Why it's Important to Start Mentoring Girls and Boys at a Young Age...
Recently I have been part of many initiatives that seek to mentor young girls in schools and colleges. Last year, I supported a teen girl conference attended by more than 200 teenage girls from schools across London. The most striking characteristic these girls shared was their unswerving confidence. These girls were asking thoughtful questions – carefully crafted and coherently delivered – with uninhibited courage. Some were poised enough to conduct on-camera interviews. Several of them had their future plans mapped out, and they communicated those goals to the rest of the audience in a very self-assured manner. They were already confident, eloquent and knowledgeable. I couldn’t help but wonder if these girls would manifest the same undeterred courage as they grow up. What if they lose that courage and confidence? That sobering thought made me think about all the revealing surveys which indicate just how much confidence girls shed as they mature.
A Girl Guiding study recently found that while 63% of seven- to ten-year-old girls feel confident in themselves, only 31% of 17- to 21-year-olds feel that way. The same study also found that a mere 35% of 17- to 21-year-olds believed they had an equal chance of succeeding compared to their male colleagues, whereas 90% of nine- and ten-year-old girls believed they did.
In 2011, the United Kingdom’s Institute of Leadership and Management surveyed British managers about how confident they feel in their professions. Half the female respondents reported self-doubt about their job performance and careers, compared with less than a third of male respondents. Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University and author of Women Don’t Ask, Linda Babcock, found in studies of business school students that men initiate salary negotiations four times as often as women do, and that when women do negotiate, they ask for 30% less money than men.
The Confidence Code reveals that at England’s Manchester Business School, Professor Marilyn Davidson asks her students every year what they expect to earn, and what they deserve to earn five years after graduation. Every year there are massive differences between male and female responses to that simple question. She reports that, on average, men think they deserve £80,000 a year while women believe they are worth just £64,000 – or 20% less.
Another survey conducted by the American Association of University Women revealed that girls emerge from adolescence with a poor self-image, relatively low expectations from life and much less confidence in themselves and their abilities than boys do. Furthermore, the study identified adolescence as the moment when girls begin to doubt themselves: while 11-year-olds tend to be full of self-confidence, by 15 and 16 they start to say: “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
But then if young girls are confident until the age of 13, what exactly happens after adolescence that leads to this drop in confidence? Does a gendered upbringing along with cultural conditioning, schooling, and a girl’s own growing awareness of sexism have a role to play in this?
Confidence in boys largely remains unfazed as they progress into manhood. However, as girls mature, their need to belong intensifies, and they often adjust their ambitions, and even attempt to tame their confidence, so others don’t form negative opinions about them. And since girls want to be liked and crave approval, they ditch the strong and rebellious elements of their personality to avoid appearing too bossy or overconfident.
Society rewards girls for being ‘good’ not audacious. Society rewards them for being cooperative and compliant and not impudent. So there’s little surprise that’s exactly what they do: ‘put their heads down and play by the rules’. This societal gender imbalance makes confidence a conundrum and gives rise to faulty confidence meters, which later impacts their professional lives too. Hence, we can’t deny that most of us are products of gendered upbringing and cultures. There are social realities that compound female self-doubt – after all, the one situation we can never avoid is our gender. That’s precisely why most of our internal challenges like Impostor Syndrome, Fear Of Missing Out, Perfectionism, etc. have a deeper social context.
Moreover, success and likeability are positively co-related for men, but successful women are seen as overly ambitious, career oriented, cold, bossy, and of course the favourite ‘b’ word (the default label for women who dare to speak up or be different). There is a stereotypical expectation from women to be ‘nice’, communal and nurturing. And when they defy these expectations and reach out for opportunities just like men do, it creates dissonance in people’s minds and these women are judged ill-favourably. More success leads to more vitriol not just from men but females too! Many women who have reached the pinnacle have reported unspoken waves of prejudice. As they say: “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
Somewhere along the way between the classroom and the cubicle the rules change, and girls are thrust into a work environment that no longer rewards them for exemplary behaviour. As a result, their confidence takes a beating and the otherwise self-confident 13-year-old eventually gives way to a new, hesitant, unsure woman who thinks twice before stepping up or owning her success.
