Saturn Returns with Caggie - 6.9 Feminism, Equality and Navigating Patriarchal Culture with Dr Sarah Rutherford (aka Caggie’s mum!)

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Dr. Sarah Rutherford is a consultant, writer, and speaker with an academic background in organisational culture. She is the author of the book Women’s Work Men’s Cultures: Overcoming Resistance and Changing Organizational Cultures (Palgrave Macmillan). She also happens to be Caggie’s mum! In this conversation, Sarah explains a brief history of feminism and how progress in equality isn’t always linear; we only have to look at what is happening in the world today to see how quickly women’s rights can be taken away and why they have to continue to be fought for. She shares her insights on culture in the workplace, how women’s experiences often differ vastly to men’s, and the reasons why. They also discuss the stigma around women helping women, which Caggie refers to as the “female wound” and this feeling we often have that there isn’t room for all of us to succeed.  This is also an interesting insight into Caggie’s personal life, as it’s her first time having a family member on the show! --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. and you look terrified i'm not terrified what you just don't like that i don't plan anything supposing you ask questions that all i don't think are very good ones today i wanted to talk to someone who has thought a lot about feminism and women's rights in a practical context, specifically the workplace. Dr. Sarah Rutherford is a consultant and researcher who wrote the book Women's Work, Men's Cultures in 2011, and has since advised and helped organizations identify barriers to women's progress, suggesting ways they can change their culture and coaching their senior management. She is quite the powerhouse and she's also my mum. So this week's

episode is going to be a unique one because it's both educational and personal as you get an insight into the dynamic between me and my mother. I grew up in Barnes, London, with my mum, my brother and my dad. And my mum has always taught me to be independent. She's always been very career driven. And that was my example. That was my role model growing up, which I am so grateful for because she's always encouraged me to seek out my own path and not to just settle or think that I'm not capable of doing things myself. She's also

educated me a lot about subjects that I perhaps wouldn't have known about and today we're going to look at the history of feminism because although it's talked about a lot today I wanted to know how it was different for her growing up. What particularly struck me about this conversation was the fact that feminism is not linear. We only have to look at the US right now to see how things can be overturned. It's scary to think that these rights

that we consider to be given can just as easily be taken away. My mum has some interesting takes on if women were more in charge we could have avoided situations like the financial crash and this is open to opinion of course but it's an interesting one to view things through. Of course it's really important to point out that although feminism is an all-women issue, in many ways, both my mum and I are exceptionally privileged. We do not want to detract from anyone else's experience of the world. We are just sharing our perspectives as women in the UK in 2022.

Before we get into this episode, let's check in with our astrological guide, Nora. Saturn is the planet, or rather it's the collective energy that thrives for justice and in a certain equality in society. It always manifests in oppression as well as eventual rebellion, which is a paradox in itself. Secondly, Saturn is a genderless concept. Venus and the Moon are for the female energy, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter for the male energy, and therefore what Saturn teaches us collectively is that there's

no justice when one gender or the other is being suppressed, marginalized, or oppressed. Hence, when Saturn transited back into Capricorn in 2018 and then in Aquarius in 2020, it awakened on a mass level the issues between races as well as genders, as well as the oppression of one over the other. The patriarchy cannot exist without the matriarchy, and the matriarchy doesn't exist without the patriarchy. Which brings us to the moon and the Sun. Esoterically, the Sun is the male principle and the moon is the female principle. The moon shines when the male honors her and sheds its light onto her, but equally the Sun wouldn't be able to have the value it has without the moon, for the Sun gives the earth the energy to thrive but the moon dies and counts

time to count back to the Sun. It gets deeper es to thrive between guys and counts time to count back to the Sun. It gets deeper esoterically, but let's circle back to Saturn. Saturn is a neutralizer. It has no preference. Male, female, black, white and everything in between, all it cares about is duty and equality, from one team to another. And without it, there's no balance. The concept of yin and

yang is destroyed when either energy, the male-focused movements or the female-focused movements ignore the betterment of the whole, of our legacy, and in turn, our future. And that's what Saturn teaches us all in a holistic way. that we're to honour the feminine without neglecting the masculine, and that we're to shine a light upon the feminine if we want a future at all. Well, Mum, welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. Or actually, I should introduce you as Dr. Sarah Rutherford. That's better. How are you doing? I'm fine this morning thank you.

