June Issue of Alberta Venture magazine

I am not a subscriber - so wasn't informed of Alberta Venture's June, 2009 issue until earlier this week. The issue was devoted to "women on top" - a look at executives in the Alberta business community who are female.

I enjoyed the article - some of the names I recognized and some I did not. It is nice to know that even in the small community of Alberta, there are women who are rising to the top that aren't in the same group that ALL OF US can count on one hand. It is nice to know that the infiltration of "women at the top" is further along than I had suspected.

Having said that, I had to laugh at some of the commentary in the article: one woman wrote that being a woman had NEVER hindered her in her career. NEVER?? Come on. NOBODY believes that!! I am a firm generation X-er and I can tell you that, in my ever so humble opinion, gender matters at the top. It matters in the middle. And it matters at the bottom. Don't ever kid yourself that careers are SHAPED, in part, by your gender.

To deny it is to keep your blinders on, baby.

Which is okay - but even if you march on with your blinders on, everyone around you can see that you have them on, even when you insist that you don't.

Grab the magazine. Take a look for yourself.

PS - Why am "I" not among the "leaders of the next generation"?? Good grief, what has my whole path been leading TO, if not to the TOP OF THE HEAP.

Sheesh.