Women, Take Control to Overcome Top Challenges at Work and Home

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back. 818-572-2910.

Bernadette?

Yes, can you hear me?

Hello? Oh, I can hear you now.

Oh my.

Wow.

All right. Deborah, can you hear me?

I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes, yes, yes. I'm sorry, everybody. I'm not sure what the technical issue was with my— my phone trying to get into the portal. So sorry. Hopefully Deborah was able to tap dance around the subject, and hopefully you're hanging on. Thank you, Deborah, very much for that. Deborah, of course, of Parker House Virtual Services. She's our social media guru. She could be yours, you know. Just check out Deborah Parker of Parker House Virtual Services. And of course, she's part of our commercial. You can get all of her information by listening and staying tuned during our commercial breaks. But today I have a topic I really want to discuss. And actually, we were going to continue all throughout the month of July talking about goals and resetting. And it's the second half of the year, both corporately, entrepreneurially, personally. And you know I believe in every day, every moment of every day is an opportunity to hit that reset button. And so that was going to be our conversation today, expanding from last week's Ask Bernadette episode. So we covered a lot on that program. We covered about how to set goals, because many of you constantly ask me about that, more so because it being the middle of the year, many of you were having performance reviews. So a number of my clients were reaching out to me, and we were working together on preparing for those performance reviews. And so we had a whole discussion about how individuals— professionals, again, entrepreneurially or corporately— can be preparing proactively throughout the year for any type of performance review, whether it is scheduled or whether it is something that comes up due to a situation that might have arose. So, we kind of walked through that process. We also talked about if you are a new business owner, and this could apply to corporate as well, but if you're a new business owner, what should you be doing the first, you know, 90, 120 days? And actually, I backed— up and said, what should you even be doing before you leave corporate or leave where you are today and you're going to go out on your own? So we talked about a lot, is the bottom line of that. So if you go back to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio, you can pull down our Ask Bernadette episode and get all of that information, and that will set you up beautifully for mid-year, whether it is goal setting, performance reviews, you know, just overall taking an assessment of where you're at in your life, in your work, in your family, and how to just kind of get refocused, re-motivated, re-energized, restructured, whatever the case might be. So take a look for that. But today, as a result of an experience I had yesterday, I just thought I really wanted to use this opportunity to kind of, ladies, make you aware in a very direct— and it's going to be based on the conversation that I had. It's going to be a very direct and maybe abrasive discussion. Not from my viewpoint. I will just say that right up front. Let me preface it by saying that I spend every waking moment of every waking day working with individuals, working with companies, working with associations, working with just social groups all around helping women to elevate themselves personally, professionally, financially, spiritually, it doesn't matter, in hopes that they really try— they really find their true essence. And that's really kind of a soft word for me. I tend not to use that type of word. But who they really are. Who they're meant to be. And what their legacy and what their passion and what their contribution to the world can be. And so when I'm faced with— kind of an outright abrasive attitude or perception of women by anyone, fellow women, and we're going to talk about that, or men, I just can't sit by idly and not make sure that every one of us understand that these perceptions persist And we have a lot of work to do, and it's up to each and every one of us to play a part. Whether you're a wallflower or an introvert and never comes out of, you know, out of your room, or you're that go-getter individual who definitely wants to change the world. So based on that, I also need to say I am one of 12, as many of you know, who listens to the program. I have 5 sisters. I have 6 brothers. And I have a father— had a father who basically raised us, along with my mother, basically raised us to not see gender. Sure, were there times where the boys took out the trash and the girls cleaned the dishes?

Sure.

