Okay ladies, gather round.
I have always loved Google Chrome. Since it came on the scene, I have unfailingly used it as my browser. Its clean lines, its easy search, its surety of providing the latest content. Those cool pictures they use sparingly around the search box, so when they show up you smile or marvel at the coolness of it all. Google is the Apple of browsers. You feel good using it.
But I have also always felt that it was male-oriented. Come to think of it, all browsers are male-oriented. It’s never really bothered me; I am sort of male-oriented. I believe there is no crying in business. I believe that flirting in order to get someone at the office to do something for you denigrates my hard work and makes it harder for me to be taken seriously. I believe that business should be genderless, but that’s impossible, so I muddle along doing the best I can with what I have been given.
I was reading the Wall Street Journal the other day, and the front page of the business section had two articles centered around female CEOs. They weren’t about the fact that they had women CEO’s, which was great, but the front page was littered with women’s pictures and I couldn’t help but take note. One article was about Meg Whitman’s struggling Hewlett Packard (not my thing), and the other one was about the fabulous Marissa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo, and her plans to prioritize product development. The headlines were more about her pregnancy than about her becoming CEO. Whatever. It felt good to have women dominate the front page of the WSJ’s business section―they rarely do. I loved it, and when I love something, it gets me thinking.
There are three women in the top management structure of Google. That’s three out of twenty-one individuals listed on Google’s web site. I’m not all that great at numbers, but we are talking about less than 15 percent. Now, let’s review their responsibilities. One is head of Google.org, which is the not-for-profit organization that gives Google Foundation money away. Another is VP of Advertising, and another is Head of Communications and Public Policy. Now, I do not in any way want to cast aspersions on these women’s jobs, all of which are important and require intelligence and hard work. But let’s be real here; none of those in the arena of how it all works and the language that it speaks will have my gender perspective. So why am I passively giving Google my business?
We women make up more than half of the U.S. Let’s take that out for a spin, ladies. We never do that. We never do! Why is that? Are we the crazies who continue to be downtrodden because we never realize our own strength? What if we all decided to move from Google to Yahoo? Seriously, we can make the change we want to see. We can demand stronger representation and more say in how things go with sheer numbers. What if, the day after Ms Mayer’s baby is born, we all promise to spend an entire day only using Yahoo?
Yes, I do know that this is not unique idea. Girl Power has been around since Gloria Steinem put on her marching shoes without heels. But it hasn’t been usedsuccessfully in social media yet. Come on ladies, whadaya say? You in? Let’s take our power out for a spin and let’s give a sister a leg up. While she doesn’t appear to need the leg up; it would be nice if she knew we were in it for her to win it. It’s time.