I AM A STRONG WOMAN

I struggled today with a heading for my write up. I started with “WOMEN AS OUR OWN ENEMIES’, but ended up with ‘I AM A STRONG WOMAN.’ Yes I am a strong woman and it would surprise you that I am not using ‘STRONG’ to mean physical strength or strength in terms of my capabilities.

Those of you familiar with following blogs would have read the ‘rants’ of Lola Omotayo (married to one of the P-SQUARES) and Caroline Danjuma calling out women for their penchant to want to bring other women down. Caroline had this to say: " A strong woman supports another woman, an insecure woman destroys another...."

I have heard countless people say they wish to be employed by a male boss rather than a female one. While I don’t agree with this I agree totally with what Caroline had to say above. I have had countless situations where I had felt that had it been a male I would have been better off, some women just have a certain hatred for other women, recently a female police woman stopped me and I used all the tricks in the book but she won’t bulge. I would tell you about her in another post.

Today I would share something that happened to me and this would reiterate the reason why I agree with Caroline and Lola. Some years back we were conducting interviews to fill in sales positions in the firm I worked for and in walks this lady who had just completed her degree in Marketing, she had no experience, couldn't answer any questions. In the course of talking to her I realized that she could do well in accounts department as she had a previous degree in accountancy and had practical experience in accountancy. So I asked her a few accounting questions and volla she answered very well. Two months down the line there was a vacancy in our accounts department and my mind quickly flashed back to this lady, I put her name forward to the team and they all disagreed and said the position should be given to a gentleman. The gentle man was given the position and he performed badly and resigned after four months. I immediately thought about this lady again and went ahead to have a talk with my boss who asked that I invite her in for a discussion. She was employed that day.

Fast forward to a year later. She cost the company to lose a huge sum of money and an audit had to be carried on, I strongly added my voice to the audit and I became her enemy. I am one person who says it as it is. I value friends who can call me out any time I go wrong and correct me. This lady has acted more than once in ways in which I think she now wants me out of my firm, how can I who did everything to get you a job now be your greatest enemy. Just yesterday there was another incident which I would share another time and I was forced to call her and this were my words “we don’t have to be friends, we are not rivals but can we put all sentiments and emotions apart and earn our pay, lets do the jobs we are employed to do”

I am not saying that she should be grateful to me for given her a job all I am saying is why want to pull me down when all I did was to lift you up. For four months I kept you in mind as a fellow woman and kept pushing for you to be employed

Women lets change our ways, be proud of your fellow woman, celebrate her, admire rather than envy her, pray for her, wish her well. And as Caroline puts it “I am a strong woman” I am passionate about the causes that affect women, willing to help other women succeed, I would continue to support women, I would not pull another woman down and I would not let a woman pull me down.

Thank you

Esther’s Opinion