Rise of the Feminine Voice as the Key to Our Future
what if the rise of the feminine voice
was the key to our future
that simple question probably triggered
a visceral reaction for some of you
positive for others resistant maybe even
a little panicky or angry
but would you agree that the world is
out of balance right now
maybe even in a period of chaos
why is that
i believe the key
is voice
ideas and the way we communicate them
are critical to our very survival
especially in this global world
voice determines how we’re perceived
who gets heard
and as a result both change and lack of
change
so how did the world come to shift to
such a state of imbalance
all the world is energy and we all have
both masculine and feminine energies
and yet
the feminine voice has been discounted
and sometimes outright suppressed for
generations
it’s recent history that women secured
the right to vote to hold property even
to be recognized as persons in the eyes
of the law
and in terms of our human experience
it’s still relatively recent history
that powerful women were burned at the
stake as witches and men
who tapped into their feminine embrace
their feminine were persecuted
we bought into the myth
that it’s a man’s world and we came to
define success almost exclusively based
on the masculine model
so it’s not a surprise that people
hesitate to step into the force of their
feminine power that both men and women
eschew that feminine in favor of a take
no prisoners approach to negotiating in
business
and in life
and so we tipped the balance
and i i was guilty as an attorney my
clients called me the barracuda
and they meant it as a compliment but
i’m now embarrassed to say i wore that
like a badge of honor for many years
i bought into the myth that toughness
carries the day
and that to have my voice heard i needed
to stifle my feminine
and to be fair there was some truth to
that because studies show that women are
still consistently talked over
in social settings in board rooms even
in the supreme court of the united
states
in fact in an exhaustive review of the
u.s supreme court transcripts they found
that the female justices were
interrupted in significantly higher
percentages than their male counterparts
on the bench
so perhaps you’ll forgive me if
sometimes i hate to admit i actually saw
my feminine as a liability
and note this wasn’t conscious
in fact i’ve come to believe it’s the
insidious nature of these unconscious
gender biases that make them so powerful
and dangerous
and i’m not going to put you on the spot
but i bet if i asked how many of you
believe that you’re biased against women
very few of you would put your hands up
and you would almost certainly be wrong
because we all carry deeply conditioned
gender biases
and i’m not talking about biases just by
men against women i’m talking about
biases by women against women even women
against ourselves
did you know that in a study of young
women
writing their s.a.t exams where half the
control group were asked to identify
their gender in advance of writing the
test simply check off whether they were
male or female
they performed more poorly
i want you to think about that for a
moment the power of a bias where the
simple act of bringing our attention to
our femaleness makes us underperform
and in another study they asked the
participants to select the best
candidate for the job seemed simple
enough but unbeknownst to them the top
two resumes were identical
except for name one man’s name
one woman’s name and i’m sure you can
see what’s coming in overwhelming
numbers both the male and female
participants picked the man for the job
based on identical resumes
and for too long we’ve had too few women
playing in our symphonies and
allegations of gender bias were scoffed
at
until they were called on to hold blind
auditions and suddenly lo and behold
more women started getting selected
and so with that as more and more men
and women reject their feminine in favor
of masculine believing with some reason
that that’s the only way to get ahead
you can see how we continue
to shift that balance
so what’s the impact of that well some
say we’re now in the best of times and
the worst of times technological
advances that would have seemed
unthinkable not long ago are now
commonplace
the average cell phone holds access to
more information
than jfk had at his disposal as
president of the united states
we have such potential at our fingertips
and yet
and yet suicide rates are at an all-time
high depression and anxiety are on the
rise as well across all ages and
cultures
we’re feeling the effects of climate
change and now the chaos of covit
we have more tools for communication and
yet we have less connection
we have more resources and yet we feel
more helpless
so what are we to do how can we take
control in a world where so much seems
to be out of our control
well you may not be able to control
what happens
but you know what you can control how
you choose to react how you choose to
show up
how you choose to negotiate this thing
called life
and make no mistake it is a choice
and it is a negotiation
as an attorney negotiating high stakes
deals for 30 years and now as a
negotiating coach
i came to have an epiphany
all of life is a negotiation whether
you’re negotiating with your kids or
your intimate partner or at work or
multi-million dollar deals
and so i dug in
and i researched and i asked myself what
if everything we thought we knew about
negotiation was wrong
what if in fact it was counterproductive
and sure enough when i
looked into the elements that make and
mark the most effective negotiators it
came down to six key skill sets
assertiveness rapport building empathy
flexibility intuition and trust and
don’t worry i’ve created a simple
mnemonic to make it easy for you to
remember just think are fit a-r-e-f-i-t
you are fit to be a great negotiator
and leaving aside assertiveness for a
moment
did you notice that 5 out of 6 of those
qualities that mark the most effective
negotiators are considered soft skills
or feminine traits
and even with assertiveness which most
people think of as a masculine trait