So for the audience that doesn't know because they're not going to would you be able to explain a little bit about who you are beyond being his mum being my mum the person that brought me into this world and raised me. So I had been a financial journalist when I had you two, carried on for a couple of years. And then I was offered a job which would have entailed me working really quite long hours. So I decided that it would be too much to do that and have children at home that I wanted to see. was me too much to do that and have children at home that I wanted to see. So I decided to go back to university. And I decided to do something that I had done law before, and I decided to do something that I was really interested in. And I wangled my way in to do a master's in sort of women's studies, really, as it was called then. It was sort of women and employment,

was sociology. It was sociology of employment and the sociology of women and employment with sociology it was sociology of employment and the sociology of women and research methods and just to kind of i mean bring it into today that's something that's obviously a lot more present and discussed but back then it wasn't actually sociology was quite a big thing back then but women in the workplace women in the workplace was just starting and actually what what it was, was we did courses. The one course was employment, and that was looking at everything to do with employment, nothing to do with women particularly. And then the other course was looking at women's studies. So that was looking at everything like, you know, pornography, prostitute, everything.

pornography a prostitute everything and because of my background in where I worked in finance I decided to combine the two you've obviously studied the history of feminism in a way that most people haven't but it's become a very popular topic today and there's a I think that there's a big difference in generations into how we approach it and how we speak about it. And so I would love to hear from you a bit about the history of feminism that you've actually studied and how that's skewed today. And it's an important thing to add as a caveat to everyone listening that we acknowledge that we're both women of privilege and have had a very fortunate upbringing. So we're seeing things through that lens. That's a good point because one of my, well, I'd love to see a campaign. I haven't really got the energy to start it myself.

But one of the things I've always tried to push for is for children to study feminism at school. And I know sometimes, you know, the suffragette history is brought into the history curriculum, but actually learning about how feminism has developed over the last hundred years is probably one of the most important social aspects of our lives and it impacts us most. So young women today aren't taught the basics, which I think is one of the reasons why there's

a misunderstanding. So just to go back to the actual word itself, feminism, you say it's well understood today or is more popular today. it might be used today in certainly feminism as I when I was growing up and I became a feminist it was considered really radical and like you could not mention it in the workplace and today in a lot of workplaces you don't mention the word feminism really no not going in you you call it diversity gender diversity inclusion you don't mention the word feminism. Really? No, not going in. You call it diversity, gender diversity, inclusion. You don't start talking in overtly feminist way because feminism is in its kind of... Okay, maybe not talking in an overtly feminist way,

but perhaps it's just the world that I live in. But across social media, it's a sort of badge of honor to be a feminist when people don't actually necessarily live that or know really what it means and also for men to say that that it's all got very um yes it's become a well it's sort of become like an identity as opposed to actually being a very kind of active social movement that wanted change. And virtue signaling. Originally, feminism was about really wanting change, wanting change in men's behavior, wanting change in the workplace.

And, you know, there's been some very successful campaigns. We got the vote. So it's a struggle and a fight because nothing is being given without being fought for. Not one single law has passed even today without it being campaigned for. And you always remind me because of course, just throughout my lifetime, I view progression as a constant, as a sort of linear thing. And you often say, don't forget that it can be taken away, that things can progress. And I think we're also seeing moments like that happen across the world you know look

at the abortion rights that in america and things like that and it is quite um it's strange how so many aspects we're moving forward and then we're also moving back simultaneously So there's always going to be that oppressor. Women's rights are not guaranteed. And sometimes you can see that sort of atrocities against women are hardly counted as human rights still. I mean, you can look at rapes that's going on in wars. And it's, I mean, it's a massive issue. But it's, if you think about it, it's absolutely appalling. But it's kind of it's a massive issue but it's if you think about it it's absolutely appalling but it's kind of like oh well that's what happens in war well why does it happen in war why is it happening and i think one of the saddest things is when you see it women's rights can be turned back through legislation but mostly today it's often through ideologies and religion so some

religions particularly you know for instance you go to afghanistan show you pictures of afghanistan in the 70s and you wouldn't recognize it certainly in the cities where you knew you wore miniskirts yeah and i mean that's just a key example it's so sad and now you're seeing girls now they've stopped them they said they were going to send them back to secondary school and they've decided not to that's half the population it's not some minority that's where feminism is very different from other isms and oppressions because it's half the world so although there are massive differences obviously between different women and some of us might be different different you know, I might have more

