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Food for thought: women!

Fri 19 February 2010

, Leap, Leap

The LEAP Leadership event on 4 March – Meet the Leaders, get Connected - is approaching. The speakers will be giving regular food for thought in the run-up to the event. Josephine Green, expert on social foresight and innovation and former Senior Director Trends and Strategy at Philips, talks women. 

LEAP: Are we ready for the pancake world?

Josephine Green: “Absolutely! People are very clever. They’re inventive and enterprising and they know how to give meaning to their lives.”

 

LEAP: Do they really?

JG: “Not if you give them a context of dependency and hierarchy. If you do that they’ll abdicate responsibility to the hierarchy. Here’s an example that will explain it right away. Women! They come out of the universities with PhDs and more degrees. But as soon as they get into the corporate arena they become dumb. Women don’t get to the top so they must be stupid, right? We all know that’s not true.”

 

LEAP: So why aren’t women climbing to the top?

JG: “Because the context is not suited to them.”

 

LEAP: Then why don’t they change the context? They’re smart enough.

JG: “The pyramid context is incredibly subtle in its ability to conform and control. It’s unchangeable, too defined and hidden. It’s rules and behaviour. It’s very much developed in the image of man. And that's another reason why I believe women especially are ready for the pancake world.”