If you find yourself a woman in power, you have a very special and important opportunity in your hands: you can bring other women up with you. When you first realize this, you’ll feel excited, hopeful, and motivated to make some changes. And then you’ll quickly feel overwhelmed, confused, dizzy, and unaware of which direction is up and which is down. Every person in power—man or woman—should be doing their part to eliminate things like the wage gap, and the fact that there are more men named John (yes, just men named John) running large companies than women in total. But as a woman, you feel particular pressure and all eyes on you because people are thinking, “Well, you should especially try to help because you’re a woman!” And the tough thing is that, it’s impossible to have every person approve of the way you use your power. Here are tough things powerful women promoting equal opportunities face every day.
When you promote women, you’ll be criticized
If you give an opportunity to a woman, men will criticize you and say, “You only gave her that because she’s a woman—you’re not being fair. That’s not the best person for the job.”