in common with a white middle class man than I do with a woman in Africa, for instance. But the commonality is still being an important part of feminism, because there is no country in the world where women are actually equal. No country in the world. women are actually equal no country in the world but do you think when we're speaking about feminism today and let's just i mean keep it within the western culture you say it's half the world but it's not actually speaking for half the world because the topics of conversation we're having around it let's just say within the uk aren't necessarily i i see what you're saying i think the original ideas of feminism which was which focused on dignity respect and uh the key pillars and the key pillars that's yeah and male

violence are the kind of commonalities that you could actually point to all around the world there is no understanding of feminism unless you understand that actually on some level, all women are impacted by some kind of patriarchal system. Not all are the same. They're all different. It changes all the time. There are subtleties, of course. And there are differences that working class women, middle class women, black women, Asian women, all over the place place but these are particularities that also need to be fought for but mustn't lose the umbrella otherwise you lose the power of the united fronts yeah i think do you think it is losing its power by becoming sort of more fragmented yeah well that's where the whole argument about intersectionality and what that means and how it applies.

And I think I've just been reading a book called Power of Difference. And he puts it very well that in different times in history, you need to have the overarching group. For instance, the suffragette movement was divided into two. They had very different approaches to how to get the vote which were what one was more advocating for sort of more like violence and throwing homemade bombs and stuff they did not kill people but just sort of that kind of and the other wasn't so much but what they did was that they sort of buried their differences to get the main thing and then go their separate ways and that's sort of like

most movements you know you can't say that everybody's the same because they share a sex or a race or a religion of course they're not but there are certain commonalities that need to be recognized and i think that's the thing lost that's the danger of the fragmentation that I've argued that diversity is a word and I'm talking about in the workplace here we used to have equal opportunities and it was very specific we had you know we have got laws for the different characteristics but by making everybody's different diversity which is what it means you kind of lose well everybody's different, diversity, which is what it means, you kind of lose, well, everybody's different. So where's the, how broken down are you going to get? And I think it's sort of because we've become much more individualistic as a society. cause ultimately and i think that has become because of social media and the internet and we're just all existing in our own echo chambers and end up actually shouting at the people that we're supposed to be supporting and that's also where like nothing i don't think it's a very

progressive place to be even though that's where it's all sort of coming from is that people think that by saying these things to each other that they are being progressive and it's sort of like a validation of their morality or well it's putting the it's putting the power in language which is where really i think identity politics has gone a focus on what you say and words and language whereas the people and the feminists I respect are the ones who are out there working to improve women's conditions. They're actually doing something.

That's what I respect. And there are some amazing things going on in women's rights, women's refuges, helping women in poverty, etc., etc., trying to fight the law on certain things, campaigning, basically, because that's really, in our sort of student days many years ago, that's what social justice and social movement was to us. It was going out and trying to get change basically

my work since I did that master's I then went on and did a PhD looking at the impact of different organizational cultures on women in the workplace what was it about the culture that made it easier in some parts of an organization or some industries that made it easier for women to progress. And then it became quite a big market for that kind of thing, and I stayed on and worked. So I've been very lucky that I've actually worked in an area that I'm really passionately interested in, which is quite unusual. But, you know, I've met huge numbers of women in the workplace,

so I reckon I sort of understand what the issues are and they're they're fairly kind of common across the different what which are the basic problem really for women in the workplace unless it's a a new company and I do think it's changing partly because of technology but in the sort of older established industries the workplace was designed for men's lives not women's lives so you can come in and you can be open to that when you're in your early 20s say but you're aware if you if you look up there aren't so many women kind of at the top so you start to, what's going on here? And then even the hours, although maybe the pandemic has changed that

and will change that, but if you talk to women, they are trying to work as men used to work when they had wives at home. And they might well have children. It's just not right. And so there's still a lot of change. I mean, I look at more organizational change, at how organizations should change maybe the ways that they work as well as their culture.

