Tag Archives: politics

marketing to women, women

More support needed for women to take the lead

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I am proud to be a founder member of the Women’s Equality party known as WE.

But like the motoring Club I run, too many men and sadly women think this sort of gender based stuff is simply feminist fluff with us only wanting things all our own way.

We even hear excuses like ‘there aren’t enough women to take the lead’…

Well here we are and I hope you voted for the RIGHT candidates yesterday. Even if it meant taking a ‘risk’ on women for the first time? How else can we prove our mettle if we aren’t given that chance?

But perhaps the email I received from the party this morning might explain why voting for WE (women and men) and supporting FOXY Lady Drivers Club, is all about making things better for women and in turn for men too. It’s important to see the BIG picture before making gender assumptions and simply walking away…

And in the same way as FOXY Lady Drivers Club looks to the motor industry to support it, the WE party looks to men and women alike to support it. Much as the money raised by Sandy’s speaking tour goes towards WE. For us all to do a better job for everyone. Which isn’t difficult, given the state of things in politics and some areas of the motor industry today…
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This is the email I received this morning (Friday 6 May 2016).

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“We — Catherine and Sandi — founded the Women’s Equality party to shake up politics and push gender equality on to the agenda. We aimed not only to make change directly, but also to influence the old parties to up their game.

Because of you, that has already happened. Our brilliant campaigns in Wales, Scotland and London, each managed locally and powered by our amazing activists, forced all the other parties to focus on issues that too often are sidelined or ignored. WE turned the debate to caregiving and the gender pay gap and violence against women and WE then watched the other parties sidle up to our manifestos and scoop up our policies to repackage as their own.

Together WE have started something — a party, a movement, a realisation that things must change — and the elections were just the start.

Of course we are on the edges of our seats waiting for the results. There’s not one of our candidates who wouldn’t lift the standard of politics and bring the sorts of perspectives that are so badly lacking.

But we are also already celebrating, and what we are celebrating is YOU. You have helped WE to win in making a difference. And when WE win, everyone wins. Because equality is better for everyone.”

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Hear, hear. And I support WE because it is the right thing to do.

I’m proud of WE for doing it.

And if YOU haven’t joined WE yet, can I suggest you do so NOW!

Because it’s money they need to stand up to the big budget boys in politics.

Have a look at the WE website please and JOIN US.

And I guarantee that if you are looking for a better motoring deal, women’ll struggle to find a better one than joining FOXY Lady Drivers Club too.

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Hillary for US President?

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As a feminist I am delighted to see Hillary Clinton standing for President of the USA. It’s about time that country had its first female leader to act as a role model for the talented women both our countries need in politics.

But not everyone will share my sentiments and she’s going to get a shed load of adverse comments re her gender, her age, her hair and being a ‘wife’… from men and women alike.

Yesterday I heard a commentator say ‘we know very little about her’ as if that was her fault not theirs.

And then about her health because she fainted once in 2012…

And then Peter Hitchens wonders if she’ll get votes because she’s a women rather than because of her left wing tendencies.

Already she is being criticised for her marriage to Bill (again) and her campaign funds (as if anyone would set out for the White House without the wealth to get there).

Nobody cares to remember that she was Obama’s chosen Secretary of State until very recently, travelling the world to calm and influence troubled international waters.

Challenging a man’s world…

Hillary seems damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t in the masculine world of US politics…

It’s still a man’s world in the automotive industry too and no naturally masculine industry wants to change the status quo if it can help it. Unless the individuals within it are sufficiently liberated and well informed to appreciate the diversity benefits that the right gender balance will bring any team.

Clearly Obama was.

For change to come about this side of the pond, women have to DO something to achieve the lifestyle and work balance they want. We can’t sit still and wait for change to come to us. Nothing happens when you do nothing as the following examples suggest…

+ Do nothing and there will be few if any female directors on UK car manufacturer and the top 100 dealership boards.

+ Do nothing and women customers will continue to be treated like men, thus perpetuating the image that garages and dealerships can and should be more female friendly.

+ Do nothing and there will be very few females selling cars when women could do this job well and many (female and male) customers would love to have this choice.

+ Do nothing and young talented females will continue to choose careers outside the motor industry (and politics?) preferring other, evidently more women friendly routes…

Let’s not forget it has taken Lord Davies, funding and lots of sabre rattling to get FTSE boards to recruit women in the first place. And whilst a 25% female board including short term (ie potentially disposable) Non Executive Directors is by no means equality it is a long way ahead of the motor industry that has yet to pick up this gender baton. And it took a carrot and stick approach to get the final stragglers to the FTSE party.

Women should support women…

I would love to see a shared commitment from men and women working in the UK motor industry to open welcoming career doors wide to women of all ages as customers and potential staff; working en masse to restore the lacklustre image of this unlicensed industry to its shiny potential.

I am offended when clever and successful women (who should know better) forget they are female, set out to outbloke their male colleagues and fail to stick up for other women making a difference in their career lane.

I am then reminded of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s saying when she encountered this sort of resistance – “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

So let 2016 be Hillary’s best year ever, regardless of her age, her looks and her gender. Let her carry on her hard work, emotional responses and caring politics and may she act as the ultimate role model to others, encouraging young women to pitch for the very top in their respective careers including politics. Without forgetting that they are females representing their gender throughout their diverse lives…

I hope she will be given the chance to succeed. I’m sure she’s tough enough to handle the male gender abuse she’ll get and I hope she can count on the support of her gender as she attempts to climb her highest career peak yet, even from those females that don’t share her politics.