Challenging Assumptions: Ageism And Gender Bias Through The Lens Of The Election

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Here are two important leadership lessons for women to take away about this election so far. I am attuned to the challenges women face, especially as they get older. Why? I am that woman. This historical election has highlighted two bias areas, that individuals and society still holds – age and gender.

 

 

This is my Grandma Shirley. She was a fiesty old broad. She was a single mom and  worked long hours as a waitress and didn’t take shit from anyone. She was bold and brash, and she loved with all her heart. She was ageless and courageous until she died in her mid 90’s.

 

 

Age – Women over a certain age are not done making a difference. If you are telling yourself you are too old to apply for a new job, or ask for a raise or a promotion, or run a marathon, or learn to swim, or travel alone, or date, or move to a new city, or anything else, remember you are not. Why? We have a women running for President of the United States. She is 68 years old. She is not old. She has accumulated years of relevant experience. Remember you are not done until you say you are done! Age is irrelevant.

Gender – The democratic nominee for President is a woman. The glass ceiling has been broken and all little girls can grow up and imagine that they too can be president. She didn’t accomplish this by not playing with the boys. She has been criticized, mocked, and challenged in a way that a man probably would not have. She stands up, speaks up and shows up in the face of adversity. Living our lives sometimes requires us to dig deep and do things that maybe uncomfortable or unfamiliar. You cannot achieve without stepping out of your comfort zone. You need to find your courage, tenacity and self-assurance, and you to can break through the glass in front of you.

Theodore Roosevelt spoke these words many years ago and it resonates so loudly still:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 

Remember you are not done until you say you are done!