So the workplace issues for women has been in the past harassment. the workplace issues for women has been in the past harassment and that can mean overtly by one man bothering you or it can be a bit more subtly which I do call a form of harassment which is where you get marginalized like left out of emails a bit ignored at a meeting your ideas come up but then somebody else brings them up and he's a bloke and he gets it heard very familiar things um also just the ways in which women work are on the whole different of course there's some crossovers you know if you have one of those venn diagrams you've got crossovers and there are bits in the middle where I'm probably work in some ways in quite a masculine way that you do I probably do yeah but I'm just saying that from my own observations but

one of the things that I think I have noticed is that women are and I I just really go back to wondering whether this is actually a sort of genetic biological thing. Is that, for instance, in my research, I noticed that women's styles of managing, this is looking at management, are different on the whole different. And they think, women think they're more different than men think they're different. You see what I mean? As in, what do you mean? So when I did my research, you know, ask the question, do you think women manage differently? Vast majority of the women said yes. And men said said no but quite a lot of men wouldn't know they'd never let them

but men didn't but men were also some of them did recognize it but but women had to probably you know have and continue to have to mold themselves to a more masculine way especially more senior they go up yeah so i noticed that the styles changed as they went up, the organization. And in some respects, that might be that the business demanded it. But things like risk management. And this has been written about a lot. So people said after the financial crisis, oh, that wouldn't, you know, this was in 2007, 2008. Oh, that wouldn't have happened if we'd had more women at the top.

I actually do believe that. I do. And in fact, you know, Iceland responded by actually immediately making women the head of their pank. They did, didn't they? Yeah. And it was meant to happen here. And that's really one of the pushes that started to get more women going on corporate boards and things. But I think it's because as a woman, if you're a mum, let's just go back.

This is throughout history. You have to kind of watch out for your children when they're little. You have to, you know, they need a lot of looking after. Therefore, you're constantly slightly looking ahead. Assessing the risk. Is there danger over there? It's sort of, i guess it's probably a combination of culture and biology yeah nature nurture definitely i wouldn't have thought i was

an obvious nurturing type i did what not that maternal not that maternal like that but when you have children you do suddenly notice that you are looking out. And fathers are brilliant, can be brilliant. In my experience, they don't look out in quite the same way. And I've seen that in management. And I'd say that's what happened with the huge risks taken in the financial crisis, which if you look back and sort of see what they were, it was just an accident waiting to happen. And I'd also say for instance at the beginning of our lockdown when ex-mp Amber Rudd said to Boris Johnson and the leadership could you make sure you've got plenty of women around you because there'll be consequences that maybe you won't see

and now we're seeing what's happened children not going back to school just just in terms of thinking a bit more holistically of like all the variables yeah the things to weigh up so kind of in a crisis point that actually women are better in yeah and i i mean this is an example of it's slightly different but along the same lines i once went to a talk by female sailor called tracy edwards she sailed around the world she won the first woman to do so in a group of women anyway she made they made a brilliant film called maiden you can still get it i think it's absolutely fantastic and she talked she gave this talk and she said you know people said how did you manage with women she's tiny five foot three tiny slim and she said well as a woman sailing that kind of you know people said how did you manage with women she's tiny five foot three tiny slim and she said well as a woman sailing that kind of you know across pacific and all rest of it

you have the same boats but you're saying in a different way if you see that there might be a hurricane coming you change course and go around it she said a boat full of men might sail much closer to the hurricane and get hit by some of it. But they're strong and they're big and they can probably manage. I know I couldn't manage. We know we couldn't manage. And actually, she ended up doing better than most of the men by just taking a little bit more of a careful course around. It's that kind of thing i mean it's generalization but it is a generalization but i also i think we we both you

know individually and collectively need a bit of a balance we need both absolutely i wouldn't say i mean i've i've worked in a both extremes when i was a journalist i was in one department that was practically all women and that wasn't particularly healthy either. No, that can be really toxic in its own way. Well, everybody's emotions were all over the place. They were basically, there was always somebody in tears in the room. And it was sort of like we just needed the balance. And I think that maybe one of the last things to happen in the kind of,

in my world, in the workplace is for men and a lot of them do now really recognize that women might bring something different but it's just as good and it's just as needed yeah and probably from you know just having my own experience I've always been brought up with a lot of male energy in my life and I love men so and I've also been fortunate enough that I've the work and the industries that I've been in I've never really had any bad experiences like that perhaps a little bit in the music industry where it's like some not amazing things happen but with everything that's happened over the last couple of years and i guess especially with the me too movement that kind of exploded things but do i'm concerned with it becoming a sort of like

because the masculine and the feminine is essentially i think what you're talking about and those are more energies and so it's like a combination of that as opposed to just gender because i think i've also met many men that perhaps might feel in the same way that you or I do when they go into like quite a male-dominated environment and they might feel oh yeah you know not very comfortable and having to lean into aspects of themselves that aren't natural but because they're in a man's body everyone's like oh they're just another man in the same way that a woman might and have to be more in her masculine yes absolutely well that's you see in my feminism

