By Agata Galuszka
“Women are nothing but machines for producing children.” Do you know who said that? Napoleon Bonaparte, leader in the French Revolution.
“When a woman becomes a scholar, there is usually something wrong with her sexual organs.” That was said by famous philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Throughout history, women have been deemed as objects for reproduction, and nothing more. Their purpose in society only mattered if they were bearing children for men in power. Intelligent women? Those two words were strangers to each other. If a woman did have an opinion, it was quickly discredited, silenced, and sometimes even punished.
While there have been several victories in the women’s rights arena, a lot of men still have beliefs stemmed from the misogyny that was frequently fostered by cultures all over the world.
If you think about it, has there ever been an instance where you went to express a fact related to your specialty of work, only to have a male coworker interrupt you and discredit your knowledge? I know that this has happened to me more than once. There are a lot of men who devalue women’s intelligence without even realizing that they do it.
But when it comes down to it, scientifically speaking, can we actually show that men believe in a difference of intelligence between men and women? Let’s take a look at some research done at Arizona State University in the United States that was published June 2018. A sample of undergraduate students in Biology were asked to rate their intelligence compared to their classmates. Part of the research looked at male and female students that had the same grade point averages. The male students were likely to say that they are smarter than 66% of the class. Additionally, a past ASU study showed that male students in undergraduate biology perceived men to be smarter than women in regard to class material.
So even though the female students may be performing just as well, male students still perceive themselves as smarter. What this says to me, is that we can be just as smart as men, but they still perceive women as less intelligent. Which points to a preconceived notion of superiority. That means, it’s a societal problem that needs to change. Women don’t need to study more, men need to learn that women are their equals intellectually, professionally, and personally.
I have one last quote that I want to bring up. “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.” Canadian Feminist Charlotte Whitton said that. We know that women aren’t stupid. We are just women,which means that we have to work twice as hard to get the recognition we deserve. The more we keep working towards our ambitions, the more they will get noticed, and eventually our behaviors will cause a societal shift, until ALL men recognize our inherent value. Keep challenging yourself, keep flourishing. We owe it to ourselves to grow our personal gardens of intellect and talent. I teach women in my Academy the true meaning of Women Empowerment, let me give you an example, but Firstly, what is Women Empowerment. Men tend to comment on my social media; oh gosh another feminist, another women empowerment bs. They think we are just trying to get by.
I think that Women Empowerment came from looking at statistics, research that show us that there aren’t enough women in power, there aren’t enough CEOs, women business owners. The problem is that of course now big corporations are forced to deal with it.
Women Empowerment is not trying to get something because we are women, but to have the same opportunity and confidence to get it through education, trainings, community, motivation, self development. I was called last year on a project to increase number of women into senior management positions at one of the headquarters in London Canary Wharf. I had to turn down that project because I got into a heated discussion way too early in the project. They simply wanted to place any women from the list of employees to meet the numbers. I told them that’s feminism. Some of those women were assistants or receptionist for 5+ years. For them to become senior managers, I wanted to put them into development programs to achieve that, not to just give it to them because they were women. But most importantly those women needed to believe they could do it. Sadly majority didn’t anyway. I saw an amazing opportunity to run a women empowerment project there to help build the right workforce of women. Reality is they are still talking about it there, no progress, its 1 year later.
Because our gender has no bearing on your ability to do great things. It has nothing to do with your leadership potential. In fact, the biggest challenge for us as women isn’t the actual leading part. The challenge is casting aside hundreds of years of conditioning about who we are and what we’re capable of. Just because that’s the belief that’s been held throughout the course of history doesn’t mean it’s the right one. We’re hitting a tipping point in our culture; the old ways of doing things are being called into question. A lot of really prominent people are spending quite a bit of time and money researching the most important qualities of effective leaders, the gender gap, and the role it all plays in the workplace. 
Now, talking about knowledge and support. Why communities are better than just researching the answers alone. Social media motivational quotes are great but without a structure or a plan you will do nothing. How many of you can remember a quote you saw on Instagram few days ago, can you recall most of them you read this year, what did you do about the inspiration you felt the moment you read it. How many times you have read something inspirational and motivational this year when you were feeling low but now you can’t recall it or you can’t see a clear plan of action after reading it. Being part of a community allows you to learn new skills, brainstorm ideas, simply grow. Community keeps you accountable. We monitor our progress together without judgment.
Women – we are Masterpieces and Work In Progress Simultaneously at all time, and that’s the best part, because we keep on growing as the life goes on. That allows us to adapt to any situation. You already have a great knowledge, education, experience but still you might not use it to go after your passion, purpose. That’s why you are still work in progress. And it’s ok.
What is not ok is to start to doubt ourselves and to start to say we will deal with this later. We wait to see if anything changes. Or we say it is our new years resolution to have that difficult conversation, to ask for that promotion , to start that business, to leave that negative relationship, friendship, whatever it is. Us women We put our dreams on hold and we help others first, or sometimes we use that as an excuse to not do anything. New years resolutions, I mean seriously, we all know over 90% of people break their new years resolution mid January. Why instead of looking at the new year we don’t look at new day each day. There is no right time, we all have right now.
Tomorrow is when we have lost a chance, is when we realize that our parents are no longer there, that our children are long grown up, that we no longer have energy and health, that we are at the end of our lives. If there’s one thing I could impart to you all today, it would be that you never give anyone the satisfaction of diminishing your brilliance. Your gifts are all yours and they’re meant to be shared with the world–not hidden under someone else’s opinion of what you are and are not capable of.
Your brilliance is what makes you powerful and it’s exactly what we need to change the world.
Our stories can inspire many but they will also help us get used to talking about our difficulties and overcoming them. I just want to leave you with this…you are exactly who you need to be to create the life you want. And creating the life you want is what will ultimately change this world.
You have something special to share and we’re all waiting to be inspired by it. Don’t believe anyone who tells you can’t do something because you’re a woman. Don’t let them diminish your brilliance…because if they win, the rest of the world loses, and remember, Tomorrow is never promised.
Please join our Confidence Creator Academy, we offer 30 day FREE TRIAL to give women an opportunity to understand its value. We also offer money back guarantee, as we are that sure.that our Academy changes lives daily.
—— https://bit.ly/CCA1stFreeSP ——————-
Agata Galuszka Founder of Ultimate Confidence – Women Empowerment