But overall, in the grand scheme of things, he didn't differentiate whether or not we could play a sport that we wanted to play, even male sports. Or if we wanted to climb the corporate ladder and rule the world, whatever the case might be. So I have a really hard time, both from a female perspective and a male perspective, with people who just want to make excuses and not take ownership and really not also reach out and help when someone, and in this case a population of women, are saying they need help, they deserve help, they've earned help. And so I just get very kind of up in arms about it. So let me paint the picture. I was invited at the last minute to be on a radio show. I've been on this radio show before, and I really enjoy the host and the conversations we have. He is what I'll call provocative. He is very funny. He's very astute, and I never in the past, you know, kind of caught on to any type of attitude or judgment or perception that I then was confronted with yesterday. So what I did was, in order for me to kind of organize my thoughts, because when I get kind of worked up like I am, I'll tend to kind of like ramble. So I'm going to do my best for you today when I am overly excited to really just lay out our conversation, but in a way of really highlighting the 7 or 8 things that I turned into topics, that I turned into perceptions, that I turned into, ladies, you need to know this. Because if this one man who has a huge audience to listen to have these perceptions of you, then one, more men do. Two, these are their attitudes and their thoughts and their beliefs, and therefore their decision-making around women. And then three, it really painted a picture of just the work we have to do. And so I turned that into ideas for you, solutions for you, advice and tips for you. And while I'm online and I'm live between now and 1 PM Eastern time, if you are out there— and I do need to open up our chat room— but if you are out there and you want to get into this conversation with me, because I posted this even on LinkedIn just a little while ago, because this is a last-minute topic. Because I'm so worked up about it. And I got some immediate responses, both male and female, around this subject, and therefore I know it's a critical conversation to have. And if you want to be a part of it, feel free to call in to me, 1-818-572-2910. I'll see that you've come into the studio. Deborah will also be able to see that, and we'll bring you into the fold and bring you into the conversation at a particular point when we can break appropriately. All right, let me just open up the chat room real quick. All right, so before we dive into this, I'm actually going to take a little breather, and we're going to just take a brief break and come back. And then I'm, like I said, I'm going to dive into this conversation, how it started, where it went, and kind of the 8 major talking points I took away from it. And then our last segment is going to be I took those 8 and I said, okay, ladies, here's some idea solutions and tips as to how we can begin working together to change this perception, this attitude. All right, we'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate-sized clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com consulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

All right everyone, we're gonna get into it. You ready? All right, let me set it up. Again, I was invited to be on a radio program, radio interview yesterday, and it was under the guise of a discussion on the pay gap of women in business. And it was a brief 15-minute planned interview. Kind of, what kind of damage, what kind of situation could occur in a 15-minute interview? So I get on, and I love this radio host, by the way. He is very supportive in promoting and kind of branding you and whatever the work is that you do. So he opened up with my brief bio. I gave him a very brief bio, as well as my book and the radio show and everything around what I do. Primarily though, what stuck out to him, I caught on to very quickly, was my book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business. Now, once he said that, and he complimented it and he even related to what the subject was about, getting rid, shedding the junk that people— that people kind of hang on to and carry around and use and play victim to and therefore lash out in whatever way they might. But for some reason, he all of a sudden diverted into focusing on the bitch, the word bitch. Not the word bitch in my world, just the word bitch to the majority of the rest of the world, which is a nasty woman. So the next thing you know, he starts this conversation and this dialogue with the audience, mind you, all around how nasty women are, such as— and he clung to a conversation regarding Hillary Clinton. Now many of you who know me know I don't get into politics. I don't like it, especially nowadays. And I won't spend time getting into that just because it gets so ugly and I really don't have time for ugly. That's just not what I do. So the next thing you know, he's going off on Hillary and I'm interjecting that, well, this conversation isn't about politics, it's not about nasty women, it's about pay gap. And he stuck to, you know, this conversation. He was saying how, you know, all that— and you have to listen closely, ladies, because this is perceptions. Regardless if he was, you know, kind of amping it up for the audience and for ratings, this is what he's spewing out into the universe. That is the fact that here, you know, this woman is only in the position she's ever been in because of her husband, that she couldn't even do it on her own despite the fact that she was Secretary of State for 8 years. But again, I was trying to get away from the— well, I guess it's