Just last month, I had sat at an Ivy-League panel of entrepreneurs and answered the question, "What hurdles do you face as a woman in entrepreneurship?"
I indignantly responded, "there are no hurdles! We make up these hurdles as an excuse. Our gender is not a dis-advantage and let us stop asking this question because we then seed this idea in our minds, in little girls' minds. We just make up self fulfilling prophecies."
I had gone on to explain how anyone who takes up a challenge worth taking has to overcome great odds and all we needed were loved ones who gave us confidence to tide through the lows. I thought of my father, I thought of my male friends, I thought of my many open minded customers.
"We all face many hurdles. Gender is not one of them", I said with finality.
I was indignant, I was confident, I was self-righteous, I was successful. I was wrong.
This week, I wasn't sure why Americans had voted for Donald Trump as President, over Hillary Clinton. In my mind the choice was clear, if we could even call it a choice.
So I asked a very close friend, "Why do you think the Americans voted for Donald Trump".
"I don't know....", he said, "...she doesn't give the feel of a President".
A little taken aback, I was expecting some reasoning in favor of Trump, like, 'maybe he appealed to the greater masses; or 'he promised jobs'.
Because she doesn't have a penis?
"She doesn't give the feel of a President,"....Just like I don't give the feel of an engineer?
Because she isn't a he?
She doesn't give the feel of a President, but Donald Trump, with his p***y grabbing and bigotry, does?
Coming from someone who has always been proud of my 'unconventional' career choices, whose voice had been the loudest in dissent over gender differences, this came as a jolt.
I have an wonderfully supportive ecosystem and never felt disadvantaged in college or while growing up. There were the frequent episodes of mansplaining in meetings during my employment in the US; and many questioning customers who were 'surprised, people took me seriously'. I had learned to overcome these episodes with confidence in my abilities and the obvious experience in my field.
However, this new piece of input, from someone so close, I am still unable to process. Why did he say that? Most of the people around me, don't want to be sexist, they are liberal (that's a loaded word), conscientious and consciously, genuinely believe in gender-equality.
So why did he say this?
My assessment is that this reaction was based on something deeper. A sub-conscious, evolutionary, deep-rooted response which very subtly recognizes differences between gender roles. The question is, how do we overcome that?
