Thursday 5 September 2013

Lean In


I had a dreamy time recently gathering blackberries with Jen and Simon. I was a little unsure at first about our possible bounty but Jen's enthusiasm was brimming enough in our buckets so we set off along the canal.

Soon we were coming across huge ripe plums of blackberries dotting the hedgerows but they were ever so high up. The ones nearest the sun had all come out for us.

Hmm what to do? How to pick those elusive berries?

Well, like my friend Sheryl Sandberg says, it's all a matter of leaning in.

She pointed out to me that once women start thinking about having babies that they stop taking job promotions and asking for extra responsibilities and fleshing out their role. She's right about flesh! I was pretty worried about mine being punctured by all those thorns- and then I'll never be able to have children! What was her advice again?

No one gets to the corner blackberries if they don't think they deserve it. Oh that's right. LEAN IN.

So sucking it up whilst trying to protect our ovaries, we leant the upper part of our bodies hard into the blackberry bushes. Look at Jen go!

We leant right into that bush and managed to scoop up all the most succulent prizes. Simon was tall enough to pick the top ones anyway so we had total gender equality in our hoard.

Just like Shez said we kept our feet on the gas pedal and after achieving our goals with panache we skipped right back across the fields. Past the stripey cows, past the memory train to Chingford, and when we'd just about made Sheryl sick with all our charming whimsicalness we were back cosy at the lovenest to make pie.

Her dream, she once whispered to me, as she recounted a study about how participants rated a description of a successful person as having a pleasant or cold heartless personality depending on a male or female name being given respectively, is for not only a woman to succeed but to be liked for her accomplishments.

WELL. Check this out Sheryl. After blackberry equality we made a pie together with much merriment and liked each other all equally for it.


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