Friday 8th March is International Woman’s Day and as a forty something year old man I thought I am the ideal person to write Crush’s blog article this month.
Of all the genders and age groups it is fair to say that I have had to adjust a lot, growing up in an archetypal 70’s nuclear family (with two brothers and a stay-at-home mum) to now find myself as an employer, sharing a business with a women 6 years my junior and working with fantastic organisations such as She Decides.
I think I am fairing quite well…., Actually the truth is I am thriving and that is the point of She Decides, “Together, we create the world that is better, stronger, safer.” Taken straight from their manifesto.
This is not an adversarial movement, but people that want unity, and in my experience unity works.
In addition to pushing an agenda we all agree with at Crush there is a real sense of excitement working with She Decides. This is the first and possibly only genuinely global movement. There is no other issue that affects 50% of the entire global population, and only now, with the advent of the internet, can people unite around the world. The website we built for them includes an interactive map of their events from Mexico, Africa, America, India, The Middle East and Europe.
That people around the world oppose She Decides may seem odd, but as a middle-aged man I have had to adjust the rules and roles I learnt as a child. For the first thirty years of my life terms like ‘the fairer sex’ and ‘her indoors’ were common parlance, and I was expected to ‘act like a man’.
This unwitting indoctrination to gender stereotypes takes time to un-learn, even more so when the traditions are aggressively maintained around you and often with the backing of God.
To me the treatment women around the world can be despicable, and I am sure that if these men knew what I know I they would be appalled themselves.
They will change in time because of amazing people, like those around the She Decides movement, who have the courage and determination to slowly change these deep rooted attitudes, and I feel privileged to work with them.
And maybe there is hope for this middle-aged man, as they seem to like working with Crush!
“Here at SheDecides we love working with Crush” Robin Gorna and Tania, She Decides
To see the work we have done for She Decides visit the case study on our website https://www.crush-design.co.uk/she-decides/ and go to the She Decides website https://www.shedecides.com/ (and maybe sign the manifesto whilst you are there!)