This week I am thinking about Davos, Switzerland. Not because of the spectacular mountain views or the apres ski … but because of my professional women friends, especially you young women lawyers.
As you may know, Davos is the home of the annual World Economic Forum, and the 2015 conference is underway as I write. Billionaires, CEOs, heads of state and others who breathe the same rarefied air have gathered to address global issues like cybersecurity, international trade, stabilizing international economies, global competitiveness and other such lofty subjects.
Why should you care? Because they frequently talk about issues affecting women that have nothing to do with cocktails and fondue. Yes, important subjects like whether women are ambitious enough for the business world.
That subject was addressed at the 2012 World Economic Forum when Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook executive, stated that women in the western world lack ambition and that it is holding them back. She talked specifically about an “ambition gap” for women in business. You can read more about her remarks in one of my earlier blogs.
Maybe you just heard my inner scream! This is so far off the mark! Business women in America do not lack ambition. They lack time. There is a “time gap” not an ambition gap. A time gap for family caretaking, for other family support, for billing hours, for business travel, for developing new clients … and the list goes on. If you are one of those women, you know exactly what I mean. And, if you are not, you may be one day, so it is worth paying attention.
Women are not magicians. They cannot create more time. They cannot even create the illusion of more time. No David Copperfields here. Just women working hard to balance in the only way that fits them personally. And, they deserve more respect than a sound bite.
As I pointed out in the earlier blog, women are plenty ambitious in the middle of the night when they are working on the legal memo, fixing the kids’ brown bag lunches for the next day, doing laundry and performing sundry other tasks that did not fit into the daylight hours.
So, let’s hope that the “chit chat” in Davos produces some really helpful information for women this year. That would be nice.
