Why Professional Women Need an “Old Girls’ Network”
by Lisa Newman, MSW, MHSc.
Plates, napkins,
cutlery, wine glasses, Perrier—the buffet table is almost ready. Soon I’ll take the samosas out of the oven where they are warming, put out platters, and leave room for the many cooked offerings I know my guests will be bringing.
Another networking brunch at my house for us “great women in health care,” my fourth this year. We GWHCs range widely in our ages, training, experience, and interests but have in common our choice of career in the “helping professions.” Along with whatever satisfactions this affords us, we have all been buffeted by the strong winds of change blowing through our health care system the past decade.
Not one of us has remained untouched by these profound changes: it is almost a badge of honour now to have been downsized, laid off, re-engineered, restructured, redesigned. It was around the time I was laid off for the second time as a hospital middle manager that I remember thinking, “but I know so many great women in health care, I could bring them all together.” Soon I was selecting a date and immediately I invited about a dozen women so that I wouldn’t chicken out of doing this.
The first brunch I invited everyone I could think of, including Franca, who used to run a paint store and now makes housecalls as a shiatsu massage therapist, Judith, the obstetrical nurse and breast-feeding specialist married to my favourite appliance repairman, several feminist psychiatrist friends, and Mhezbin the epidemiologist (her husband makes and sells the delicious samosas). The common bond was that we were all women involved in health care.
Thirty-five GWHCs attended the first brunch; the house buzzed with the energy of meetings, exchanges, and renewing connections. Many of my guests found they knew one another through connections I was ignorant of: “I worked on your committee five years ago,” “You were leaving the hospital just when I joined the staff,” “You were my sister’s therapist,” “Your name was on a document circulated to me last week.”
As our workloads have increased and resources have been pared in health care, the opportunities for networking have declined. Just when health care workers need more than ever to keep up to date about the opportunities for advancement, we are too busy doing more with less to make time for the chatting and networking that could help us share knowledge, generate new ideas, and keep us in the loop.
Why women only?
What we need is an old girls’ network.
For generations, women have used their natural talents at networking in collaborative endeavours, from rummage sales to day care networks to community development. Women have a particular ability to define a task as collaborative, to share in the doing, to both value their connections with others for the sake of being connected, as well as to use these in the instrumental realm for power or profit.
Almost every woman I have invited to the GWHC brunches has responded initially with delight and then with the same question, “What can I bring?” One woman even asked what food she could bring after she had already told me she was unable to attend that day. Another common reaction is, “I can’t make it this time, but please do keep me on your list if you do this again!”
Women know how to use what they have readily at hand for their professional and business purposes. On the same day as this brunch is happening, a group of a dozen women artists and artisans in my neighbourhood are collaborating to organize a show and sale of their work, each showing in her own home studio. I detect some of the same ingredients: women networking, collaboration, creative use of home resources, and the need to reach out and connect with other women, both for profit and to reinforce the meaningfulness of our own activities.
Their concerns for others’ welfare were the main reasons women who wanted to attend were unable to do so. Many mothers of young children wanted to spend the weekend with them after working all week; the guilt of not having more time with children during the week made them reluctant to schedule any activity that didn’t include them on the weekend. Hockey mothers were tied to the ice rink schedule, playoffs, and car pools; some wives were committed to having quality time with spouses at cottages on the weekend; and elderly parents claimed the attention of many “sandwich” generation women on the weekends, who were committed to visiting nursing homes and assisting elders at home. Two young mothers of infants, lacking babysitters, brought their babes in arms, who were instantly adopted by the grandmothers and would-be grandmothers in the group.
Why me?
My inspiring Latin teacher in high school, anticipating a modern advertising slogan, once told me, “If you can do something, don’t hold back: do it!” It’s a maxim I have tried to live by. My big empty nest, bought to house me and three children, has a spacious main floor that practically begs for big parties to be held there. To date, it has happily accommodated numerous birthday and holiday parties, Passover seders, my brother’s wedding, a large extended family reunion, and most recently a party to celebrate 50 years of an enduring friendship with my oldest, bestest friend. Having brunches for GWHCs was just one more such opportunity.
Hosting these GWHC brunches has built a wide network for me, and given me a broad list of contacts, e-mail addresses, and telephone numbers that I keep updated and send to all who attend. It is an invaluable opportunity for me to meet and learn from colleagues and keep up on the latest gossip about Ministry of Health policies, new initiatives, etc.
I keep up relationships with a number of these women, and am richer for it. When inviting women I know less well, I find the response, understandably, much more welcoming than if I were cold calling to ask about new projects or opportunities. Other benefits for me: I have an incentive to clean up the house, and I usually end up with flowers, great leftovers, and often more food and wine than I started with.
Lisa Newman, MSW, MHSc., is a Toronto health care consultant, currently managing a task force for the Regional Geriatric Program to improve emergency department services to frail elderly in a number of hospitals. She can be reached at lisa.newman.a@utoronto.ca.
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