not the political side of it. It is defending the woman in business. And then he went on to say she's had no accomplishments, she's nasty to work with, so forth and so on. And then went on to then say versus Donald, who has had tons of accomplishments in the short period of time he's been in office. He gets things done. He rules with an iron fist, but that's okay because he knows he's powerful and so does everyone else around him. And that's when kind of the hair went up on my back. Again, for me it's not political. It's not about party. To me it's— and this is what I voiced is I said, okay, Ed, can we look at just Hillary as a woman and Donald as a man, and you're describing both of them in the same way, and yet Hillary, you're claiming to be a bitch, and Donald is a leader in your mind. And that's the problem. That's the issue that women, you know, come up with and deal with every day is that perception. And how— and if we're here to solve problems, how do we solve them? Well, he didn't really want to discuss solutions, at least early on. Now, this 15-minute conversation, I should tell you now, went 40 minutes, which is very unusual, especially in radio, because he probably has other guests lined up behind him. And yet this conversation obviously was important to him. And plus, you know, he and I do have great banter because he knows I'm not going to back down from the conversation. So we simply had this dialogue around how is it A woman could be a certain way and a man could be a certain way and then they're perceived both differently. Now, I'm not talking about the fact that any bully, any bitchy type of individual, male or female, should in any way, shape, or form be applauded or appreciated. But they certainly also should not be considered a leader. And the two of them, when he agreed that yes, they have those same characteristics, but yet, that's when we have to get concerned as women, is that "but yet." Because they make all of these exceptions and excuses for men, and yet women are pulled down simply for the fact that it's a woman doing it and not, and as opposed to the man doing it. So that went on probably for a good 5 to 8 minutes, is just ranting. But then it turned, went into, okay, we don't want to talk about politics. You don't want to really engage in a conversation about Hillary and Donald. As far as from, because it definitely sounded like it was gearing to party. It was gearing to, I could pick out his affiliation and that's when I wanted to to change this, definitely change the subject. So then it was moved on to, from him, Marissa Mayer. And, you know, and if you don't know Marissa, from Yahoo, and how nasty of a woman she is and how incompetent and she failed miserably, so forth and so on. And again, looking at these high-profile, and even many media organizations wrote that here, you know, who takes— she takes on a failing ship to begin with, expecting to turn it around, having to make really hard decisions. If you remember, she got blasted for the layoffs and the cost reductions that she was putting in place in order to turn this failing ship around. And yet, her being ousted is perceived by some people, such as this gentleman, that she's just nasty, she's a bitch, she's incompetent, she doesn't know what she's doing, she should never have had that job in the first place. And again, I was there to, you know, to kind of put some logic in his thinking to say, Now wait a minute, there's all these male leaders who also have some nasty reputations and yet, and are, granted, their enterprises are very, very successful, but does that make it right? And this is when my heart really sank, is he said, it does because they're successful. They put profit on the paper. They've, you know, created create a return on investment for their shareholders and for their employees. And so it doesn't matter. I mean, it doesn't matter if he or anybody else rules with an iron fist and is nasty and talks poorly to women. He gets things done. And he is able to build a very successful enterprise. Well, I've shed my bitch a long time ago, but it was— wanting to, and it was slowly creeping to the surface. Because if that is being spewed out there in any way, shape, or form, and in this case it certainly was, that's just totally unacceptable. And so again, fighting back any type of emotion, I just try to bring him back to logic to say, you need to explain that. I don't understand how you can see those two, you know, those two things to be different and to be acceptable and to be tolerated just because of their gender. It's okay that a man is nasty and ruthless or incompetent as long as he puts numbers on paper, that's fine. But a woman does it and, yes, she misses being able to put it on paper, and she's a failure and she's a bitch. And not only that, but it's okay that there's these other men, because I brought up some other situations where men were ousted from their organization, not only for failure of building the business, but also for the way they ran their business, the way they treated women and their employees. So I was starting to really feel that not only was he talking about bullies and bitches, however you want to put it, but he himself was. Now, I'm not making an excuse. The man is a comedian that I was talking to. He does do things for entertainment factor. But it's inexcusable in my mind. It's inexcusable even if he then writes off and says, "I was joking about all of that." It was just a joke. Well, that's not acceptable to me, and it shouldn't be acceptable to anybody listening to this program or anybody out there. So then he went on to Sheryl Sandberg. Now, well, actually I brought up Sheryl. He says to me, so give me an idea of a successful powerful woman. And he says, by the way, I just