Why a Women’s Network Matters

A Women’s Network Can Make All the Difference

A recent conference in China concluded that rural women’s limited earnings and professional opportunities relative to their male counterparts were directly related to a stymied social network. Their women’s network is comprised exclusively of close familial relations and other members of their small villages, but that is it. The headlining report concluded that efforts to encourage these women’s rural towns to allow and support women’s efforts to expand their social interactions were essential to helping these women improve their situation.

This scenario serves as a very apt metaphor to consider empowering women in the Western context. Although gender walls have come down and equality has improved, some societal barriers are still in place that hinder female professional and general success. Subtle sexist behavior in the workplace and judgmental stereotyping of motherly or “feminine” behavior tend to place a significant burden on professional women, shape their decisions and manners of communicating, and generally restrict their ability to advance on their own terms.

While overcoming this type of injustice is a very important goal, women should also take advantage of women’s networks as a strategy to get around these obstacles and achieve goals. The same way that rural women in China who succeed in expanding their social networks will tend to gain access to more jobs, higher paying jobs, and training and skills that will make them higher earners, women who can effectively tap into a women’s network will find increased access to a number of resources.

This is relevant both for professional aims, as supporting and participating in healthy women’s networks can yield various job and career opportunities, and for personal development, whether that be pursuing interests, developing new skills unrelated to the current career, or parenting. Of course, women in the West don’t tend to face opposition to social networking. However, even women in informal groups and networks might not fully recognize the immense value that they can derive from these networks. It is important for women to embrace the capacity of a solid women’s network for empowering women, to leverage that power for their own good and direct it to the benefit of others.