I have not attended a single client meeting. not one. this was understandable when i was just starting out. but now, it doesnt seem right, for a lot of reasons.
i handle everything once the client approves the project from documentation to the actual research to the report. iam their point-of-contact for queries/clarifications when the project is on. mostly because its over phone, texts and emails. but when they visit, i dont attend the meeting. iam never invited.
when will i be enough? i dont know. will i ever be enough? and mind you, this is not even someone who’s breaking the glass ceiling and climbing the corporate ladder in a company where you havent even met the top guns.
and this happens for two reasons and combinations there of. one, the owner of the company has never invited me (except for a North Indian client meeting where my hindi speaking and translation services were required) and two, because the clients who visit are men who want to talk shop.
i know of countable women who have made it in this world of men reaching VP positions and actually commanding the respect due. the key words being countable women. and god am i jealous of them.
I also know of companies that invite the newest of newbies to meetings because it’s what is required of their job title. Sure, the women don’t contribute the meeting and the men talk shop ignoring such newbies but atleast they are invited? should we be happy with such meagre improvements while Instagram is full of my-husband-is-doing-the-dishes reels Oh how the mighty have fallen. Thats the thing about respect. Respect where it’s due, whenever it’s due.
iam not sounding bitter or ungrateful. i dont even know if i would be a similar or better position if i were at another organisation but it somehow hurts worse now. its just something i cant digest. i dont know how to. i cant fight this. i cant live with this either. but what i realised was that there are others who fight harder battles.
there is this daughter i know. father owns a very prominent pharma company where she wasnt ever granted a position at the top. we dint know she existed until a few years ago.
she now runs a division of the company, discrete and independent of the main one. from what i heard she is firm about zero-interference in that division and runs the whole unit from another country.
i dont know of the struggles she had to endure, or the challenges she faces to this day, but i know it was an uphill climb to where she is now and it isnt an easy one to sustain.
if she couldnt , given all that she had at her disposal, i dont see why my life should be easy or different. but i just wish it was.
its exhilarating to listen to beyonce or claim to be unstoppable like sia but iam not pessimistic about this. what scares me even more that iam probably being realistic about the situation.
who run the world? men who decide who gets to be at what meeting.
who run the world? men who want to talk shop without the women in the room
who run the world? men who still dont trust you enough and yet expect/require you to do the job.
