I’ve been thinking about the ability to think and understand quickly: AGILITY. But, an internet search on which gender is more agile, overwhelmingly provides results on how men are more agile than women. When the results first popped up, I thought, this is impossible!, not because I think men have a lessened intellectual capacity than women, but because historically men hunt, women gather. Or in modern terms men watch the football game while women, go grocery shopping, prepare the food, serve the food, clean up after the food…
My apologies for the epic generalization, but the internet is doing no better. Because it has boiled down “agility” to sports analogies and physical strength, so the football game analogy seems apropos.
There’s a gap between the dictionary definition and practical perspective of “agility”.
But this shouldn’t be. Think of a Gazelle; it has the ability to move quickly and easily, and change direction seamlessly when needed. i.e., “pivot”. Now think of a female vs. a male gazelle, any difference? Not that I can think of, except for the giving birth part.
The point is that society has funneled the meaning of the word agility in such a way that it’s now sexist, gender specific. I would argue that women are more agile than men in ways aside from physical agility. Studies show that women have more physical stamina than men, they have a higher threshold for pain and they live longer.
So how did this definition become limited to only physical movement? While agility is one of the performance-related components of physical fitness, it also applies to mental and psychological situations.
Limiting the application of agility is similar to limiting our beliefs about what people are capable of.: agility = physical strength=men, success=material objects=wealth, wealth=financial security=millionaires; the list could go on and include gender and racial analogies.
What if agility=adaptability=mental stamina, success=alignment=peace, wealth=friendships=joy? How we perceive things and define words matter. Limiting the use of words to one application alienates entire groups, in this case others who are agile in a different way. This leads to limiting beliefs for everyone.
Gloria Gaynor (and Cake) sang “I will survive”. A song telling the tale of a breakup and how at first they thought they couldn’t go on without the other person, but they were agile enough to figure out a way to pivot and now know they will survive. If they believed they were not agile because it was only defined as physical ability, would they have survived? Maybe, maybe not.
So when applying definitions or perspectives to words, consider the alternative meanings and applications. Use flexibility and think through the alternatives that may apply to the situation. This is how creative solutions solve problems. Because without the agility to shift our perspectives, change will not occur in ourselves or organizations, but be sure that the world around us always will.
Given it’s women’s history month, here is a list of women who have shown agility by shifting their perspectives and going beyond the expectations that defined them:
-
1766 – Jeanne Baret was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe? She did so impersonating a man.
-
1797 – Hannah Slater (under the name Mrs. Samuel Slater) receives the first U.S. patent granted to a woman for a type of cotton thread.
-
1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. became the first woman doctor in the United States.
-
1867 (born) – Born Sarah Breedlove to parents who had been enslaved, became the first female self -made millionaire.
-
1869 – Arabella Mansfield and Ada Kepley, first female lawyers in the United States.
-
1872 – Emily Roebling became one of the first documented woman to work in construction After her husband fell ill, Emily took over as a representative of his position of chief engineer to oversee the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge.
-
1879 – Belva Lockwood became the first woman admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court. The following year, she became the first woman to argue a case before the Justices.
-
1903 – Marie Curie becomes the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903, receiving the award in physics with her husband, and Henri Becquerel. In 1911 she is the sole winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
-
1921 – Edith Wharton is the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize.
-
1926 – Gertrude Ederle, first woman to swim across the English Channel.
-
1928 – Amelia Earhart is the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane.
-
1940s Nearly 19 million women held jobs during World War II over 3 million of them in shipyards and factories.
-
1943 – The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League becomes the first professional baseball league for female players.
-
1963 – Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
-
1968 – Shirley Chisholm, first Black female member of Congress. And in 1972, she became the first Black (and second woman) to make a bid for the presidency, during which she survived three assassination attempts.
-
1972 – Katharine Graham becomes the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the Washington Post Company.
-
1975 – Jumko Tabei first woman to summit Mount Everest.
-
1972 – Katharine Graham becomes the first woman to become a Fortune 500 CEO.
-
1977 – Janet Guthrie is the first woman to drive in the Indy 500.
-
1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor to be the first woman on the Supreme Court.
-
1987 – Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
-
1992 – Manon Rheaume is the first woman to play in an NHL game.
-
1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State.
-
2010 – Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director
-
2020 – Katie Sowers becomes first woman and first openly gay coach in Super Bowl history.
-
2022 – Stéphanie Frappart, first female referee of a men’s World Cup match.
Women have led the following countries: Sri Lanka, India, Israel, Argentina, Central African Republic, Portugal, United Kingdom, Dominica, Iceland, Norway, Malta, Philippines, Pakistan, Ireland, Lithuania, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, France, Poland, Burundi, Canada, Rwanda, Turkey, Haiti, Guyana, New Zealand, Latvia, Panama, Switzerland, Finland, Indonesia, Senegal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Peru, Macedonia, Mozambique, Germany, Ukraine, Chile, Jamaica, Liberia, South Korea, Moldova, Croatia, Australia, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan , Slovakia, Trinidad and Tobago, Denmark, Kosovo, Mali, Thailand, Malawi, Slovenia, Brazil, Mauritius, Namibia
