Session

The Girl Singer Syndrome: Happily and Effectively Adding Women into Your Agile Teams

Rock bands... one girl singer stands in front, alone. Her place is hard fought for. She clamored to get where she is, pushing and clawing to the front, aware of the spotlight that afforded only one person, one woman. Thus, the Girl Singer Syndrome.

Much like rock bands, a Dr. Robin Ely’s 1995 study states when women join a male-dominated board of directors, rather than compete with all the people on the board for advancement, women only compete against other women. They battle, scar, and belittle each other until there is only one standing – an example of tokenism. Like rock bands with the one girl singer, women have been encouraged to join, but then only compete amongst themselves, destroying each other and continuing the dangerous myth of difficult women to work with.

In our current climate of women-empowering events and revelations, the conversation has grown deeper about how to fold in more women. Let’s expand that conversation together to talk about how to happily fold women in - and maintain and encourage them to stay.

Help me in eradicating the Girl Singer Syndrome.

Join me as we rock the workplace and make it more enjoyable, more inclusive place to be!

Cass Van Gelder

Scrum Master, CSM, CSPO, CSP-SM, CSP-PO and other awesome alphabet combinations

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