happened to read Lean In. By Sheryl Sandberg. And I said, well, she doesn't have a reputation out there. You can look over any media. She doesn't have a reputation for being nasty, for being a bitch. And he's like, are you kidding? Have you read her book? So he highlights a couple of talking points. Now, the talking points were these. The talking points were her views on the fact that women, even if they were to go off and have children, should continue to pursue their career, work out with the family an arrangement for parent care, for child care, and go back to work. Now, in some views, male or woman, is that considered harsh? Is that considered considered unlike their own views? Sure, sure. Is she a bitch because of it? Because she just simply states that if you have the opportunity— and granted, she said it a little bit more firmer— you should look for the opportunity, you should go and hire a nanny or hire daycare and return to work. And here she's a billion-dollar executive and yet majority of the women can't necessarily afford daycare. So was she a little naive and a little out of touch? Even I interpreted that, but I certainly didn't read it as, oh geez, that makes her a bitch. That's just, she's out of touch. But in his mind, because she is firm, because she is clear on what it is that she wants, and she's sharing her views and her thoughts on that, because she goes after what she wants, because she stands up and doesn't take maybe no for an answer or disagreements or she doesn't run from arguments and debates, that makes her a bitch. So I wasn't very successful in kind of minimizing his attitude toward that, so he then turned it on to me and said, Well, show me what role models are out there for women. What women, what successful women are out there? Now that is also extremely condescending to me, but also very naive and ignorant on his part, my view. And so we talked about them. We talked about the powerful women like Mary Barra who runs GM and the woman who runs Kraft and the head of the Federal Reserve. All kinds of different areas of business, and I even turned it to entrepreneurial women. The woman who heads up Spanx, Oprah Winfrey. I mean, there's tons of examples of successful women out there who aren't known to be a bitch, known to be nasty, and are very effective in creating a lot of value and a lot of capital for their businesses and for their shareholders and for their employees. And he brought up earlier that women are incapable of doing that. And that brought me to the conversation with him about various studies on the ROI of women and the value that women quantitatively bring to companies should they be placed in influential positions. I mean, it's a tick-up of everything from retention to sales to return on equity to return on capital. You name the metric, and putting women in influential leadership roles has a direct impact positively, greatly, to the value of a business. Well, he— yeah, he didn't want any of that. He couldn't defend that. I had to study. I actually have presented and have done reports and do speaking engagements on the subject. So that kind of made him, you know, quell down a little bit. But it wasn't over. The bashing wasn't over and the points that he was bringing up, and the perceptions I should say, that he was bringing up regarding women certainly didn't end there. But we are going to take a short break and when we get back, We're going to dive into how women have devastated the family dynamic. Oh, woe is me.

We'll be right back. You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back, everyone. Today's conversation is kind of a recap of a radio program, radio interview I had yesterday. I actually was the guest this time around, and it turned— it was a subject that was meant to be about pay gap, and then it turned into a number of other what I call reality checks for women as far as how men perceive us, and at the same time, in this case, how they are also broadcasting those perceptions, those biases, those attitudes out to— maybe in this case it was his large audience, but at the same time, think about it, it could be in the small conference room where you're hoping to be sponsored and advocated, and it could be, you know, out in a broader audience. So I'm kind of highlighting some of the top topics that he raised. In regards to women and some of my responses to him. And then we're going to wrap up the end of the conversation with the top talking points, but also solutions, ideas, and tips that each one of us women need to keep in mind and start acting on in order to see a shift or a change as we move forward. So the next point, the next conversation that he led into and started very excitedly ranting about was how the family dynamic, the makeup of a family, has changed over the years. And it all has to do with the fact that women are being selfish and want to work and leave the household and go off and find whatever they want to find and discover whatever they want to discover. And isn't that selfish? Well, You know, if you've listened to the program since the beginning of the top of the hour, my hair raised a number of times in this conversation. So it raised once more, and I'm not even that woman who has a family, like a husband, children, obligations beyond myself and my dog and my home. And yet I just, you know, I just kind of just got all up in arms because I have to defend those women that do and that I admire for being able to not only integrate all of those aspects of life into your life, but also the fact that you want so much more for your life, for yourself, for your family, and you're following your goals and your dreams. Sometimes it might be because you have to. But whatever the case might be, the one thing I love about women is we are