Final Service Learning Paper
Summary
As part of a service learning project this semester in our Women and Leadership course, my group (consisting of Nena Brown, Nicole Elinoff, and Elizabeth Van Hala) decided to take action in two key areas. One goal was to honor Equal Pay Day on UCF campus, which recognizes the current pay inequity between genders and races. In order to accomplish this, we split our project into two parts: a forum and a wage gap bake sale on campus. We wanted to accomplish this in order to spread awareness about current pay inequity in the United States and also to meet a requirement for a grant received by the Women’s Studies Department.
In order to honor Equal Pay Day, our group worked individually, whether it was conducting statistical research, project design, obtaining donations, letter writing, web design, or other types of planning. Then, as a group, we met every other week to discuss our ideas and report our progress. We researched many current statistics in regards to pay inequity and found many useful graphs and charts to help visualize the gap among genders and various ethnicities on our bake sale table. These statistics reflected our menu prices, which varied based upon the person’s identity. My boss at Hard Rock Café agreed to donate 100 cookies for the event. We took a call to action by holding a letter writing campaign, in which we wrote a letter to President Hitt asking him to honor equal pay at UCF and obtained numerous student signatures. We also made an online word press, which provided a space for people to learn more about pay inequity and what they can do to help. It looked pretty snazzy!
Our forum, held on April 11 at 10 a.m., consisted of four volunteer speakers and our professor, Meredith Tweed, as the mediator. To prepare for the event, we gathered statistics and volunteer speakers, made fliers, advertised the event, and made the refreshments. I thought it was a great success! The place was full, fresh cookies were available, and tears were shed.
I also decided to help volunteer with Lead Out Loud Day, held on March 30 on UCF campus. This was to help stop bullying in local elementary and middle schools. I helped chaperone the children, give out lunches, and other various tasks throughout the day from 8 am to 3 pm (though it ended at 1:30, I drove the remaining lunches to a shelter downtown).
We succeeded as a group in all of our tasks by using a collaborative form of transformational leadership. We had no official leader, yet separately stepped in when each thought was necessary to maintain focus or remind a group member of our goal. I think we did a wonderful job fitting the numerous definitions of leadership, including the definition offered by CREA:
“CREA visualizes leadership as a dynamic quality that is present and can be enhanced in most individuals… [and] that enables people to live their lives as they choose, with dignity and with sensitivity to other people’s choices and decisions. [CREA’s] leadership programme works on the assumption that leadership is not a fixed state of being but a process through which women assert their rights by continually evaluating relevant experiences, questioning their roles in society, challenging power structures and effectively catalyzing social change.” (Batliwala 27).
Synthesis
As discussed throughout many of our class texts, including Through the Labyrinth by Eagly and Carli, women must embody both masculine and feminine styles of leadership in order to negotiate their way through “the labyrinth”. The labyrinth is a metaphor for the walls and barriers a woman, especially a woman of color, must work their way through in order to reach higher echelons of power mostly held by men. This deeply ties into redefining leadership altogether, as classical traits of what makes a leader are typically masculine and exclusive and discounts feminine traits of leadership. This is apparent in our class text Closing the Leadership Gap by Marie Wilson in the chapter titled “Redefining ‘leadership’”, where she relates material from Eagly and Carli’s Through the Labyrinth. Here, Wilson discusses the dilemma women leaders face upon entering a position of power: “So once we get to the workplace, we already have two strikes against us: one, that we are females, which doesn’t match the physical look of a leader, and two, that the qualities we bring do not match the traditional actions of a leader.” (Wilson 23).
In addition, women face extra difficulties in juggling home life and expected roles as a woman, wife, and/or mother. Wilson continues to elaborate on this, adding: “Add to that the structural impediments to anyone (male or female) who might like to be a parent and a worker- no child care, little flexibility in work hours-and you’ve made it nearly impossible for a woman to work, let alone rise. (Men, at least, can usually count on wives to pick up the slack.)” (Wilson 23). Wilson encourages women to prepare for all the inevitable “twists and turns” that will be ahead of them in order to have a better chance at success.
These societal expectations on a woman to be a nurturer, yet a tough leader, fitting masculine roles in order to do so, creates excess stress and many personal negotiations and sacrifices, such as personal morals and values, family time, personal health, and much more. Doesn’t it just make more sense to redefine leadership to fit anyone who shows the initiative to take personal responsibility to serve the greater good? Shouldn’t a new definition include nurturing, feminist aspects of leadership as well? It has been proven that adding women into positions of power increases profits, reduces corruption, adds insightful and various points of approach, and all around enhances and betters organizations. This is crucial to take into account.
Despite all of this, women must still negotiate their way through the labyrinth to fit the existing masculine ideas of leadership, while still putting on a friendly demeanor as a woman. This makes it twice as hard for women to meet their goal, stuck in a man’s world with a man’s rules, giving and taking when and where necessary in order to reach their goal. As stated by Deborah Rhode, “Many traits traditionally valued of women also perpetuate women’s inequality” (Wilson, 17).
Reflection and Connection
After taking this course and participating in the service learning project with my group, I view leadership completely differently. Before, I felt confined to the traditional, masculine styles and traits of leadership. I felt that in order to be successful as a respected leader, I had to hide or sacrifice the kinder, empathetic aspect of my personality in order to appear as “leadership material”. I now feel as if I can achieve power positions by making space for myself as a leader, actually viewing myself as a leader, and proving to be successful in my own way. I see more options available and am aware of the obstacles that I face as a woman in American society.
It feels comforting to know that even though this problem exists, it is no longer simply being ignored. There are women out there who are experiencing this. They have research and solid numbers to back themselves up. They are writing about it in academia and blogs, taking calls to action, forming organizations, doing research, offering solutions. They have created a space to talk about the problem and address it, each giving what they can of themselves in order to fight for a more egalitarian society.
This, in my opinion, is a prime definition of leadership- a new, transformational and feminist style of leadership. By this I mean using a leadership method that is inclusive, intellectual, respectful, egalitarian, humble, and communal, with a common pursuit of justice, a greater common good, enforcing changes where current issues reside, and utilizing individuals’ talents to reach these goals.
As a group, I feel we achieved these means in working with our campus projects. We assured to include everyone in our research and were working towards something that, if corrected, would change society as a whole for the better. I know that as a female, I may have issues in my future career, whether it be pay inequity, discrimination, doubt, or sexual harassment. These are things men (especially white males) do not usually have to worry about going into the workplace. Getting this information out and more importantly, showing people why it is important and who it affects (which is everyone by the way) and using clear-cut statistical data to prove our cause, was a big process but those were our goals in pointing out the current reality of pay inequity within the United States.
I am honored to have participated in this project, as I can be proud in knowing that I did my small part to help solve a bigger problem. And that is really all that we need. If everyone gave a little, big means can be achieved. It’s getting those people to care and get involved that’s the tricky part. I enjoyed collaborating with other young women leaders in empowering and including women in at least one aspect of our patriarchal society. It definitely taught me something about myself and gave me more confidence to be a leader in my own way.
Sources
· Wilson, Marie. Closing the Leadership Gap: Add Women, Change Everything. New York: Penguin, 2007. 17, 23. Print.
· Batiwala, Srilatha. "Feminist Leadership for social Transformation." Diss. AWID, 2008. Web. <http://web.creaworld.org/files/f1.pdf>.
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