We Are the Zero Percent

The first time I came upon this page, I couldn’t really tell what was wrong. A few seconds later, I realized that that is precisely the problem.
Apparently this eye-opening (yet totally horrifying) collection is the product of someone’s procrastination on a random Sunday afternoon. I’m going to take this Short List post to explore the implications of provocative wake-up calls about gender like this one, but should you be curious, more history on the page can be found in a piece organized by Rebecca Greenfield for The Atlantic.
The upper right-hand corner of the website carries a short but thoughtful note: “Corners of the world where women have yet to tread. Shine a light,” it reads. Shine a light on the imbalances that pervade our society today (like this Tumblr!). Shine a light on the path that women can take to equality. Shine a light to identify up-and-coming women who can infiltrate these pages of all dudes. As a woman who’s been working in the women’s leadership field for a while myself, that short phrase could not resonate with me more strongly.
With that said, declarations like these have recently tickled me with new ponderings. With things like this, we walk the thin line between providing a necessary reminder about our silent inequalities and pushing more and more women towards a male version of leadership. The spurts of anger inspired by moments like this in our social media are gradually calmed by newfound resolutions to “fight against the male-dominated system.” A seemingly innocuous statement. Except to fight against a male-dominated system, one is tempted to simply pick up the skills necessary in a male world and master it further.
As a young woman interested in these kinds of issues, I’ve attended countless leadership conferences, workshops, and seminars in which we have been trained in various skills in public speaking and networking, etc. I can’t deny that these things probably have come in handy at times, but my point here is that we should be putting in more of an effort to celebrate the unique qualities that women can bring to the leadership world. I heard that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) once joked that in the middle of a debate over a contentious bill, all of the women somehow got together in the bathroom to engage in a civil discussion while all the men stayed on the floor to fight it out at the top of their lungs.
This tendency to negotiate and cooperate rather than compete. The willingness to search for a “third way” and think outside the box. These are the qualities that we should learn about, discuss, and build upon at these seminars. And it can’t hurt, especially at a time when all we hear are complaints about those that lead us today and how they perpetuate the broken system.