“History shows that women lead to nurture and men nurture to lead. These are opposite, complimentary traits, where one cannot optimally exist without the other, so why is there an ongoing gender gap in business?” ~ Raj Girn
Hi Friends,
Do you believe that society has created an infrastructure that viscerally challenges and disqualifies women from earning money? I do. Let’s explore this a little shall we, to see how deep this belief goes, and where the root cause of gender inequality comes from?
I want to preface by saying that in no way do I profess to create dialogue around whether this is a belief that you share or not, because that’s your business and your right to have an opinion. Being that this is my newsletter, the goal of it (in case you are new to my weekly missives), is to share my perspectives on business and life from a more deeper place, so that you can juxtaposition these with yours.
My goal is to share what I’ve learned along my not so conventional path, in the hopes of broadening and diversifying your acquisition of knowledge and perspectives, based on data and resources that perhaps you may not have come across. My intention with this is to empower your ability to think about the “why” of it all and to create the life that aligns with your needs, wants, and desires. It’s how we grow (sometimes together, sometimes apart), but always in motion to a belief system that we create, adopt, or adapt.
Here are some theories from religious scripture that I believe are at the root level of the infrastructures and ecosystems that we have created and live in (and have lived in since the beginning of time), pertaining to the misalignment of power between genders. This is what I believe perpetuates an ongoing power struggle between genders, by pitting us against each other instead of finding a way to have us co-exist as the ying-yang, masculine-feminine energy that I believe God intended to cultivate when He created existence (another thing that I believe).
It’s why even today after so much work has been done to close the gap, it’s so challenging to untangle the foundational weave of ground zero, because it’s so intricately woven into the fabric of everything that we have built our known civilization upon, where the masculine and feminine are not on equal footing, thus creating a continuous imbalance between these dependent energies. This imbalance is evidently destructive and our history and current existence is a testament to this. Without getting too minutia (I think I’ve already done that, oops), let’s look at the world’s most popular religions to illustrate my point . . .
The Bible’s Old Testament states that Eve stole the forbidden fruit and turned Adam against God, which in turn changed the earth’s dynamic forever, placing women in a sub servient position to men, not to mention that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, further legitimizing this interpretation.
Parts of the Holy Koran eludes to interpretation that women are required to pander to male weakness, with references to the Hijab (separation from men) and Khimar (wearing of a head scarf) being two such examples, which promote hiding and covering up the female body so as to not weaken male control and veer them away from their devotion to God.
And then there’s the Hindu scripture of the Ramayana, which tests the notion of female piety when King Rama is questioned by a member of his kingdom about the purity of his wife Sita, who is recorded to have spent 2.5 to 3 years in captivity by King Ravana. It is written that Sita ultimately had to take the test of fire to prove that she had always been pure for King Rama. The notion here was that if she was pure, she wouldn’t burn – a practice that continued for centuries thereafter in India, where women were expected to practice ‘sati’ (be burned alive) when their husband died.
Religious texts are strewn with examples of inequality, where women and their perceived connection to the undoing of men and to men’s control over women, has served as the backdrop to building the systems that we still live in today. And why the majority of women are still plagued by these systems that don’t support their advancement and make them feel guilty when they step out of pre-ordinance.
It’s a numbers game. When enough women change the narrative by realizing that they deserve to control their own destiny and enough men rally around this, only then will we be able to step into our worth for our contributions, rather than be penalized for our gender. This is what I believe will force patriarchal infrastructures to be re-imagined into inclusive ecosystems, where the power dynamic between genders become aligned towards co-existence. The starting point in my opinion is to unlearn everything step-by-step that’s feeding the beast. This is essentially a mindset thing.
If you’re a woman challenged with a limiting beliefs mindset that’s holding you back from the destiny that you know is yours, and are looking to work towards a growth mindset, send me an email to set up a free, no obligation call and let’s explore how I can guide you through my one-on-one coaching service (Consult With Raj Girn), to move the dial towards your intended direction: [email protected]. This goes for male allyship too. I meet so many male leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and family men, who want to support gender equality, but don’t know how to start implementing it. I can guide you systematically, because that’s the only way to work through mindset conditioning and blocks.
Words to ponder . . .
“Generational conditioning is holding back the evolutionary process to advance the human species. We need to create involution-based practices to advance human existence from struggling with power to empowering co-existence.” ~ Raj Girn
Until next time.
