Sunday Best is a curated list of awesome articles I’ve read recently that I find enlightening, educational or just plain interesting. This week’s focus is on women (in honour of International Women’s Day) because I can’t believe gender equity and pay parity is *still* an issue in this day and age, particularly in our workplaces.

Graph this

You want to know if and where the gender imbalances in your workplaces are? It’s simple: graph it. Data will show whether you have a recruitment, retention or promotion issue. And then you can do something to address each of these areas.

You have cooties

Hands up if you are an assertive women? Hands up if you are often called aggressive. Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, women are measured differently to men, and what is acceptable behaviour for a man, is undesirable in a woman. Typically we are labelled “emotional”, which is seen as a negative thing. Psychology Today lists 88 phrases that are designed to manipulate you (mainly women) into ending an argutment with “dangerously decisive argument enders”. It’s a fascinating read.

The “n” word

No. It’s so hard to say and so hard to hear. We, as a society, seem to have an aversion to it. Women in particular (not me!), have a hard time saying no. Psychology Today has 9 tips for more compassionate nos. After all, it’s not nice  being on the receiving end of a hard, unkind no.

Strong women rock

I love strong women. Women who aren’t afraid to say what they think. Who are honest. Who strive. Who are kind and compassionate. Who don’t forget where they’ve come from. Who shine. Strong women are often misunderstood, and this post from Lifehack aims to set the record straight.

Equity is about fairness… or is it?

I love this article from Psychology Today, which argues gender equity (or any other kind of equity) is really about fairness. Unfortunately, how much inequity we (individually and as a society) are prepared to tolerate before we take action depends entirely on our perceptions of how fair or not something is.

Gut feel

I trust my gut. Any time that I feel I know something about something (how’s that for superb English?) and I ignore that feeling… well, it never ends well. Scientists have argued that intuition is not a sixth sense, but rather the sum of all our experiences. Women, more than men, seem to rely on their intuition to an appraise a situation, and claim their intuition is never wrong. If you want to develop or hone yours, here are some awesome tips.

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