Women usually have to work extra hard to earn their place in leadership
Human Resource Professional and Chartered Accountant, Dr Haizel P Bernard Amuah has shared some tests women tend to endure in their homes and offices.
In a quest to scale up the next generation of African women leaders, she noted, “when things benefit women, it benefits everyone but this is something we are missing.”
Highlighting a couple of these challenges beginning from the home she said, “Having a spouse who’s not very supportive especially to your career, aspirations and progression can be a tough one and, it really can have an effect on women.”
In an interview on e.TV Ghana’s African Women’s Voices with Eunice Tornyi, she stated, “Imagine women having to face challenges at work only to come home expecting some peace and rather suffer a worse experience. This goes a long way and affects them in many aspects of their lives.”
She stated that at the workplace, leaders definitely suffer subordinates who do not succumb to or respect their leadership. “There might also be others who unfortunately are not cooperative and do not support female leaders in executing their duties.”
“Historically, women are coming from a place where we were known to be second place or a bit disadvantaged. This means you always have to work twice as hard to earn your respect.”
Moving on, she shared that some women are also burdened economically because of their positions . “Especially if the man is not supportive, she has to provide for the children’s upkeep and demands from other family members also become her burden.”
According to Dr Haizel, “If you have a spouse at home who supports your career but does not understand your role as a woman and expects you to be very domestic, then you have a problem.”
Per her observation, lots of women face such issues where “So many women have supportive husbands who are proud of their wives and what they do. But when they come back home, there is no further support or assistance in terms of managing and running the home or anything domestic.”
She asserted that this can stress them (women) to the extent that they burn out. “This affects our mental and emotional health.”
“The challenges are quite several. Ask any woman who has been in leadership and they will tell you it is not an easy journey because you first have to prove to yourself and others that you’re indeed capable of being in that position,” she noted.
