Lift as You Climb

When I make the statement, “my career has been undercut far more by other women than by men,” I am both shocked and saddened by the response from other women. Shocked because 100% of the many women my age (that means between the ages of 40-80) with whom I’ve shared my story, agree that they have been undercut by women far more than men, and then proceed to tell me their story. Research rarely results in 100% anything and yet I keep hearing this same story from other women. But even more alarming is that many of my young women college students also agree.

Ladies! This has got to stop. We cannot continue to undercut each other and expect to get ahead. We need to stop behaving like crabs in a bucket—when one tries to escape, the others will pull it back into the bucket so it remains trapped like they are—and instead practice supporting each other. In the words of Ben Franklin, “we will hang together or we will surely hang separately.” Since I have no intention of hanging separately, we, as women, need to learn to how hang together and support each other. Notice I didn’t say “get along” or like each other. You don’t have to like each other or agree with each other. But you do have to support and acknowledge female colleagues. Let’s learn how.