Women's Network - advice and ideas required

[RhubarbCrumbled]

After the (I think) successful workshop, I've gone all in and volunteered to be Chair of the new Women's Network. My plan at the moment is to be 'female centered' in my approach. Everyone is welcome, but I'll be trying to keep the focus on the female sex.

There seems to be an assumption that because we have a majority of females in the workplace and that the majority of the leadership team are female then there's no need for a women's network. I'd like it to be something more than just the network though, that possibly offers events, mentoring and training.

Is anyone else a member of a workplace women's network and can give advice on what works, projects, events and any pitfalls?

This sounds like a great thing to do. Watching for tips. I think that if it can provide a place for women to talk together about their work it will be really powerful. Be prepared for the senior people to feel a bit challenged initially by colleagues talking together, but they should see the value of it particularly post-Lockdowns when there is a lot of worry about colleagues and workplaces being less cohesive. Make it a hybrid meeting to make it inclusive, so wherever women work they can join. Do the grunt work of organising it yourself but consider rotating the Chair role to keep it fresh and not too overwhelming a job for any one Chair. The ideas for topics and activities can be sourced from your specific members and what they are interested in.

Doing a little bump...

Interested in this I'd like to start one at my work, as the EDI officer (🙃), started a gender equality / LGBTQ+ one in which women as a sex are overridden. Can you link to your previous thread?

I also work at a place with a lot of female senior management and workforce. How about women's history sessions? It sometimes feels like younger women don't realise that women had to fight for any rights we have had (in UK, let alone worldwide), and that we are currently losing. Might be interesting to get in a feminist historian to do a talk?

It’s quite hard to argue with initiatives that promote d&i around protected characteristics so I’d jam in something around either religious women, disabled or neuro diverse women, different age groups of women (menopause is quite a headline topic but it doesn’t have to be medical- it could be something about mentors or the age women seem to be leaving your firm) etc.

I’d also look at clients and try to leverage their needs. Ie If you have senior women clients do you talk about avoiding early or late meetings. Do religious women clients have facilities when they visit your office. Looking to make a working environment that works for women.

Sorry for the silence - I'm not on very often so threads move very slowly with me! Link to the last thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4477781-Equality-Diversion-and-Inclusion-workshop-what-points-should-I-raise?msgid=114982229

My thoughts so far are:
Any initiatives need to be based on evidence of the impact for staff (Gender Pay Gap, menpause...)
Inspirational women we work with - how they got where they are
Representatives across all the workplaces (we have 5 sites)
Social events as this is a topic that keeps coming up. Trying to make them both in person and virtual and at all times of day.

Does everyone have to be welcome? Can it not just be a women's network for women?

We have a Women's Forum which everyone is welcome to attend, but our fierce chair keeps the focus fairly and squarely on women's issues. Some of the men who attend have been astounded at the treatment women receive at work and have really had their eyes opened. Also, some men have found the chats around women's health really helpful for supporting wives and daughters.

I did a joint presentation on age discrimination with a colleague - we joined at the same time. She is mid 20s and I am mid 50s and we suffer in different ways, but we both suffer from age discrimination.

So don't bar the men, but don't let them dominate.

We also have a women-only menopause group which is open to all ages.

It sounds great, OP.

Mentorship is good for encouraging women from all levels - it's useful for the mentors as well as the mentees.

Could that be extended into the wider community? Could you offer talks to local schools, maybe at careers fairs, that kind of thing?