”, pitting colleague against colleague, using strategies perfected 400 years ago in a more colonised, less civilized state.
Feminists, you have the knowledge, you have been talking it out, practising it and conferencing about it for years. If you can raise yourselves from the slumber of all the marginalisation theories and braggadocio and violence, its time to model for and teach our people, our leaders, our men and women, our CEOs, politicians, board members, managers, principals, supervisors, teachers/ leaders of every level that they don’t have to sink to base methods to show anyone they are boss.
There is success to be had by all on so many different levels.
– MICHELLE CAVE, political scientist and educator