Glass ceilings or barriers
■ Being a woman and mother-of-three, my career was always so important it at times overshadowed other aspects of my life, like when to start a family, or add to my family.
My career defined me, it was how I identified, where I felt more like me.
Returning from maternity leave, after my third baby, was hard – harder than I ever imagined. After my first baby I returned after five months. Why? I felt I needed to prove I was still ambitious, still on top of my game, competing at the highest level. What a load of rubbish. In retrospect, I wasn’t trying to compete with my male counterparts, but my female counterparts.
Why is that? Maybe we need to have honest conversations, support each other more, empower each other more.
Working mothers surely understand intimately the juggle and struggle we face. We should recognise and support each other. Let’s change the conversation to one of empowerment rather than shaming.
Returning to work after a third maternity leave and a full year off was more difficult than it should have been, leaving me thinking maybe I’m best placed at home rearing my children, being the one to teach them life skills and be content to be making their childhood as happy and safe as possible. I had myself convinced. In the media, conversations about the glass ceiling, gender pay gap and, at the time, a high-profile female TV presenter resigning over equal pay
rights to her male co-anchor didn’t convince me otherwise.
A company comprising a male CEO and two female managing directors at the helm of the group’s two successful divisions. Inspiring but unknown, and furthermore this multi-euro business is in the west of Ireland. This was too good to be true, yet all I was doing was talking myself out of this role.
Then I asked myself, as humans, as women, are we the masters of our own destiny? Does the glass ceiling exist because as females we don’t champion ourselves, or are we simply divided and pressured by the many roles we play in this life? Wife, parent, sister, leader, managing director, friend? Men seem to ignore the white noise, stay on course and slap each others’ backs.
With events like International Women’s Day, why not have the honest conversation as to why these days exist? In my opinion, they exist to mark our achievements but if we don’t acknowledge each other, days like this are inconsequential. Where is International Men’s Day, eh? It doesn’t exist because they don’t need a nation to back them, they can do that all by themselves.
So to all the ladies out there, let’s back each other, let’s talk up each other, let’s use International Women’s Day to profile a woman that has made an impact on your life. #womanbackwoman #Internationalwomansday18 Theresa Roseingrave
Address with the editor