So it’s true. Women writers receive the most abuse online. At least (as I wrote last week) that’s what an analysis of 70 million comments by The Guardian has found.
Here’s what else I believe to be true — but unfortunately can’t quite prove as comprehensively as The Guardian did. Online, women are being given incredible opportunities to acquire advice and knowledge from other women.
This information come from blogposts, through publishing platforms like LinkedIn and of course via sites like Women’s Agenda. It’s often in the form of ‘lessons learnt’, through Q&As or via profile pieces on innovative and interesting women in business.
A young woman no longer has to have a direct relationship with a mentor, many high-profile women in business simply share what they know online and become role models. They reach out to those below them without ever actually meeting them personally. On social media they connect, a tweet or a like here and there can go a long way for bringing leadership and potential leadership together.
I’ve also personally learnt that women are generous with their time. They want to answer questions, share their biggest mistakes and get honest about what they’ve learnt on their own career journeys.
Young women today can access as much such information as they want, numerous lessons on offer from women who’ve been there and done it all before them. This means they end up with a lot more advice than generations before them. Previously, women had to rely on profile pieces and information published in major newspapers and magazine. Such publications weren’t exactly busting with tails of professional advice or ‘how they got there’ style pieces on women and business. And with page limitations and publications predominantly run by male editors, you can imagine how keen they were to run op-ed’s from female writers.
There are now few restrictions to publishing online, although cutting through the noise to get heard can still prove challenging, and readers do need to wade through an endless pool of content to find what they really want. But when you know what you’re looking for and who to follow, it’s not hard to keep up.
Better yet, we can access this information anywhere and at any time. The good majority of our traffic to social media sites and to publications like Women’s Agenda is now mobile, we know you’re accessing this type of content from wherever you are when you happen to be able to catch a moment.
We connect through stories, and plenty of women are open and honest about sharing their own in the hope that it can help at least one other person.
So this is the online world we can all now access. We can share it and comment on it and take what we learn in it to try and work harder and smarter and happier.
Ignore the haters and enjoy it.
And in the spirit of sharing knowledge and stories, we’re very proud to be publishing a number of extracts from Gillian Fox’s book Women of Influence over the coming weeks. The book is a series of conversations with 12 different female leaders. It’s full of advice, tips, tricks and of course stories. Today’s first extract sees Jane Huxley share what she knows about self-confidence.