Out of the comfort zone
Honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed: So much feedback on my last post (which I wrote some… well some months ago…)! I did not even know that this many people read my blog, haha! However, it was a nice surprise and I feel honoured, of course. Obviously, it struck a chord and with every interesting discussion I had on the topic afterwards, I felt like maybe, I have achieved a little something. At least I got people to think.
After a short trip to the kiwi-land in January (see above) I started working as an attorney-at-law at a law firm in Bern in March. I do a bit of this and a bit of that, mostly company law, contracts, labour and tenancy law, aaand sports law. I work with seven other attorneys-at-law. All of them - men. Of course, there are women as well. Seven badass-women, but they are secretaries and interns. Well, someone has to go first, and I have no problem working with men. The only major problem I do have atm is that I do not have any woman I can copy when it comes to outfits. I mean I could do Rachel aka Meghan Markle, but that style is NOT biking-to-work-compatible, believe me, I already struggle with the few dresses I do have. But yah, where was I?
Role models.
Well, I guess that is part of the problem reinforcing stereotypes and impeding progress towards gender inequality. I mean, who are you supposed to look up to as a girl? Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with boys looking up to men, and girls looking up to women. But that stuff sticks with you from an early age. And if TV or books tell girls that being nice and pretty and a princess is the shit, that, well… At least that does not help to change anything.
A lot of the inequality is invisible, it happens behind closed doors. I have had the chance to attend several (networking-)events since I started working. I knew it was bad, but I was still amazed about how bad it really was. At each and every single one, at least 70% of the people or more were male, and I counted. The worst field so far was arbitration (which I got into a bit more as I am working on cases before the Court of Arbitration of Sports in Lausanne). Soooo many (white) men. And guess what, these are the people that can change stuff. But how many do have “women empowerment” on their agenda? And how many do actually see the struggle? Sorry, but a lot of them just don’t. Like that speaker at a congress I was at lately, bragging about his company hiring male secretaries and then, only a few minutes later stating that: “While a woman might notices a lot of details on a dress another woman is wearing at a ball, me, of course, I do not see stuff like that, because I am more focused on content.”. I mean, what. The. F#ck? So, more women = more role models = even more women, it’s simple, but it’s only one way. I could go on and on and on, but enough from the politics corner for now 😉.
How am I doing otherwise? I am doing ok. Work is super fun, but it is also a daily challenge. Sometimes I hate myself for putting me in this position voluntarily. With responsibility and leaving the comfort zone comes vulnerability. I struggle. I doubt myself. I feel like I am not enough. But “that’s the way it is”, they say. And if I think about it again, it’s not even that different from sports. Sometimes you do well, sometimes you fail, the world keeps spinning around and, in the end, we are all just human. I just have to become better at letting go and accept my imperfections. And if everything becomes too much to handle, I’ll just go for a run. Or go dancing Salsa. Or go skateboarding. Or do some yoga. Or write another blog post, that always helps me sorting out stuff.
/B.
PS. Maybe you realized that I have changed the blog’s domain. My blog did not get hacked, I just thought that, as I was entering the working world, it might be a good idea so people wouldn’t find me too easily anymore. Now they get some very valuable information about wood-working instead. I mean, win-win 😅.