I met a young lady recently, T who switched professions in quite a dramatic way. She was studying to be a nurse and somewhere along the way became an auto mechanic. Her epiphany came when she realized she had a very trouble-prone car and understood nothing about it. The car that unreliable and expensive to repair impacted other aspects of her life and livelihood.
At first, she just sought to be a better-informed customer and hold her own in discussions about what was wrong and needed fixing in her car. But the inner workings of her car drew her in unexpectedly. Before long, she had transitioned from a line of work where her gender made her the norm to one where it made her the exception. All signs are that she is thriving as a minority in the auto-repair business. She is also a single mother of a pre-schooler eager to give her young son the best opportunities that she can.
Talking to this young lady, made me think about another woman I know - M, also fairly young and in the business of making workplaces woman and mother-friendly. M had privileges growing up that T did not. M is making great strides in her chosen line of work and doubtless helping many a harried woman integrate her work and life. Yet, when T gets under those cars each day, emerging hours later with grease and grime all over herself, she is probably the best poster-child for workplace diversity.
There is no big corporation and their expensive PR machine, working to advance T's cause - she does it all on her own. She earns the respect of her skeptical male customers who struggle at first to take her seriously. She was the only female in her trade-school class. T's workplace is not mother-friendly and yet she may end up being a fantastic role model for her little boy. The coddled and fussed over mothers at M's big-name company that strives to rank globally as a mother-friendly workplace may lack perspective T has. Makes you wonder what women really need to thrive in work and personal life. If the measure of a mother's success is how much she helped her children thrive, what does it mean for a workplace to be mother-friendly?
At first, she just sought to be a better-informed customer and hold her own in discussions about what was wrong and needed fixing in her car. But the inner workings of her car drew her in unexpectedly. Before long, she had transitioned from a line of work where her gender made her the norm to one where it made her the exception. All signs are that she is thriving as a minority in the auto-repair business. She is also a single mother of a pre-schooler eager to give her young son the best opportunities that she can.
Talking to this young lady, made me think about another woman I know - M, also fairly young and in the business of making workplaces woman and mother-friendly. M had privileges growing up that T did not. M is making great strides in her chosen line of work and doubtless helping many a harried woman integrate her work and life. Yet, when T gets under those cars each day, emerging hours later with grease and grime all over herself, she is probably the best poster-child for workplace diversity.
There is no big corporation and their expensive PR machine, working to advance T's cause - she does it all on her own. She earns the respect of her skeptical male customers who struggle at first to take her seriously. She was the only female in her trade-school class. T's workplace is not mother-friendly and yet she may end up being a fantastic role model for her little boy. The coddled and fussed over mothers at M's big-name company that strives to rank globally as a mother-friendly workplace may lack perspective T has. Makes you wonder what women really need to thrive in work and personal life. If the measure of a mother's success is how much she helped her children thrive, what does it mean for a workplace to be mother-friendly?
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