Huge Shifts are Disrupting the Balance of Relationships

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@FutureofMen, @ReneePiane, @SusieHeath

The Rise of the Feminine radio series has touched many corners of society and few areas have shown as much evidence of disruption as the realm of relationships. They are a central part of the human experience, so they are ground zero for the results of cultural influences and changes. How has the increase in opportunities for women affected loving relationships?In this week’s episode of The Rise of the Feminine, Gina Lazenby discussed the status of modern relationships in three age groups with my three experts in the USA and UK. These are some of the insights that came to light.

 

• Susie Heath
  – one of UK’s leading intimacy experts speaking about Later Life Relationships
  •Women over 50, experience a child-free life for the first time in decades and breathes new life in them. They have more choices than their mothers and grandmothers before them and they take advantage of them professionally and socially.
  •Their partners on the other hand are ready to slow down and that puts pressure on the relationship. Men have to find their masculine energy to keep up and the relationship requires a revival.
  “Men are looking forward to a relaxing time and being on cruises or just golfing and the women are raring to go do something different.”

  Download a transcript of the full interview.

  Renee Piane
  – one of the USA’s top dating experts speaking about Wonderwomen – successful in business but still single
  •“Where are all them men?” the women ask! Women have been so busy, focussed on success, taking on a masculine drive to excel …. this has made it a challenge for finding a relationship.  Slow down, change the pace and make space to accommodate a mate.
  •Women have to treat and nurture their own hearts to be able to align that masculine drive with the feminine nurturer that lies hidden within them. It’s the feminine softness, in addition to accomplishments, that men want women to bring to the relationship.
  “I’m here to say, you need to be able to switch off your wonder woman and tune into that feminine energy that men are dynamically attracted to.”
  Download a transcript of the full interview.

  “I’m here to say, you need to be able to switch off your wonder woman and tune into that feminine energy that men are dynamically attracted to.”
  Download a transcript of the full interview.

  Jack Myers
  – award-winning cultural visionary, speaking on the under 25s, a new generation of well educated girls and an emerging generation of lost boys
  •The modern woman has been handed the keys to the business world and she’s less interested in finding that special relationship. Relationships are now part of the career plan and young women take that decision more seriously because they don’t want a mate who might hold them back professionally.
  •Women lean on a strong network of other women and that has made their rise possible. All these connections were forged over a century of the women’s movement. Men aren’t keeping up because they don’t have access to male gatherings and discussions and the ‘old boys network’ that served their fathers is not for them.
  “Women are finding it much more difficult to find their educational equal and it’s more important to them than it was to men a couple of decades ago, to find to do so.”
  

  Download a transcript of the full interview.

Listen to the full episode on VoiceAmerica

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Feminine Wisdom: The World is Not Seeing Something it Needs

1. Feminine Wisdom is Missing from Our Vocabulary 

Feminine wisdom is not something we talk about, it doesn’t exist in our vocabulary and as a result so much of its value is missing from out everyday conversation. Karen Buckley says “I did an online search for wisdom and I discovered that most of the quotes are by men. Then I looked at wisdom in Wikipedia, the photographs are all of men. Old men with white beards. At that time, nobody was young and no women.” Using this as a reference, it’s clear that it’s a subject that remains unknown, even where it’s most necessary.

2. There are Virtually No References for Wise Women

In dictionaries wise women are described as “knowledgeable in matters such as herbal healing, magic charms or other traditional lore.” Even HM Queen Elizabeth, after celebrating her 90th birthday and a 60 year reign, isn’t referred to as a wise woman. Throughout the decades she has interacted with 13 Prime Ministers which has given her a supreme wisdom we don’t talk about. There just isn’t enough of an understanding of what makes a woman wise.

3. Feminine Wisdom is not Valued in Business, but it IS Needed

Business has so far not realized the benefits of feminine wisdom, but new ways of thinking and operating in an increasing number of companies have made an impact by starting to learn from feminine wisdom. This wisdom is incredibly necessary if we consider the needs of the modern individual. According to Leadership consultant Karen Wilhelm Buckley and Thought Leader in Gender Mentoring Betty-Ann Heggie;

• Feminine wisdom is the blend of the external experience, competency, knowledge and deep inner knowing. It is demonstrated through applied empathy. It’s a quality that allows leaders to perform a service in conjunction with relationship.
• It takes into account the emotional needs of the clients as well as the tactical or business needs.
• In business, it takes into account the kinds of ripples of consequences that might be missed if an organisation was only looking through a tactical lens.
• Feminine energy value systems, tend to be a lot more about the collective and a lot less about the individual.

