Women at work
Nov 15, 2003 00:00 am / Viewed 5,126 times / 2 comments
It was just until a few months ago, I was lonely for friendship with women. When I went to visit Europe last June and met my colleagues, it was such wonderful discovery that my counterparts were mostly women! Then I came back to Japan, I felt so keenly that I was missing such closeness with women friends.
Then, something happened. In work, I have started working closely with more women then ever. Currently, two out of three projects I am now working on have women as my direct contacts for clients. The informal network of community of practice in strategic workplace consulting are made up of all women, 4 of us spread out over the globe. My previous training session was the same way. Only one out of six participants being a man, all of us from different parts of the world.
Wyuki commented when we were looking at my training session photos, wow, mostly women! Then we wondered, where are all the men? Is it the work that we do is better suited for women’s capability, temperament?
I am not saying no men around my work. In Japan, my best friend is a man, my day to day local contacts are mostly men. It may be something heppening just by chance. Or finally, what Tom Peter has been saying caught up? That half of the population is woman, and woman is at work outside of home that makes be best use of her talents, capabilities?
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The phase lasted so long, I stopped hurting so bad, but then lately, things really changed. First of all, I now have Japanese lady friends who are in their late twenties. I learned that I feel close to many Japanese women in their mid to late twenties because our values are similar. Secondly, I am working closely with women of Western cultures whom I can share both values as well as emotional vives.
Well, as you say. You are probably teaching woman many things at the same they are teaching you?
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Perhaps, as you said, you get what you need, not what you want. Perhaps you need the women in your life now (and before you needed the men) to progress to your next level. Certainly you can really appreciate them now in a way you might not have before.
I’m on the opposite side of the coin… I’m lonely for friendships with men. I miss the way I can share an understanding of the world that is sometimes difficult to share with a woman (though, like you, my best friend is a woman). Perhaps I will get what I need in due time.