Your contribution could kick of another whole post… 😉

Meanwhile, I believe more women could find they achieve a heck of a lot more – in pure satisfaction and fun, let alone favourable results – by believing in themselves and allowing that belief to come through and take a stance that’s more “Actually, s*d whether you like the fact this is coming from a woman – my contribution is at least as important as anybody else’s.”

More of the old: “Don’t ask for permission. Do it. And, if necessary, apologize afterwards”…

I didn’t once add 25% plus unexpected perks to my salary by continuing to present the quiet accepting employee face I had been for the previous two years – I got assertive.

And we definitely to carry that kind of belief combined with bravado over into our own business

I’ve been aware of gender discrimination since I was a teenager, but my choice has always been to forge ahead and see what I can get away with! I know that there have been times when I have been viewed as a ball-breaker (e.g., in meetings, when I refused to let myself be bulldozed by a dominant man). But I accept that as the “cost of doing business.”

You raise some valid points about wider issues, too… Guess it’s time to get off our rear ends, work together and take on the world…

Being a bloke, I don’t know if this bears any relation to the way women might sometimes feel in the workplace. I hope that women are now much more likely to be judged on their abilities for the job and the discrimination that was once definitely a huge issue has melted away to some extent, although prejudices undeniably still exist.

I think that social mobility in general remains an important issue though. What are the opportunities for people from deprived backgrounds to have opportunities in work and business? Isn’t being born into a poor area with failing schools a much greater factor in determining one’s opportunity for success in life than gender? And then of course there are other factors that are never discussed – things like ugly-ism where one’s appearances can have a huge effect on opportunity…

I think we women need to set aside the old adage about self praise being no praise and realise that it has nothing to do with justified self confidence and speaking up for our own abilities.

If we’d just do that a bit more, at least we’d know we’d always have someone in our corner! 😉