Over centuries women have been adept at creating space for themselves and their female friends - over the washing line, through coffee mornings and more recently via online forums such as "mumsnet". So I wondered when I started this blogpost why I was still talking about "space" as such an issue for women - and in particular women's progression into leadership.
It seems to me from the conversations I had at STIA 2013 that "space" is an increasingly compressed commodity in women's lives today. We discussed how space can take many forms and that women need to be aware of the ways in which they themselves allow their spaces to be reduced by other people and how they can reclaim their space. In spite of the adeptness of creating space in the past, women seem to be struggling with this more and more as they have more opportunities for their lives now.
Women are generally smaller than men and from a very young age their games in the school yard take up less physical space. Young boys play physical running-around type games whereas girls tend to congregate together to talk or play games that take up space. Research done in the UK has found that boys tend to dominate the large central space in school yards and girls are found round the edges. Women therefore grow up assuming that they should be taking up less physical space than men and this makes it harder for them to claim the space in boardrooms and educational establishments that they have the right to claim. Sheryl Sandberg talks about “leaning in” and physically taking up the space in meetings and the workplace, but something that can translate to other areas of our lives too.
In the workshop at STIA 2013 we had an interesting discussion about identifying and connecting with our space through our bodies. Miriam's presentation about the history of "Our Body Our Selves" and her experience after her first child was illuminating for all of us who have grown up post-1960s and assumed we have “ownership” of our bodies. It resonated with all of us that our bodies provide a key link to other types of space, including the route to headspace via things such as yoga practice, relaxation and massage and that the importance of this should not be underestimated.
The main aim of my presentation was to raise awareness amongst women of the "voices in their heads". Women today have so many expectations placed on them - wife, mother, company leader, educator, community contributor etc etc that one of the most important things that a woman can ever do for herself is to work out where these expectations come from and whose voice they are attached to. If you give women space, they will be able to identify the pressures they experience and then to make decisions for their lives themselves. And this is genuine empowerment.
For me, the most empowering thing I do for women is to provide them with this space in the coaching sessions I run at a busy competitive university. The results I have seen have been truly astonishing as women have reached the point of making decisions for themselves about the directions of their own lives – often in contradiction of the pressures and expectations from well-meaning bosses and family. I am grateful that my work gives me the opportunity to be a facilitator for these women to find their “space” and it was a delight to share this with the participants at STIA 2013.
Fiona Denney
November 2013