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You are here: Home / Equality / Are Professional Women’s Networks Passe?

Are Professional Women’s Networks Passe?

November 24, 2009 By Bonnie Marcus

What do you accomplish when you put a group of professional women together in a room? a valid question and now a controversial topic of discussion.

Professional women’s networks have recently come under fire for perpetuating the ideology that women need to be “fixed” in order to be successful in the workplace. These professional groups were for the most part originally formed for women to network and listen to senior women for mentorship and role modelling.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, co-author of Why Women Mean Business”, was recently quoted as saying, “We have to stop bringing groups of women together to talk about what we know is going wrong.” “We have to convince our companies to stop fixing women.”

Separating women for personal development does not seem to fit with the current line of thinking that “women’s” issues are now business issues and that advancing women’s leadership is of great benefit to an organization. If that is so, what is the best approach for supporting women’s leadership initiatives?

Many women believe that the support from a women’s network is vital to their success, but maybe the overall purpose of these groups is more about sharing and strategizing to change the overall company culture than it is to “fix” women.

Professional women’s groups offer wonderful opportunities for collaboration and support from other women. This remains important. However, in order to shift company cultures, perhaps these networks should also collaborate with mixed gender groups both internally and externaly.

Women’s groups can take the lead on shifting the attitudes and beliefs of companies by shifting their own agenda from how difficult it is to be a woman to creating better opportunities for talent management.

What are your thoughts?

Bonnie Marcus

Bonnie Marcus is a Certified Executive Coach. With 25 years of sales and management experience, Bonnie has an extensive business background that includes VP of Sales at several national companies as well as CEO of a national healthcare company. She has held executive positions in startup companies and Fortune 500 companies. As the founder and principal of Women’s Success Coaching, Bonnie’s specialty is helping women in business achieve success and maximize their potential. She assists women with promoting themselves effectively in order to advance their careers and grow their businesses. Bonnie is well known for her motivational speaking and innovative workshops.

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Filed Under: Equality, Networking, Personal Development Tagged With: business networking, Leadership, Networking, Personal Development, women in business

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