Inner Strength (Photo credit: Lel4nd)

Sometimes I’m asked in my work, as a senior woman in my agency, to talk to other women about how my career progressed.

I’m happy to do this, but perhaps the story I tell seems strange. Because I believe I progressed in great part precisely because I was born into a family that favoured men.

Let me explain. I’m not advocating sexism. I’m saying that if you are born into a family that holds generational views believing them to be truths rather than biases, you have a choice. To take in that belief structure and limit yourself accordingly. Or to recognise this view comes not from cruelty, or even lesser love, but from believing a myth and then accepting or denying evidence according to its capacity to support that belief.

What I experienced was just a form of confirmational bias – where a belief is held and then only evidence that supports that belief is seen.  It happens in all sorts of ways and on all sorts of topics and it’s usually completely unconscious.

I was allowed, in comparison with my brother, to be bright, talented, to have dreams, but not just as much as him. I repeat, this was not a lack of love, it was just the balance my parents truly believed was right.

But get no violins out for me. This taught me a valuable lesson very early in life. How one is judged often tells you far more about the judge than about you. Judgement is rarely about objective reality. It’s entirely possible no such thing as objective reality exists, or if it does, that any of us could comprehend it.

As I grew I had successes, developed talents, and one day they outstripped my brother in one area. And this was not well taken, not accepted, and in this I saw the truth at the heart of the familial belief. They could only see the world as they did, and this ‘evidence’ was not possible in that view. So it was denied. And some other explanation was put in place to explain this apparent anomaly.

But I still saw the validity of the evidence, so I saw the myth behind the belief, and that was liberating. That was the birth of empowerment.

Most judgements are like that, and we are trained to accept them. To think the ‘other’ must know better. Must be more objective. Parents tell you who you are as you grow, school teachers through to university lecturers give you grades or marks, bosses do performance reviews.

And some of this is valid and useful. Worth listening to. I’m not advocating delusion or arrogance. The trick is to recognise the valuable and valid part and work with it to improve, but to be able to separate yourself from the other part and not let it influence your self-image. Take what is useful and politely, but firmly, reject the rest.

And this isn’t just about dealing with sexism – though it makes a timely topic for International Women’s Day.  It’s about anything where a judgement comes from a pre-conceived belief rather than the evidence at hand.  And about empowerment being how you can ensure you are not adversely impacted by an invalid opinion (at least in relation to your self-esteem).

I’m no statistician but I would guess, from my experience and what I have observed through that of my friends, that up to 90% of the ‘negative’ critique you will ever get will tell you more about the critic than you. The other 10% is gold, a gem, a gift. Empowerment is allowing yourself to assess the difference.

So my message to women is always the same. I bless the crucible of my family life. It gave me an important insight I would not trade for the world. Others aren’t always more objective at all.  They carry their own biases, clouding their judgement and its veracity, and cannot see this because they experience the biases as belief.  They can genuinely think they are giving good advice or feedback and not recognise at all they are really talking more about themselves – their own beliefs, fears and dreams.

And one other thing, it taught me to be careful as I could in my own judgements, to try to avoid arrogance and pride and the potential for cruelty in the guise of ‘constructive’ critique. I take care, I hope, in my observations of others because I am just as vulnerable to holding unconscious biases myself.

I take care to be kind. Not to be dis-honest or dis-ingenuous. Not to flatter or praise where I do not feel admiration or awe. I take care to be genuine in any positive response.  But I also try (and I suspect sometimes fail) to understand and remember where I respond negatively to something that we are all human, all trying, and my truth is no greater, in the final analysis, than that of another.

Kindness, in the end I believe, is the greatest evidence of empowerment of all.

I’d welcome your thoughts. What do you find empowering in your lives?