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GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com | 39 Continued on page 40 T ere is a reason the Old Boys Club is alive and well, it works — really well. Let's be honest, men mentor, sponsor and promote each other in a way women have yet to master. Granted the men have had forever—literally— to perfect their system, while, women are fairly new to the professional game. Nevertheless, for us to truly level the playing field, women must recognize, acknowledge and move beyond our innate competitive nature, which is holding us all back. ere is no denying that as a whole, women are competitive with each other on a different level than men. To be fair, some of our competitive nature is coded into our DNA as a survival instinct. While most of us have evolved beyond the Paleolithic Days of relying on a strong man to provide for and protect our children and us, it is still a relatively new phenomenon that women even have the right to vote and inherit property, much less, enjoy the opportunity to work outside the home and craft a life on our own terms. Still, in many parts of the world, these simple freedoms are denied to women. Sadly, girls in some cultures are even refused an education. In one of the wealthiest nations in the world, women in Saudi Arabia can not even drive a car! roughout history, men have preserved their control over their patriarchal system by undermining women's attempts to organize and collaborate. Women's suffrage meetings were regularly broken up by men who feared what would happen if women secured the right to vote. Women who became too powerful in the villages of early Colonial America were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. e atrocities continue today around the globe with stonings, rape, beheadings and even genital mutilation as men seek to keep women under their control. From a historical perspective, the strides women in America have made over the past 50 years are nothing short of revolutionary. Like the French storming the Bastille, women have pushed their way up the ominous corporate ladder and wagered their survival to create empires from their kitchens. Women fought for equality and marched in the streets for rights that many girls today take for granted. More women are comfortably tucked in C suites than ever before and yet, there are so few women at the top, it is sobering. Sheryl Sandberg, noting the lack of female colleagues at the board table, championed the fight, urging women to "Lean In" to their careers in the formative years. She encouraged us to stand up for ourselves, advocate for our promotions and strive for greatness. Her rallying cry incited a new passion for women of her generation that had become largely complacent to the new normal for women in business. She is in fact, one of my inspirations to create GR AVITAS, to give women an authentic voice in the sound bite, airbrushed, façade of success that pervades media today. While women are comfortable waving the flag of liberation, most refrain from giving voice to the fact that all is not well in the Girls Club. As I prepared my research for this article, few women were even willing to go on record to acknowledge that we have a problem. While we all know the mean girls have grown up and some still troll the hallways of business in search of prey, few women want to discuss our gender centric competitive nature. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." – Eleanor Roosevelt