Women & Power…
Why do Powerful women treat less powerful women badly…Many years ago I moved to be near my best friend who was terminally ill. It was a difficult time. Before the move I had been teaching body language and other communication classes at Florida State and running a very successful speaking business. I loved my college students and they loved me. I know it was so, because they would write down every word I said in class (and you wonder why professors get big egos). Many would stay after class, visit me in my office for hours and stop for a hug when they would see me on campus. I had wonderful relationships with my clients as well. I was respected and paid a great deal to speak, and participants would stay after a seminar or speech to shake my hand or visit. If I ran into clients or past participants in the small college town of Tallahassee, I was usually given the same warm friendly response.
Then I moved to the big city, so that I would have the flexibility to run to the hospital for my best friend when I needed to. That first year I chose not to take speaking engagements out of town while he was ill and instead took receptionist jobs through a temporary agency. The pay cut was significant. Instead of $500 an hour I made $7.50 for answering the telephone. Strangely enough, it didn’t bother me that much. What did bother me was how people treated me nonverbally. Inevitably I was at a desk at the entrance to the main entrance of the business. A few weeks before my first temp job I had been smiled at, listened to and hugged by the people I worked for. Sitting behind the receptionist desk, wearing the same clothes that I had worn as a speaker, I was shunned - by the women.