And hence, As I have proposed in my book-Her Way To The Top-The glass ceiling is thicker than it looks it’s become more important now than ever to start mentoring girls and boys from a young age and raise their aspirations.
We have already read enough of what social conditioning does to us. The harm has already been done to our generation and the ones before us, and perhaps that’s why we write such books. But it’s not too late to raise the aspirations of the existing generation and make them think differently. These days, a lot is being said about the importance of female role models. Girls often look to the women in their lives for guidance and inspiration. How we act and what we do can set positive examples for girls to follow. In my article Dear Girls, We Have Your Back published on Ellevate, I discuss how important it is to support and empower young girls these days and why it’s crucial to have female mentors for female students. After all, when you empower girls, they say, you are raising the quality of life for everyone. It is these very girls that will lead children by example, lead businesses, lead communities and even lead the country one day, and by mentoring and raising their aspirations we are laying the ground for a future generation of women who have the power to create a difference.
Boys too need to be mentored about positive masculinity versus toxic masculinity. The new ad by Gillette released a few weeks back created quite a stir. The company’s new advertising campaign plays on its 30-year tagline “The best a man can get”, replacing it with “The best men can be”. The advertisement features news clips of reporting on the #MeToo movement, as well as images showing sexism in films, in boardrooms, and of violence between boys, with a voice over saying: “Bullying, the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, toxic masculinity, is this the best a man can get?'
The ad encourages men to hold each other accountable, to say the right thing and do the right thing. 'Because the boys watching today will be men tomorrow' is also one of the concluding messages in the ad. And that message resonated with many of us, These are the kind of ads I want my son to see. I don't see it as belittling men. It just shows the flip side of the coin- the empathetic side of men which most men already have but may not be proudly associating with or displaying openly, thanks to social conditioning. And unfortunately, media has played an alarming role in the past in reinforcing this conditioning through distorted messages and ideas of what manhood actually entails. These types of ads have pervaded the airwaves for so long that they’ve penetrated our subconscious. Messaging similar to this ad in my opinion, only breakes the stereotypes and preconceived notions typically associated with macho men.
We are already facing a long list of challenges owing to social conditioning, but let’s change that by teaching both our boys and girls to be responsible, empowered and empathetic individuals. Teach your girls to be as brave as your boys. Teach them to step up, own success and give themselves permission to fail or to be imperfect. Teach your boys to be brave enough to point out injustice, inequality and intolerant behaviour. Teach them both the concepts of equal and shared parenting.
Teach girls to be kind, not nice.Niceness won’t keep them safe. Kindness can and should be taught. Niceness, however, springs from a desire to please others, even if it’s at our own expense. “For the most part, ‘nice’ means: be tolerant and accommodating,” writes Shefali Tsabary, a clinical psychologist and author of The Awakened Family. “If we are brutally honest with ourselves, it also implies: do whatever it takes to keep the peace.” Instead of teaching our girls to be nice, argues Tsabary, we should teach them how to be themselves, to be self-aware, “which means self-directed, self-governed, true to themselves.”
You are now needed more than ever to be a role model for both girls and boys to look up to. But remember, they say that to be a role model is a privilege. Exercise that privilege wisely.
Find out how survey respondents described this external challenge and discover some effective and actionable steps to address this here
Her Way To The Top- The glass ceiling is thicker than it looks releases in 10 days. You can pre-order your copy here
Author, Executive Career Coach, Leadership Trainer, Motivational Speaker,
Podcaster, & NLP Practitioner
Chief Executive Officer
Founding Director of The Career Excel For Trailblazing Women
Email: hiraali@advancingyourpotential.com
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Read my article on Impostor Syndrome shared by Arianna Huffington
*Nominated For Watc100 Rising Star Award, Recipient Of Lift Effects Award for Top 100 Women & Finalist for Entrepreneur Of The Year- Batons Awards