the difference between you've got biological sex and you've got and we use the word gender really because we're talking about masculinity and femininity and that's what we would always refer to as sort of a gendered way of being and we're all made up both some more some more than others absolutely i think to go back to what you said about how we operate in the workplace is there seems to be like a bit of a feminine wound around women helping women and i spoke to elise lewin about this because you know and she kind of connected it to the witch trials and the fact that you know women didn't have there weren't many spaces for them and so therefore it creates this slight well if i if i tell you how i've got ahead then i'm going to put myself behind and i don't know whether men carry that I know they do

but so it means that we're actually not only not creating those spaces but actually actively not helping each other because of this kind of well there's not room for all of us so therefore if I give you information it's going to help you go forward I am actually hindering myself yeah there's a bit of that I mean I'm really hoping that that's dying out but certainly when I was you know when there were really very few women in the sort of senior echelons of business there was this thing we used to call it the queen bee syndrome which is I've got here on my own I'm not helping you that sort of thing and I feel that's a shame that that still goes on

like that I've seen much more uh nurturing and much more also I think that it is although it's a bit of a pain sometimes it's incumbent on older women to help younger ones it's really really important because that's what men do to young men in the workplace you know whether you call it mentoring or sponsorship or informal or formal of course because i mean we see that with freddie and how you know how many people just in terms of who we know through families and friends that can help but i think to kind of carving out these new careers there's no one above us that have done it no no you're kind of like new you're new at it so you know it's probably the last thing you want to hear kag but perhaps you ought to form your own but it's but you know

i should but you are that's all it you only need a small group really yeah you don't need a huge great network at this stage because you're it's not that that you need it's just sharing some of the problems and the solutions and helping one another in a very practical sort of way and not being afraid to ask people for help not being afraid to ask because it's actually a new area yeah so because I think even with you when we have some conversation and it probably just triggers that part of me that's always felt like oh I'm this dyslexic creative so therefore like don't ask questions because you're going to be seen as stupid but also like I'm figuring out stuff for the first time on my own and therefore I'm going to make mistakes

going to get things wrong but if I if I don't speak out about it I'm not going to learn I'm not going to learn I'm not actually going to progress I'm just going to be stagnant so that's something that I'm probably struggling with a bit at the moment and that's you know a very common thing and a difference between men and women that men are like i have no idea i'm going to give it a go or if they're in a meeting they're like does anyone have an idea and then we'll just say whatever comes to their head whereas women will have like something incredible and they won't say anything yeah yeah it's terrible that still goes on it is and then also that thing of having to be like so accomplished elise spoke about in her

book it was like you know she's someone that's so well read and so accomplished and yet she's finding herself saying all the things she's not so that she doesn't get in trouble for guising herself whereas like men seem to be the of the opposite i actually i did write something like this the other day the best explanation i've seen ever it was a book about symbolism and organizational cultures and women by sylvia garradi and she says that this sort of apologetic tone and wanting to be like you know applying for a job with when you've got 110 percent of all the things they ask etc etc always sort of say can i just ask i'm sorry all of this where does that stem from though she

said it comes from the fact that as women we've gone into men's space and we've broken a symbolic order oh and therefore we have to apologize all the time for our presence for our presence and i think it's still going on yeah you know on the tube you know you look at women and they'll probably all kind of like quite hunched up in their seat men spread out they can't see me but it's like taking up space taking up public space women still kind of like will try and make themselves quite small and in a meeting you know don't say anything unless it's really really good all of those kind of things and even in in my research for interviewing quite senior women when i wrote my book i um interviewed this one woman i won't name her but she's really

really kind of at the top of her game in terms of she's a non-exec and loads of things now she still said she has to make it actually think about when she makes a point at a meeting of getting people's attention and she's thought of ways of doing it she said i'm so fed up with i she said i'm so fed up with saying things and then somebody else saying them later as if i had not said them they were talking about somebody that's you know pussy 100 non-executive woman. And she said, so she sort of taps on the table and she makes sure she makes eye contact

and little tips like that. Just having to go quite extreme just to be heard. So, I mean, I'm fortunate that I've not actually had to experience those situations. You did have one once, you said, when you were in a recording studio, sometimes you had ideas had ideas that whenever i've been with more than one man yes so whenever i have two and it's me i'm something like hello am i invisible i actually had it on a podcast the other day when it's two men and me and for the first time in years i felt that feeling of

