Joe Mills is Managing Director & Founder of The Tree Academy and is dedicated to the learning, growth and development of people. Joe shares with us her thoughts on supporting women, their challenges and the incredible skills they bring to the workplace.
Women are allowed to be whatever they want to be … ambitious, smart, tenacious, bold, challenging, determined, trail blazing and human. It’s time every woman realised this and is why supporting women in business is so important. You can support the women in your team in a number of ways;
All people bring their skills to the workplace regardless of the cultural norms associated with what women or men bring. As much as statistically women fulfil more caregiving roles, this does not mean they have more traits associated with caring. Men can be equally empathetic, supportive and helpful – and great allies to a diverse and inclusive workforce.
I see everyone as bringing their knowledge, skills, experience, perspective, differences and similarities as a blend to be valued and worked with.
Women face a huge range of challenges in the workplace including the obsession with appearance, misogyny and discrimination.
Historically women have been underrepresented in a multitude of ‘non-traditional’ occupations and still have a steep hill to climb to access, be taken seriously in and bring any kind of balanced representation. We’re talking across a huge landscape including construction, finance, software development, architecture, farming, the clergy, engineering, firefighting, cinematography, business ownership, senior positions and in securing loans and funding.
The societal norms women face can be crippling, with the perception to be ‘successful’ you have to be something other than yourself, and for some this means attributing themselves with more traditionally-associated ‘male behaviours’.