Eating our Young...

The following is based on a recent personal revelation, I call them "aha" moments for lack of an intellectual term. For my female peers, sorry I am sharing about a "female weakness", for my male readers here is a little insight into one of our own gender failures in regard to leadership and achievement.. It is not a politically correct discussion, but those that know me; know that I relish exploring the not so pretty side of humanity. With that said, this topic is a personal discussion and should not be construed as anything but a personal observation of a "careered female" seeking personal growth and development.

Let me know what you think; I know opinions will flourish about this topic..

Jana

Okay it is time to take the gloves off and talk about the dark side of female behavior. I am speaking about the behavior that has perpetuated thru the ages, and in looking at it critically could be one of the main reasons we fail to achieve leadership success at the rate of our male counterparts.

I am speaking to the behavior I term,"eating our young". In fact, I have had several women refer to this behavior as such. Ladies, you know what I am talking about...it is the negative, gossip mongering, catty, destructive behavior we enact when one of our gender counterparts does something to get recognized, looks good/better then us and gets compliments, or achieves something worthy of notice.

Perhaps it is the relishing of someones mistake, or other embarrassing moment. We pride ourselves in being the "first" to share the story and continue the destruction of our counterpart female. As if the original embarrassment from the incident was not enough atonement for their sins, we continue to heap the wrath upon them and then sit back and enjoy their utter and total destruction; as if we are a vindicated victim.

Perhaps you are reading this; and saying, "I have never done this; and I am sooo above that behavior. I am a professional educated female, I am impartial and fair", and I hate to tell you; in denial. Every woman at some point in her life has done something to piss off her female peers, and the claws have come out. Or one of your female counterparts have pissed you off, and you sharpen your claws on your emotional response...

Maybe you are a subtle attacker, sitting in the background listening to the gossip, but not stopping it; not disagreeing but secretly thinking, "thank god I am here, they could be talking about me like this." Yet, the darkness of the conversation sucks you in every time and you sit and listen. Perhaps you are an aggressive attacker, the speaker, using great descriptive terms to embellish the story, and make it even more significant. You are a strong woman, people wouldn't dare question you, and this feeds you to continue the behavior. It gives you a power over your female counterparts... Maybe you are a combination of the two; depending on the audience you have mastered both tactics and are the true eater of young. You can master, "this is not appropriate" and direct the conversation away as a leader should do; yet, in your own peer group where your power is limited you are an active participant in the behavior. (I call this passive aggressive to the nth degree.)

What ever your style we (I include myself here, guilty as charged); all have either participated in this behavior toward one of our peers, or have been the victim of such behavior. Either way, there is pain and loss involved. We not only are inflicting pain, but we are giving up significant power in our role modeling of strong leader, strong female.

As the perpetrator, it is a false sense of power and vindication isn't it? Because once we have acted in this manner, it puts us out there at risk for others to do the same to us As the victim, our sense of self, our esteem, our productivity as a leader can be significantly damaged, at times, to the point of no repair.

I know that many of you are probably outraged at this discussion. Good. I would rather have outrage and discussion, then a passive, so what? as a response.

Now let me take it one step further; I know we could sit here and discuss "why" we do this. We could blame society for keeping us "down", we could blame men for not respecting our ability; we could blame our mothers and female role models. The reality? We need to look at our own personal responsibility to this behavior and learn to check ourselves, and check ourselves frequently.

I had a discussion with a fairly educated man about this topic; and he told me that he felt it was part of our genetic make-up to be competitive with other females in an attempt to get the best mate. (I told him leave it to a man to make it about sex). However, his answer to the problem being genetic may not be to far fetched. Perhaps we are innately wired to compete with each other for the best "provider" and "provisions". Perhaps we are the most competitive of the species. Yet, as the most intelligent species in the world, you would think we could have achieved the ability to overcome the hurtful and destructive behavior associated with this genetic coding.

What ever causes it; we (women, females) need to learn to control it better. This behavior is leading to our failure as role models of success. It also is setting up our proteges to falter. If we are to be true female role models, we need to build up our young counterparts, allow them to gain success beyond anything we ever have had or could dream of achieving ourselves, and then relish in their achievement. We need to share honestly and supportive in their failures and provide an environment that is significantly different from what we experienced. We need to quit eating our young, and instead start feeding them to thrive.