In my 25 years of working in the automotive industry the most challenging part was often but not always being “female”
Let me explain….
Women in the car business ( or at least in my personal experience ) often have to put on a masculine mask and show the qualities in themselves that are tough, powerful, strong, dominant, persevering, aggressive and all powering, when our natural instincts are to be nurturing, feminine, care free, creative, loving.
As a woman I feel we tend to suppress our feminine side when it comes to working in the car business. But did that help me or hurt me in terms of my successes or failures in the industry….
Well, that depends on the perception of the person reading this story…
Some think it helped me…. that all powerful, aggressive leadership type that shows strength and perseverance. I even think it helped me rise to the top of the occasion, play in the boys club, dominate and out perform in all my positions I have ever worked at in the industry….
And with that masculine mask I made fantastic money, built dream teams that succeeded and crushed their goals, worked for the best of the best, and rose to the top of every job position I had in the car business….
But
Did I trade off my feminine side? I would say yes….
I ignored a lot of my nurturing side, loving side, carefree side, feminine side, graceful and beautiful side all because I was not sure how it would be perceived in the industry….
I didn’t want to come off as one of those women that has some bad reputation for being nice and flirty… I wanted to be respected, deserving of my effort and time and known for my hard work….
So the question is how can women share their feminine side while making sure to earn the respect, time and effort they deserve?
