Girls and Boys

I don’t want this blog post to come across as sexist, so hear me out. The thing is, more and more recently I’ve noticed that Twitter, the internet…maybe even the world – is snowed under with women only stuff. Every time I see an award opportunity available on Twitter, 9 times out of 10, it transpires that it’s only available to women. I saw someone looking for writers the other day but upon closer inspection it became clear they only wanted writers of the female persuasion. Time and again out and about I see ladies night, ladies days, ladies only gyms, ladies only insurance companies, women in business networking events etc.

There’s #WOW every single Wednesday on Twitter, an award that I found out this morning stands for “Women on Wednesdays”. There’s also #mumpreneurs for mum sole traders too, is there a dad version? Well, yes, but they’ve not posted a single solitary tweet!!

In real life, there’s the EVA’s which I’ve heard ladies talk about many, many times, it stands for Enterprising Vision Awards and it’s “specifically for ladies who excel in business”. I decided as an experiment I’d do a quick internet search for that exact quote lifted from their website, only instead of ladies I’d substitute the word, men. Unsurprisingly, no results.

I know I haven’t scoured the length and breadth of the internet and the world to see if anyone has set up men only awards but as far as I can make out, the only thing I can see at the moment appears to be a Twitter award called #Kingof which pairs up with its equivalent #Queenof and takes place once a month.

My thoughts are, if these female only awards were men only awards, there would be a hue and cry and protestation. If these things were specifically and exclusively available only to men, surely women would feel extremely left out and cry “sexist!”

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be awards, or that I should win them all or anything. I’d just like the opportunity to at least put my hat in the ring and give it a go, you know? Yet every time I find an award opportunity, the door slams shut in my face simply based on my gender. It’s a little hurtful. Let me make it clear, I don’t actually want “men only” awards, I’ll be honest with you, I find large groups of men really rather intimidating, and the thought of business driven suit wearing power houses clustered together swilling beer in a dog eat dog race to the last man standing finish line gives me the chills.

What would a woman do if the situations were reversed? Would they have the time to set up and monitor their own version of an award? Would they complain and write a blog post about the inequality and unfairness of it all? Would they just enter the men’s competitions anyway like the suffragettes of old and say “to heck with you!”

Something for me to ponder anyway, and like I said at the start, I’m not being sexist am I? So I hope you don’t think badly of me for feeling left out.