Can business ever be gender blind?
Sarah Lacy on gender and business:
As the gender blindness idea suggests, I never considered I couldn’t achieve things in business because I was woman, and that was probably part of my success. But at the same time I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being proud of the fact that I can hold my own in a male-dominated world. That I’ve been able to make it a non-issue.
I also think that in some unknown, unquantifiable way part of my success has been because I’m a woman. How could it not be? Being a reporter and a writer is an incredibly individualistic career. It’s like an episode of Survivor. You’re dropped into a jungle and you have to use whatever you’ve got to fight your way out. Not even a great editor can cover for you for long and whatever you’ve accomplished is in tangible black-and-white at the end of the day for everyone to see. I’ve long felt like weird personality traits of mine that were pretty annoying from a human point of view, actually wound up being hugely helpful as a reporter. It was as if I was designed to do what I do.
Because it’s so personal, I’d be naive to think none of that has to do with being a woman. Women connect with people in a different way, listen better than men on average, are non-threatening and are naturally nurturing. A lot of people tell me things they don’t tell other people, and all of that is probably part of why. My gender is part of me, so why would I treat it as something I somehow have to subvert or ignore?