When Lori Dickerson Fouché was named president and CEO of
According to
Insurance and financial services are not the only industries with lopsided demographics.
What's worse: women continue to play a role in perpetuating this trend. In the mass media, male-bashing is still common; television talk shows often host angry women pointing at stereotypical we/they dichotomies. The complaints and demands for fairness in personal and business role expectations run the gamut-but it's energy focused on the sometimes ill-conceived or perceived problems, not the solution.
In business, the messages are more subtle. The latest cottage industry approaching women with the "we're not going to take it any more" theme falls in the training category, a "boot camp" of sorts for women in business. One women's organization hosts two-day traveling "camps" with an aggressive agenda. The initial e-mail blast, "Communication and Assertiveness Training for Business Women," offers learning objectives such as "3 key self-esteem issues that impact women at every level-how to get rid of them" and "3 techniques to make you appear more confident and knowledgeable-even when you're nervous."
If you don't reply to their pitch, you receive additional e-mails, these with the subject line, "Executive Training for Successful Business Women." Remarkably, the learning objectives for the executive training camp are identical to firm's lower level assertiveness training agenda.
I'm not suggesting that women in business won't benefit from learning--especially from each other, and Insurance Networking News has promoted professional education for women for more than four years. But why do we continue to assume that women in business have low self-esteem or do not feel confident?
My guess is that women CEOs such as Lori Dickerson Fouche, or Janice Abraham, president and CEO of
Pat Speer is editor-in-cheif of Insurance Networking News.
Readers are encouraged to respond to Pat by using the “Add Your Comments” box below. Shealso can be reached at patricia.speer@sourcemedia.com.
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