that’s usually based on a misconception
where they conflate assertive with
aggressive they are not the same thing
assertiveness comes from confidence and
confidence comes from knowledge and
knowledge comes from preparation
it’s that simple
my first whisper of what i’ve come to
call the art of feminine negotiation
came when my daughter our firstborn was
diagnosed with a serious heart defect at
only two months old and had to have open
heart surgery and everything that could
go wrong seemed to
as we were negotiating for her life
every day it seemed and we spent three
months in the hospital in critical care
and you would have thought if there was
ever a time that i was going to bring
that barracuda that would have been it
when we were having to negotiate for her
life
and yet i didn’t
i came from a place of pure feminine
intuitive strength
i was using the rfit model before i’d
even developed the concept
and every day i was having to build
rapport with the nurses the doctors the
administrators
i was bringing empathy to the table
commiserating with each of those groups
and beyond i had to stay flexible as the
ground seemed to shift beneath our feet
every moment
and tapping into my intuition as medical
terminology i’d never heard of before
coming to that hospital seemed to
channel through me when i needed it to
advocate for my daughter
and trust i had to trust myself and
build trust with all those other parties
and was i assertive
you bet when my tentative input at the
beginning was routinely rejected only to
turn out that i was right
i started to trust my intuition to use
my voice going head-to-head with the
country’s leading cardiologists setting
my intuition against their medical
degrees and decades of experience
like the time when jade spiked the high
fever and they tried to insist on a
barrage of invasive tests for everything
including meningitis and my suggestion
that perhaps she’s just teething was
dismissed out of hand as medically
insupportable
until the next day when her first tiny
tooth burst through those tender gums
and her fever
disappeared instantly
or the time when she was turned just
four months
and i asked them to please take out that
ventilator
because at that point she had been
breathing longer on that artificial
machine than she had been breathing on
her own
and they said nope she’s not ready that
can’t work and i had to dig deep to
trust my intuition when those seconds
counted down when they grudgingly did a
trial removal of that ventilator
and she wasn’t breathing
and she didn’t breathe and then they
called time and the team rushed in to
get ready to reintubate and i still
don’t know where it came from but i said
wait just five seconds and time seemed
to freeze as everyone in that room
looked at each other until one nurse
just started counting five and i was
like come on jade please maybe you can
do it four breathe honey just take that
breath three you are stronger than you
think you are sweetie please jade two
take my strength take my breath if you
need to one and then
and she took that first breath on her
own in two months
but then
just before five we hit five months
those cardiologists called my husband
and i into the office and they said
we’re at the end of the road
she’s not responding she’s barely back
at her birth weight we’re going to have
to take our chances and go in and
operate again and i said no
she’s not strong enough she will never
survive that
and i still remember that one
cardiologist looking me in the eye and
saying fine but we don’t think she’ll
make it and it’ll be on your head
when i had to trust myself and persuade
my husband to trust me as they had the
chief cardiologist come down and say
so what is it you think we’re not doing
that we should be doing mom
and i told them
and it worked and using that our fit
method
we were able to get out of critical care
and on our way home within one week of
that
and even then they said that jade would
still need a minimum of three more
surgeries
as she continued to hit her growth marks
in life
and i am happy to report that jade is
now 24 years old and has never needed
any of the many surgeries that they said
she would need and not even the heart
medication they said that she would be
on for life
so
for those of you who tap into your
feminine you already use these skills in
a myriad of ways every day
you’ve probably just never thought of it
as negotiating
and for those who tap into your
masculine
you’re able to
choose with intention to bring these
qualities to your negotiations
you’ve all likely been conditioned to
see these feminine traits as a weakness
so i invite you to flip that perception
turn that story on its head
it’s easier than you would think to use
these skills to elevate your influence
and your persuasive abilities and in
fact studies show that people who invoke
these so-called feminine traits into
their daily negotiations get better
results more creative solutions longer
lasting deals better buy-in better
relationships and overall more positive
impact both personally and
professionally
the world is out of balance today
the feminine voice is being diminished
and that imbalance is creating chaos
so i invite you to close your eyes for
just a moment
and imagine a world where we all
negotiated from a place of powerful
feminine persuasion
where we look to build stronger
relationships not coming from a place of
competition not looking to just have our
needs met but looking to understand and
meet the needs of others
valuing and respecting our differences
and stepping into the best of our
humanity
and the the gift of that approach is
that not only will it amplify your
ability to get what you want but it will
pave the road for better solutions for
everyone than could be anticipated under
the current competitive model
imagine a world where we all negotiate
from that place
the ripple effect of that transformation
cannot be overstated
and so i invite you i call on you to be
the change
to shift the world out of fear and
uncertainty into a place of powerful
resilience and possibility
because we all deserve that
thank you
[Applause]
you