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The Boston Consulting Group wants to know What Women Want. When I heard about this survey from BlogHer Elise Bauer, I initially chuckled sardonically. "Wow, I hope that these people know what they are in for," I thought. While it would be nice if women all wanted the same thing, I guarantee if you ask five women what they want you will get at least 15 different answers. Women. You know, we're sort of a diverse group of people and all. Since the goal of the survey is "...creating a comprehensive understanding of the needs of women worldwide," I think it is a good idea to answer the survey to remind people that we are not all white, upper-middle-class, highly educated creatures (or stupid bimbos) who want to be rich, thin, and married (to a handsome man); stay at home with our kids (or go to work) in stiletto heels and mini skirts; and if we have to repair something, we'll only use a pink tool kit. It seems that's the only way we are portrayed in the media and marketed to.
So what do women want? As we are well aware, bloggers offer a lot of different answers. Paola at Live from Planet Paola took the survey and noted:
Today I spent some time answering a thoughtful survey by BCG authors Michael Silverstein and Kate Sayre. I say “thoughtful” because, in spite of the odd question or two about your cooking skills, it moves beyond the traditional questions on respondents’ consumption preferences and patterns and tries to link women’s behaviors as consumers to their values, beliefs and priorities in life... Somehow I think that a better world does not necessarily have much to do with whether the products we buy are designed for our hope and happiness. For a truly better world, we need a different kind of societal change.
Ms. Single Mama believes that the #1 thing women want (from men, anyway) is empathy. (Check out her post for 19 more desires.) Clara Hardie at Think Girl compiled a list from a Mother's Day workshop, in which, among other things, women said they want:
* For my girls not to have kids until they are prepared financially
* To find my own voice
* Raise my children to have strong minds, healthy bodies, kind hearts and rich souls
* To find work that is bone-deep satisfying
* Bring attention to the value of women in the church
* Catch thieves who come into the house
* Finish my degree
* Start a bake sale and maybe a bakery one day
* Stop feeling sorry for myself; go out and make things happen
* Be a helpful neighbor
* Children work out their problems by talking, not fighting or shooting
* Kids and adults come together to stop violence
* More jobs in our community
* Our leaders unite and set a great example
* Drugs off the streets
* To become a teacher
* People have higher expectations of women
Odd, none of these women seem to want things along the lines of the hidden desires a mind-reading Mel Gibson ferreted out of women in the film What Women Want. (Although I confess that when the movie came out eight years ago, I found it sort of funny.) Perhaps because this is a more diverse cast of women than the typically ones included in Hollywood and media-generated fairy tales?
Personally, I want three main things:
1. Respect. I have a lot of opinions and ideas. As I get older, these concepts are increasingly informed by learning and experience. I want to be heard, and more important, taken seriously. I want to be trusted that I have a value system and I can make decisions for myself based on those values.
2. A meaningful and personally fulfilling professional life. I spent 10 years working on community development and child care policy, and while it was meaningful, it also left me burned out. I am one of very few women fortunate enough to be able to take some time from paid work and explore what else I might like to do, and in the past two years, I discovered that I loved writing. (As a subset of this, I'd like to be a better writer and for people to laugh at my jokes, but that's another story.) If there is a way to combine my two interests (writing and do-gooding), I feel like I would be
