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Can we both sit at the table?
Can each of our views, energies and experiences be respected?
Can we listen and respect women younger than us?
Does age determine whether or not your voice will be heard?
I recently facilitated a series of meetings for two non-profits. One was a large institution, the other a small arts organization. In both settings all of the participants were women. I observed behavior of women in mid-life (my age-sisters) that was abhorrent although probably not intentional.
The older women kept interrupting, questioning, clarifying and correcting the younger women. Their demeanor when they made these communication gaffes were pleasant. They clearly intended to be helpful but, in fact, they almost shut off participation by the younger women in the group. Without my facilitation, the younger women would not only have been drowned out, they would have shut down.
As a facilitator, I explain my role and style at the beginning of the meeting. Part of my responsibility is to make sure that everyone gets a chance to talk and that no one person dominates the conversation. In some groups, I’ve employed a talking stick device, but in these meetings, the groups were so small this didn’t seem appropriate. I posted and went over my “basic considerations” at the start of the meetings. They are straight forward:
*Listen intently and as an ally to your colleagues.
*Candor with care
*2 minute rule (limit your comments to two minutes after about two minutes we begin repeating ourselves)
*Decisions by consensus (most people agree with course of action and dissenters have had a genuine opportunity to be heard – which may or may not alter the decision)
I also made sure that each woman spoke at the beginning of the meeting, i.e., name, title, tenure at organization, desired outcome for the meeting.
In the evaluations and in one-on-one conversations after the meetings, the younger women expressed their thanks that I made sure they had an opportunity to voice their ideas and opinions and stated that if I hadn’t been there they didn’t feel they would have been heard. (I’m not tooting my own horn here, what I did is what a facilitator is s’posed to do.)
So, what happened in those meetings? The disregard by the older women of the younger women was rampant. I’ve thought about it deeply and begun observing conversations between older and younger women. I noticed that, when I’m not facilitating but participating, I can adapt the role of wise sage, too, so wise that I interrupt my younger friends and don’t listen to their opinions. I have vowed to change this behavior.
Part of what happened was a result of the power and experience differential between the women. Often a department head or supervisor was accompanied by a younger member of her team. They wanted “the team” to participate but then usurped their participation by interrupting, correcting, and explaining albeit with a smile. It wasn’t so much that the older women were condescending but that they knew a lot and felt that they had to share it all.
They also did a fair bit of diverting especially when the conversation turned to how to market and recruit for the initiatives being discussed. The younger members of the team would make a suggestion about social networks and ways to communicate via Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Meet-Up, etc., and the older women would change that conversation back to how to update print material or the importance of “brand consistency,” etc. New ideas by the younger women were blasted apart or mired in procedural worries and excuses.
As an older woman with years of experience, you can’t not know what you know, however, while I think we know a lot, we don’t know it all. We have to open up space for leadership to develop among younger women and give them respect. One of the best ways to do this is to allow them uninterrupted air time.
Taylor Hatcher, Allison Mitchell and Erin Moran have written a very strong case study on the generational gap within the feminist movement, “A Case Study of the Younger Women’s Task Force.” (pdf)
It was presented at “When Women Gain, So Does the World” during IWPR’s 8th International Women’s Policy Research Conference. It discusses fighting ageism in the feminist movement and has several examples of young feminists’ experiences working in women-run organizations.
These meetings made me think about experiences I had