4. The Reflective Nature of Feminine Wisdom is Necessary

Masculine styles of leadership tend to emphasize quick action over the silence and slower pace of reflection. Feminine wisdom finds answers and solutions by looking inward first and relying on our internal capacity when it comes to making decisions. In the wake of the Brexit resignations, newly appointed Prime Minister Theresa May has decided to take her time to make wise decisions by relying on internal reflection, as well as carefully and slowly looking at the data. She has been bringing her feminine wisdom into situations that have been forcing her to rush towards fast decision-making. Instead,  she has had the courage to step away, slow down, so she can make the best decisions.

5. Feminine Wisdom has a Language for the Internal Experience

Feminine leadership is all about having the courage to take the journey to find the authentic self. It trusts what comes from within and it’s less reliant on external voices and influences. Feminine Leadership Coach, Nyali Muir says, “the feminine is really about identifying and owning what’s going on inside and having a language brought in a landscape and our inner experiences. In the hyper-masculine world which we live, we’re so focused on the external and we have very little language and intelligence for our internal experience.”

Karen Wilhelm Buckley, Betty Ann Heggie and Nyali Muir were guest contributors on the Rise of the Feminine radio show on Monday September 12th, 2016. Listen here.

Transcripts of the Interviews are Available for Download

Download the transcript of Karen’s interview.

Download the transcript of Betty-Ann’s interview.

Download the transcript of Nyali’s interview.

Episode 6 Coming up next Monday on Feminine Wisdom!

I am really enjoying the conversations that I am having with a variety of experts and leaders. And I hope you agree, if you’ve had chance to listen to any of the shows, that the discussions are really interesting. This radio series is giving me wonderful opportunities to meet fascinating new people and reconnect with good friends who I might have interviewed in the past for my blogs. That would include Karen Buckley who I met in San Francisco in 2009 and since then we have co-hosted many women’s gatherings in the city and Marin County.

On my next show I reconnected with Karen to talk about feminine wisdom. (I did an interview with her way back in 2010, here, when I called in to her house one Saturday morning when both of us couldn’t be bothered to put on our normal camera make-up … keeping’ it real LOL!) Anyway, we have recently been discussing the impact of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign…. how well-behaved women rarely make history and I’m going to ask Karen to talk about how the wisdom of women is so invisible.

The Country Report for this episode on Monday will be from Canada where I tracked down the brilliant Betty Ann Heggie, literally through an inspired Google search. She is one of the top 100 women of influence in Canada and I’m asking her what makes her country different and how the more feminine values are shaping her nation. I was particularly impressed when he new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, immediately create a 50/50 gender balanced cabinet on coming into office last year. Instead of talking about change needing to happen in the future (like the UK’s David Cameron, he just went ahead and did it!).

Lastly I am reconnecting with the lovely leadership coach Nyali Muir. Nyali has attended many of the women’s gatherings that I used to host in my London home and she’s always brought great wisdom to our evenings. I’m going to ask her about her individual journey, the wisdom she has learnt and what led her to coaching the Kenyan Olympics team.

Tune into the show on Voice America Variety

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Helen Walbey: A Beacon of Feminine Leadership in a Male-Dominated Field

A woman working and running a business in a male-dominated field is usually met with the expectation that she has to take on masculine leadership traits and prove herself to be “one of the boys” to succeed. Founder and owner of Recycle Scooters believes in the power of feminine leadership and she has instilled those values in the operations and culture of her business. She has found that this adds value to her business and gets the best out of every member of the team.

She Invests in Relationships with People

“I do business differently.  I am much happier to pay someone perhaps a little bit more rather than get the absolute cut-throat deal to be able to establish a good relationship with them.”

She Builds a Positive Bond

“A lot of the time it is just about touching base, finding out how their business is going, saying hi, and that establishes that positive bond and instead of doing that very male, “what are you going to do for me / what am I going to do for you?” It’s about that much more feminine idea of building those bridges and establishing those links.”

She Respects Family

“My office administrator is a single mum and I have had her poorly kids in work all tucked up under a duvet because they were ill and she wanted to come in to work so we made a place in the unit that is safe where they can go and we have had the kids come in after school because there wasn’t anyone to look after them. It’s about finding that balance. Now if I was stereotypical I probably wouldn’t be prepared to do that but it is about understanding that if I give the best I can to my employees, I get the best that my employees can give.”

She Values People and Thinks of the Whole Person

“If you have one unhappy cog, then none of the rest of the cogs are going to work as well so even if you take away all of the holistic side, even if you take away all of the feminine principle side, and you just want to be ruthless about it, financially it makes much more common sense for me to look after my staff in an appropriate way because it means my business is going to run more efficiently.”

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