oh i'm the minority and i'm the one that's going to be sort of left all those feelings that it came with and I really had to kind of ground myself in that moment be like you have something to contribute here don't because it's it's an energetic thing as well and it makes you want to be small makes you want to not speak up well sometimes it can feel like a bit of a fight to be heard totally that's where men have to learn to be quiet sometimes yeah so in the process of writing your book what would you say the most shocking revelation was well there wasn't much revelation in as much as i the book is a combination of all my research weaved into stories about my consultancy, obviously slightly disguising the companies, etc, and the people, etc. Probably talking to women like the one I've

just mentioned, who is the senior, very senior woman in the business world. I was a bit shocked that was still going on at that level with somebody like her. I found that quite disappointing. I also interviewed a lot of sort of 28-year-olds, women, to ask them. I did kind of like a snowball sample to ask them about various aspects of their career planning. And I was a bit shocked that so many of them were already planning to move somewhere where they thought it would be easier to have children. In fact, they might have been younger than 28 they might have been like 26 27 and these were all kind of professionals and they were going to move because it didn't lend itself to yeah yeah well i guess you know to tie all these things in a little bit it is hard when you've got quite an established structure and business model to suddenly make it more

female orientated it is it's actually a lot easier when you're starting from the beginning yeah like i am okay i have no no idea what i'm doing most of the time but at least i can cultivate things that are around what works to be a woman like how it works to be a woman and how we you know and already i i try and do things that mean that it's not that rigid in its hours and stuff like that it is about I mean when they're when the industry and the business is very established for men it's very difficult and it's not a coincidence that one of the companies that I spent some time talking to the founder of a computer kind of process consultancy company really she founded it and it was just it just ran in a very different way and she said that she and she had four

children she said i employ people on their values as much as their experience she said if you're very bright you can learn the things that we do. And you have to, you know, you have to understand that people here have families and they want the time. So she ran it on a very flexible sort of basis. But she had that opportunity right from the start to do. And that doesn't happen that often. Another aspect actually that I did find interesting, not so surprising, but very interesting was that one of my case studies for the book was a FTSE 100 company. And it had a very unusual situation at the time. It had a female CEO, chief executive officer, and a female finance director and a female, some other female on the main board all at the same time and wasn't really till I interviewed a couple of the men on the board I realized why it was okay publishing is quite a female orientated industry but so are lots of others like retail and they're not necessarily got women bosses. And it was the kind of men that were on the board and the kind of men at the top of the company. They were much more, I would say, less masculine in terms of their approach.

They'd come from journalism and these kind of subjects. And actually what it said to me was that these men didn't mind moving over and letting women come in. Whereas actually once you start going... Didn't have egos. Well, no, they weren't so threatened. They didn't want to hold the power all for themselves. Because one of the guys that I spoke to, he could have gone for the chief executive job,

but he knew that this woman would be better. That's quite unusual. And I found that was very interesting. So there's something about men keeping those elite, high status jobs for themselves which is where the kind of the feminism thing comes in to the workplace that different barriers get formed which is true for any minority that's dominated by it is but you have not you haven't got a situation where you've got literally half the population in competition with you in its half and half

so in funnily enough you see women aren't a minority they're an underrepresented group in certain places but with other underrepresented groups or who really are in a minority in some ways they're far less of a threat because there aren't very many of them but for men in power a huge number of women coming in at the same level is much more of a kind of threat much more of a threat so it's about competition in the end well before this cuts out again um is there anything else you'd like to add for our listeners because obviously you just mentioned the fact that a lot of your studies were you know 28 year old women and that is a large portion of our listeners is female and yes i would i would i would um i would certainly advise young women to research well in terms of

their career paths and what they're doing and to find mentors sponsors other women doesn't have to be in your organization but maybe across your industry join a sort of network of some sort because it actually it actually can feel that it's just you and it isn't and you'll find some commonality i think that's probably and also to find men that that you can actually talk to openly. I think younger men are much more open to having these kind of conversations. Definitely. So, yeah, that's all I'd say, really. Mum, thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me.

I hope you enjoyed this episode with me and my mum and it gave you some food for thought. I loved listening back. And although we do have these conversations probably more than most sort of mother-daughter dynamics it's quite interesting to actually sit down with her in a more professional setting and see what she has to say and it's incredibly impressive and I'm very proud of her and everything that she's gone out to do. So thank you very much, Mum, for joining me on Saturn Returns. Thank you guys for listening to this week's episode.

And remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.