resilient and we go and do what needs to get done. Now I'm going to kind of contradict that in a little bit, so bear with me. But in this case, he brings up the subject that women going back to work is the root cause of family breakdown. And so I had to, I had to say, So why is it that the man can't stay at home? And I had the fortune to be able to use examples from my own family. I had a brother who stayed at home and raised one of his children because his wife was in school and then had a primary— the primary job, so to speak. And he chose— the two of them collaborated and chose that that would be a role that he played. And there's a lot of stay-at-home dads. Out there. Now, are there as many as there could be? Well, that's one to be debated. At the same time, it's a choice between that family as far as how that family dynamic works. And if it is that they have chosen that the woman is going to go to work, the man is going to work, and they have to you know, kind of then compile a solution and a strategy for that family dynamic, so be it. But I would think that there's a great number of other reasons for the breakdown of families, and women aren't the top one, and they may not even have a role in it compared to all the other societal environmental things that are going on that pull families apart. Now he raised up divorce. Again, never heard a statistic that said that the women were responsible for the 50% divorce rate. You know, so that's kind of debatable. He didn't really want to kind of defend any of these points. But at the same time, he definitely had a hard time justifying women, blaming women for the breakdown of families. Now, when I said to him, so why is it right that women stay home? Well, they're built for it. That's what they're meant to do since the time of the caveman. You know, they lactate, they breastfeed. He started bringing up all these things. I was merely able to say, "Well, yes, they do. It may last a year, year and a half. They may find solutions in regards to doing that by providing milk and leaving it at home for the child." But even so, it's short-term. What happens to the rest of the woman's 40, 50 years of life that they have left? Hopefully a lot more. So is that right that they just don't pursue their dreams, their goals, their career passions? And he just kept saying, well, men were built to run the household, women were not. I kind of got exhausted at this point because now we're probably 30 minutes into this conversation and I was getting exhausted by just the, I have to call it, ignorance, and again not knowing if he's just doing it to provoke, but it just was enough to just shake me, and I don't get shaken very easily. But when I thought to myself, boy, if this is perception, this is tough, this is rough. We do have our work cut out for us, because if he's going all the way back to caveman, that it's happened for centuries, it was acceptable then, it should be acceptable now, then we wonder— we shouldn't wonder, rather. We shouldn't wonder why legacies continue, not only about gender, but about race, but about religion, but about sexuality. It's no wonder if people are holding on to what happened, you know, 100 years ago, let alone a million years ago, should still apply today. The world changes. That conversation didn't impact him. Any conversations about just the rights, you know, of women, you know, he couldn't defend why men shouldn't be at home. So it just got me to a point where I thought, All right, need to kind of, okay, where can we move on to next? Can we get to the pay gap? Can we get to the conversation that I was asked to talk about? Which then we did. Which then we did. And it came down to it's women's fault that the pay gap exists. Now this was the one time where he, you know, not only couldn't defend himself, but the The points and the statistics that I raised up to him definitely kind of shut him down. So he said, Bernadette, I know this is going to get your goat and I know it's provocative to our listeners, but it's women's fault and their responsibility that they don't get paid the way that they should. Now, none of my listeners should be surprised when I say, and I said to him, I agree with you, with an exception. So it did, it quieted him up because he thought I was going to come back on an attack of some sort to contradict or to defend how wrong he was. And there's a good amount of me that agrees. I always have. I've always felt it's our responsibility to to ask for what we want, to negotiate for what we want if we don't get it the first time, to stand up and fight for any misjustice or any discrimination or any disparity in how we're being treated, paid, raised, advanced, promoted, whatever the case might be. The exception? Is the fact that if 85% of the senior leaders out there making decisions around pay, around advancement, around position and roles, around advocacy and sponsorship, if 85% of those people are male, then we have a high hill to climb, and we can't be held responsible for not getting or achieving or advancing the way we want to. It's just not possible. If a woman walks into a room, even if it's a room, an HR room or a boss's room, and that's a female, but then there's a large group of men over here, you know, solidifying and making the final decisions on whatever those those women in this case are bringing to them and they make it against what those women want and it's due to whether it's conscious or unconscious bias, which we'll get to that talking about that, because he raised it up as well, our hands are tied. Our hands are tied. Now I'm going to separate the first part, which is yes, women are I'm going to save that for the last segment of tips and advice and solutions and ideas, because we do need to talk about it, ladies. But