Being afraid of being visible

Hello Everyone - I know why it has taken me a year to get blogging. It wasn't only because I didn't know how to go about it, even though that was a big part of it. It was also because I have an emotional block that has stopping me from investigating how to go about it. In my childhood family being visible on my terms generates a great deal of criticism and rejection. Being a woman in my childhood family requires me to fit into the female role that hasn't changed much from before my grandmother's day. It also means not speaking what I really feel or challenge the power and control that the bullies in my family have, and definitely don't air the dirty laundry in public or go cleaning out the skeletons from the cupboard. Those of you who have read my book will know what I'm talking about.

It wasn't until Matt Duggan from www.adventuresininternetmarketing.net started showing me how to set up a more internet based marketing strategy that I had no more excuses. It was time to "face my fear and do it anyway" as Susan Jeffers would say. It was time to face my internal critic, the same one that I had to battle during the writing of "The Silent Female Scream" because this critic wasn't telling me the truth. It was based on the messages of silence and invisibility that I had been taught to live by as a girl.

Sadly, I know that I'm not alone with having to slay the dragon of feeling safe by being invisible. Countless women around the world have been taught to think that keeping quiet and not showing others what they really want and think, what they truly feel and the life they want to live is protecting them from being criticised, rejected and for too many, being killed. The tragic fact is that for many women being invisible does keep them safe. But it also doesn't challenge or change the status quo.

It is no coincidence that this has come up to be healed. It is time for me to stop writing with the hand brake on - which is how it feels. And it is time to visit New Zealand during August on my terms. I haven't been back for over 10 years. The last time I visited was for my father's funeral. It is time to reconnect with the country I was born in and find my own voice there and a home for the Women's Power Circles. What is hitting me between the eyes as I write this, is the change from leaving a silenced disempowered woman over 17 years ago and now returning having set up Women's Power Circles. Things have really changed for me and recognising this makes me relax because All is well!!!

Equality lies in not fighting the status quo? What rubbish!

Hello everyone - hope you had a lovely weekend in the sunshine! I am still wanting to rant after reading the article in yesterday's Sunday Times about Catherine Hakim "She's counting up erotic capital". She apparently believes that our "increasing sexualised age is a 'trend' and that we should just relax because there is no point swimming against the tide". What complete rubbish. I would love to have a good heart to heart with her and learn what world she inhabits. So if what she says is true, our grandmothers should've bothered to fight against the status quo and claim our political voice because somehow we would've got the vote. How? How would not swimming against the tide create change? Our increasingly sexualised age is a backlash against women's increasing power. Susan Faludi writes about this and Naomi Wolf writes about how women's and now girl's bodies have increasingly become the focus of controlling our time and self-esteem as we gain more economic, social and political power. Making girl's and women worry about how they look reduces our entitlement to claim our power and space.

I feel that the increased sexualisation of girls and women is very much because women are starting to crack the top levels of power. It is also about deflecting our attention and our daughter's attention from the very real voices of having choice, do it for yourself and girl power into hyper-focusing on what we look like on male terms. You just have to look at the Spice Girls and Girls Aloud to see this in action - the language of empowerment turned against ourselves into being extremely thin and sexy within a very narrow definition of sexiness.

Which brings me to a related issue. In March I attended the Women Unlimited conference for businesswomen where Emma Wimhurst was paraded as a role model after making millions selling cosmetics to the young Spice Girl's fans during the 1990's. I was shocked that no one seemed to say how completely unacceptable this was. No one seemed to make the connection between the increased sexualisation of our girls and this business idea. This was a room full of women, mothers with daughters for goodness sake.

I would love to hear from women who also reacted about this! There is something very destructive about the business world's obsession with making money without reflecting on the social and environmental consequences to how anyone decides to make their money.

Lets talk about getting paid well for our time and skills.

Hello, at the moment I'm busy writing my next book. Sometimes it may feel like things go very quiet from my end, but that's because I've got my head buried deep in my writing. I have realised that I'm not a multi-tasker. I can only do one thing at a time! So its official, not all women are multi-taskers. Ladies give yourself permission to not multi-task if it doesn't work for you.

During the last month I've been writing about money and how many women tend to disrespect their time and skills by not feeling entitled to ask for a good hourly rate. I am delighted that I had an article accepted by the Policy Review Magazine.
http://www.policyreview.co.uk/articles.php?article_id=90 I didn't know if they would accept it, but it feels great that someone is listening to how pay inequality gets internalised and continued as if it is normal.

I'm worried that the women who are building businesses using their much needed nurturing skills are having a hard time, not only because of all this talk of belt tightening, but because we are in danger of going backwards and expecting women to nurture for free, to give their time away for free, and to not be "greedy" and expect a good return for their time, skills and experience.

I don't think that we have as yet fully examined the pure sexism around women's time, skills and experience being undervalued, especially if their skills are traditionally female. Think about it. How much did our mothers and grandmother give away for free? Did they get a financial return for their skills? My mother or grandmother didn't. Though they were both educated women, once they married they were financially dependent. Though things have changed a lot in a short time, what hasn't changed is women feeling confident about getting a good return for their nurturing skills. We are still, and I speak for myself here too, too wobbly and unentitled to claim our financial power. Maybe it is that word "power" again that we are so afraid of, because society is afraid of powerful women. Whatever it is, I am on a mission to not only claim my own, but to empower women to claim their financial power. We cannot be fully equal or visible without it.
Talk to you next time,
Rosjke