Today being International Women’s Day, let me shed some light to the disbelievers on why it is important to keep a focus specifically on women:

– when it comes to car accidents, significantly more women get injured compared to men: not because they are worse drivers, but because seat belts are a perfect fit for the male body, not the female…
– when it comes not only to power tools but even smartphones, have you ever noticed they seemed to be sized for the hand of a male, not a female…

(You can find more examples in this wonderful long-read from The Guardian I saved two years ago.)

Note how the above examples don’t even have anything to do yet with the underrepresentation of women in politics, business, technology, …

SPARK OF THE DAY

Women Empowerment goes beyond quota and ticking gender-boxes: as a male manager or (tech) entrepreneur, if you want to have more women on your team: start talking their language, and most of all start looking for them in places where they like to hang out which is likely to be outside of your comfort zone…

It can’t be just a coincidence that companies led by women attract more female talent. It’s not that the talent isn’t there, it’s just where you look to find them and what you do to keep them.