the other point about 85% of the men are out there— 85% of the leaders out there are men, that needs to be plastered on every wall, every office, every door, every woman and man's far ahead and use that to say, okay, that is how we're going to change this situation. That is what's— I don't want to call it preventing, but there's creating a lot of roadblocks because of that number right there, that 85%. Now he said to me, oh, so when would women be happy and when will we stop talking about, you know, women in the workplace? I'm like, let's just say we're equal. Let's say it's 50%. Now, I don't truly believe that ever in quotas and in affirmative actions when it comes to, you know, in this case, women in business. I think the person who deserves to be— and has earned a role, a position, a salary, should be given that best person. At the same time, though, we need to get past, like, that resume study. I raised this up to them, surprised them. You know, there's a resume study where if you put the same exact resume in front of, you know, a group of men, and to evaluate and pick the best person for the job, and one says Patrick and the other one says Patricia, but it's the exact same resume, Patrick gets picked. That's not women. We aren't controlling that. That's a reality, and we have to kind of keep that in mind and not be afraid to raise that up and figure out how we get this unconscious bias removed. And that 85% is critical. Now, I did raise up to him at the same time that I was even disappointed in a couple of women's conferences that I went to a couple weeks ago. I happened to have two of them in the same week right here in Atlanta. One was for young female professionals, and then the other was the Atlanta Business Chronicle Women Leadership Forum. Awesome. Awesome, fabulous forum. I don't go to it every year, but for the past 10 years or so that I've been on my own, I try to get to it because they put on a fabulous, fabulous event. However, that said, and it was, they were great events, but ladies, if we know that we need men in our corner, if we know we need to change the the biases of men, if we know we need men to advocate and support and sponsor us, if we know that they're the ones making the decisions regarding our destiny, then we need to bring them to the table. So I was shocked when not one man was at either one of those conferences on behalf of women. Now, there was a man at the ABC, the Atlanta Business Chronicle conference. He emceed. He opened it up. He probably is the— I didn't even notice what his title was, quite honestly. But let's say he's the lead editor of the Atlanta Business Chronicle. So he opened it up. He turned it over to his co-host, the president of Pathfinders, a female. The rest of the day, all women. So, ladies, if we need to change men's perception, if we need to get them engaged, if we need to get them to sponsor and support us, we need to bring them. We need to get them up on that stage. We need them to stand up and in large groups tout the return on investment of women in business. Because again, it's there. All the data is there. All the statistics are there. I don't want to broad stroke this saying that there's not one company out there. Obviously, there are companies out there that have a great inclusion structure to their organization. Some of them are cautious, meaning that they pay attention to making sure that there's inclusion And so I do want to make sure that we do a lot of them. We just need a lot more of them. We just need a hell of a lot more of them. So on the topic of they're just not asking, we kind of said, okay, we both agreed that there's a responsibility of the woman, and then there's this responsibility of this big chunk of men out there. And that was probably the one conversation that we could agree with. Let me see. Oh, he did talk about— and I'm not going to spend a lot of time here because I just realized it was just out of just wanting to provoke again. But he was talking about how women cry in business. And women can't cry in business. So I joked. I said, there's no crying in baseball. There's no crying in baseball. And so that kind of took him off and caught him off guard and distracted him. And we moved on. So this all kind of then, you know, came to a point where I said, all right, obviously there's some very key talking points here that we as women need to take responsibility for, and we need to start acting on and changing and shifting and is speaking up and doing our part, both individually, and what I mean by that is within our own selves, there's work to be done, we're going to talk about that, but at the same time we then need to make sure that we're externally working with fellow women, fellow men, fellow communities, businesses, organizations, associations, to definitely make a change. We can't do it alone, not when there's this big elephant in the room which has an 85% on it that is driving the majority of the decisions and the majority of the laws that are dictating how we are being advanced. Promoted, raised, whatever the case might be. So we're going to take a quick break, come back, and I'm going to spend the rest of the time giving you some solutions, ideas, and tips on just what you could be doing. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate-sized clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@shellyanderson.com. Thebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. Alright, we're gonna wrap up this recap or this discussion around just male perceptions that are out there. And we can't ignore them and avoid them. We have to confront them head-on. And I want to provide you some tips and advice and solutions and ideas for how we individually and as a group can make our own change and our own shift, even if it starts with ourselves, then within our small little circle, and then our team, then our organizations, and then the world. So I'm just scribbling something down for a second. So first off, ladies, the first thing we could be doing to really help each other is to help each other. All right? I won't go back to the conversation I had with this radio host around women hating on women. If you listen to my program, We've talked about this before. I'm not going to talk about that. I just want to talk about the fact that, ladies, helping each other is going to help this whole situation, this whole challenge that we have. We have to help each other. Mentor, coach, guide, teach, whatever the case might be. All right? The other thing, too, is I wouldn't accept from anyone— this guy or anybody, that you have to man up, you have to be a bitch or nasty, or that you even are, when all you're doing is you are focused, clear, determined, persistent. You know what you want and you're going after it. So that kind of had two. Don't man up. Don't go, you know, acting as if you have to rule with an iron fist. It doesn't work. I'm proof of that. It doesn't work. Instead, continue to be strong, be fearless, be an influencer, be determined, and go after what you want. And don't let anyone— even if they call you a bitch, blow it off. Who cares? You're bigger than that. When they go low, you go high. Michelle Obama. I can't take that one. That's hers. But you've got my point. So stay true to what it is that you want and how you're going about it. All right. My doggy's here. All right. The other thing I want you to think about, too, is, you know, he brought up that idea of Hillary on the coattails of Bill. This is the way I look at it. For any woman out there— because we also talked about Melinda Gates.? And he raised up, well, that's only because she's married to Bill Gates. Well, guess what? You know what those individuals are called? They're called sponsors. They're called advocates. We all get where we want to go by leveraging the resources and the people around us. So as opposed to looking at it as— or allowing anyone to look at it as, oh, someone's just using their husband or their connection or whatever the case might be. Find your sponsor. Find your advocate, no matter who they are. And work to find those mentors that are going to speak for you, stand up for you, advise you and guide you and help you along. All right. The other thing too is, and which what he was bringing up, and where I agreed with him in regards to, you not asking. That's the personal work. That's the internal work I was talking about. Women don't ask. Women don't negotiate. There's a lot of don'ts, unfortunately. On yourself, find time, whatever that might be, whether that's with a personal coach, professional coach, a therapist, just some empowerment programs that are out there. Whatever the case might be, focus on your confidence level, your security within yourself, your doubts and fears. Get them addressed. Be aware of them. And then work to shed them. And that will help you to ask, to negotiate, to step up, to not wait until you're, you know, 100% ready. To go after something. Instead, like men, wait 40 to 60% ready and just go for it. All right. Come up with a plan. If you want to be a working mother with a family, there is nothing wrong with that. Don't, again, let anyone tell you that there is. Just come up with a plan. Work together to discuss as a— collaborative group, children and partner, spouse, whomever, how that can happen where it won't disrupt what it is you want for your life, what it is your partner, spouse wants for your life, what it is your children want for their lives. He made mention about something really quick. He made mention about, you know, well, I see these reports of women complaining that their children don't know them because they're at work all the time. And I said, well, wait a minute. That's been going on for centuries with men. Their children don't know them. Their children complain. Their children grow up to be dysfunctional because their father's not around. And yet that's okay. That's acceptable. We can't allow that. All right, I'm getting back into that and I don't want to. All right, I made mention. Ask. Negotiate. Take risks. Don't wait. Find your sponsors. Now lastly. In our last couple of minutes. We have got to engage men. Now I want to do a shout out to Jeffrey Tobias Holter. He's local here in Atlanta, but he's a global speaker, trainer, consultant, and he focuses on why women. He has a book called Why Women. At the same time, his business, whywomen.biz, Feel free to look it up. He has great programs for getting men in the game. Now, you can always reach out to me as well. At the same time, I'd love Jeffrey and I to do programs together because it's that important to make sure that we get men engaged. So whether you're an entry-level or you're a senior executive, women, find ways to collaborate, to create dialogue. To create strategy sessions, to get them to stand up and speak for you, and we will see things shift. And we will change perception. Now, there's going to be some, like the radio host maybe, whose attitude won't ever change. Yet at the same time, we can create change for ourselves in the areas of life that we want to. But we individually, and then collectively have to do it. And we have to take responsibility and we have to act upon it. So that's all I ask is let's work together and see what change we can create as a result of our powerful female focus and determination and persistence. All right? Well, I'm thankful that you were with us today and I will look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio. Thanks everybody. Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.