Receiving Feedback That’s Rooted in a Scarcity Mindset
When not to accept input from others
Yesterday was the 1,792,564th time that a man tried to dim my shine. To be clear, I don’t think that it was personal or even conscious. He was doing what I suspect he always does, applying the models and frameworks from his lived experience to mine.
Not only did he think he had a better name for my new venture, he had no issue declaring the idea a “red ocean” opportunity. For those of you who, like me, had never heard this bit of jargon before…
“A red ocean is an existing market with many competitors, while a blue ocean is a market yet to be discovered with no competitors.”
Source: https://www.cascade.app/blog/blue-ocean-vs-red-ocean-strategy
🙄 [hard eye roll]
What this man didn’t consider was:
- I am creating a solution for a small fraction of the 32 million GenX and Millenial women living and working in the US, not for the dominant culture led by cis white men.
- The gap caused by centuries of colonization, racism, and misogyny is so large and multi-faceted that it will take decades, if not centuries, to bring things into balance.
- Believing that people working to provide support to women and other marginalized communities are not competitors that I need to beat is a very patriarchal view of a matriarchal problem space.
“These patterns are not just a reversal of patriarchy, with women somehow ruling over men — as the usual misinterpretation would have it — rather they are, without exception, gender-egalitarian societies, and in many cases fully egalitarian societies. Hierarchies, classes and the domination of one gender by the other are unknown to them. They are societies that are free of domination but are stabilized by certain guidelines and codes. With matriarchies, equality does not mean a mere leveling of differences. The natural differences between the genders and the generations are respected and honored, but the differences don’t lead to hierarchies, as is common in patriarchy. The different genders and generations each have their own value and dignity, and through a system of complementary activities, they are dependent on each other.”
— Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Folks who are working to address women's needs are my allies, not my competitors. These allies also understand that labeling the opportunity space a red ocean introduces a sacristy mindset that isn’t necessary or even appropriate.
Instead, we must work together, support one another, and create the conditions for women to not only survive but thrive.
