Many of us look for role models of our own gender and hope to succeed as a man or as a woman, yet no one great was ever great as a gender. The moment we tie our aims to being a woman or a man, we tie them to the body, and much of our attention goes into how we look and how we are seen. So much around us keeps reminding a woman of her body, from songs to the fear of a street at night. But the body has never achieved anything by itself. What might we attempt if gender stopped mattering?
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Questioner: So one question that I had was about female role models. So I’ve been very lucky in life. I’ve gone to some of the best institutes. Even in work, I’ve had a lot of male mentors, and they have never differentiated between a boy and a girl or me being a girl and differential treatment at work and college as well. But recently when I meet a lot of young women, there are male role models, but there are no female role models, or at least it doesn’t seem that way. And it really feels like they’re looking out for such female role models. So my question is that what can I do? Is it really important, and how do we create such female role models?
Acharya Prashant: See, if you look at men who have really deserved to be called role models, whatever they have been and whatever they have done, it’s been irrespective of their gender. You go to a man, right, who truly deserves to be a role model, and you ask him, “How does it feel to be a male achiever?” He’ll be surprised at the question because he has never worked from the center of his gender. He’s an achiever, not a male achiever. Do you get this?
Same applies to women as well. If you want to truly be great within and excel in great work without (“without” meaning externally), then you’ll have to forget your gender.
