Work/Career | The School of Visibility

I can’t say that! It’s too controversial

One of the most common things women say about why they’re not speaking up on a topic they’re passionate about is; it’s too controversial. ‘People will be upset, challenged, they won’t understand me’ are some of the ways it’s expressed. So for the next couple of months, we’re running a mini series, where we’ll be diving deep into the topic of controversial visibility.

To begin, it’s important to remember this about controversial topics; everything that’s really important in the world is controversial in some way.

Think about a few controversial moments in history:

The Suffragettes were ridiculed for being so ‘brazen’ as to presume women would have something valuable to contribute to the political arena.
The second wave of feminists were considered to be destroying families and stealing men’s jobs for promoting a woman’s right to work.
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for speaking up against racial injustice.
Oprah’s comment about

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Why we judge women differently when they sell things

I just read an article by Australian feminist Jane Caro about how tired she is of being asked to be a free mentor over and over and over again, and it epitomises for me something I’ve been thinking about all week as I’ve been launching A Visible Woman.

It’s a low level of anxiety I feel about charging for anything I offer, including A Visible Woman. There’s a deeply ingrained expectation within me that I should give things to people for free – bonuses, additional content, something/anything – not because I think the program is too expensive. It’s not. (If anything it needs to be reviewed in light of the depth and significance of the transformation women experience. And to honour what it takes to really hold people deeply in a space of transformation for months at a time.)

No, the anxiety isn’t about the value of the offering. … [Read More...]

What would your business look like if…

What would your business look like if it fully embraced the values and energy of the feminine? That’s the topic du jour in this audio recording.

Here’s a snapshot of what you’ll find;

The invitation is to drop stereotypical, very limited understandings of gender (based on societal roles we’ve been playing for centuries), and come into a new way of thinking and being in the world. The businesses that understand this and that harness the power of the authentic masculine and feminine will be the ones that shine in the 21st century.

To get there you have to first understand that we come from a space of judging the feminine.

The consequence of being in the perverted masculine model we’ve been operating under has been an obsession with the mind, with push, and force and making it happen and success at all costs. There’s been a dehumanising of those of … [Read More...]

We need women’s voices to restore the balance

The world is badly out of balance. It’s been tipped so far in favour of masculine values and ways of being (values that can be embodied and pursued by women and men) that the planet is on the brink of collapse, people are suffering epidemic levels of illness, there’s an ever growing divide between the rich and the poor, and oppressive systems which influence ways of thinking and being are maintaining an environment where a very small percentage of the population hold power at the expense of the rest.

The values I’m speaking of prioritise competition, push, and hierarchical ways of being above all else.

The enormous amount of damage caused is due to the lack of balance. By the fact that these patriarchal values have pushed ahead at the expense of circular being and thinking and doing, of rest and intuitive guidance, of collaboration and of community.

The … [Read More...]

What is patriarchal conditioning?

This is all about patriarchal conditioning and how it might be affecting you as a woman, particularly with regard to speaking up and being seen and heard in the world. NB: The topic of patriarchal conditioning could be a whole book or PhD in and of itself so consider this just a short introduction.

To begin to understand patriarchal conditioning, it’s easiest to think about social conditioning and the ways you’re affected by the society you live in.

Start with the community you grew up in. It had a set of rules and expectations about how you behave, show up for one another, who gets a say, who doesn’t, who’s valued and who’s not. Most children absorb all of that without anyone critiquing it for them, which means they simply take on those ideas as ‘normal’ and assume that’s just the way life is.

If you don’t ever take the … [Read More...]