BPW London January 2009 Newsletter- Making a Difference Our Way

In This Issue:

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Feature Article: BPW Joins YouTube

President's Message • Status of Women Update • Thank you to Mary • Holiday Heroes Light Up a Life Update • Bosnia Update • BPWI Business Trade & Tech Newsletter • BPW Canada News • Executive Meeting Minutes • Notices • Volunteer Awards • Upcoming Events

BPW International has produced a very informative video featuring the virtures of BPW. It was premiered at the 2008 International Congress in Mexico City.

Members will be quite impressed with the details provided regarding our organization's depth and rich history of making a difference around the world. This is a terrific link to send to family/friends and colleagues to help them understand what BPW is all about.

We can be very proud of our membership in this dynamic organization and I was most thrilled to have learned that I was privileged to have a small part in representing BPW Canada in this video.

Click on the link here and enjoy. Note: A test pattern screen will (Multi-colour screen and then count down to the start - give it 10-15 seconds).

Also, an interesting feature ofYouTube is that when you log on to a particular video the site will display similar video content on record so you can check out other BPW related videos. 

President's Message by Carole Orchard 

This month we are focusing on ‘chilly climates’, a title very appropriate considering our present temperature outside. However this is not about the weather, but about workplaces in which many women find themselves.For some who are fortunate to work in environments where their knowledge and skills are respected and they feel valued – a healthy work environment is established. For others the managers may be supportive but co-workers may ‘bully’ individuals in a variety of ways, resulting in women feeling undervalued and cannot wait to complete their workday to escape their work group. Bullying can take many forms from belittling, to gossip behind ones back, to having input ignored, to perhaps even being segregated for social events within the work group. Whatever the actions, the victimized feels as outsiders to the work group. A situation that is both painful and leading to decreased outputs within the group.

Why do women attack women? In a study of bullying behaviour in nursing, Couter, found that people with low self-esteem are more likely to bully others and in turn those who are bullied often continue by bullying others. Hence, it appears to be a vicious cycle. BPW, as an organization, provides a number of modules to assist members in developing their leadership skills. But to date, bullying has not had specific learning devoted to it. Clearly managers in an organization are the key to monitoring environments to assess for oppression of employees by other employees.

Workers often have the means to report bullying within organizations through collective agreements. Confidential programs are often in place to address situations where workers feel they are being bullied or harassed by others. At the same time the value of such programs may not be as expected. Workers who choose to use harassment interventions often feel further harassed by the system. By the time an employee seeks this route the harassing behaviour has occurred over a long period of time. It takes a great deal of courage for an individual to approach an authority designated to address such behaviour and may already exhibit oppressed behaviour and a loss of faith in the organizations addressing environment problems. In other words any trust the employee previously had in the organization is often lost either through the processes or shortly thereafter. The inherent ‘fair’ procedures in themselves cause the victim to be subtly re-victimized. In order for harassment charges to be laid against another employee the victim is required to provide clear evidence of the behaviour that has led to their perceived bullying. This evidence is then presented to the person carrying out the harassing behaviour which then in turn allows the bully to know who has pressed the charges. Generally individuals who are bullies have significant informal power in work groups, power gained because of their long standing ability to intimidate others. Those who support the bully often feel the behaviour demonstrated by these individuals is inappropriate but their sense of needing to belong to the dominant group is so great that they allow it to continue.Hence, the bully can then set the victim up to be further harassed by other work group members. If the bully is the manager, there are further repercussions for the victim, at times victims report their inability to obtain further employment because of the damaging verbal ‘confidential’ references these individuals provide when the victim moves on to a new employer, or if the victim remains in the same organization the ‘chilly climate’ provided to the victim creates the seeds for the victims leaving the organization.

The World Health Organization is a strong advocate for allowing all persons to be able to meet their social determinants of health. One of these determinants is a healthy workplace. Recently a strong focus on the issue of ‘civility’ in the workplace has emerged. And the research findings are showing the workplace to be one of high stress from uncivil behaviours between workers. Why can we not all respect each other and value each other for the knowledge and skills each brings to the work setting? How do such environments evolve? Does our capitalist society cause a breeding of such behaviour? Does the recurring violence provided through our media begin to support bullying? Does the preoccupation of preventing or addressing bullying behaviour in children cause us to assume it only occurs in childhood and adolescence?Is the pace of our world and the pressures of productivity within the workplace force people to develop these bullying behaviours? Perhaps it is a bit of each of these. The question is how we can as professional and business women bring bullying issue within the workplace more directly forward? How can we develop intervention programs to help female workers identify when bullying is occurring within work groups and the strategies to deal with such behaviour? Is this an area where we should devote more attention?

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Status of Women by Doris E. Hall, International Chair

It seems that the word "equality" has been put back in the mandate for Status of Women. Click here to check the website.

Here is the second paragraph of the mandate: To advance equality for women, SWC works with federal departments and agencies to ensure that the gender dimensions are taken into account in the development of policies and programs - by conducting gender-based analysis and supporting research.”

Apparently, this statement as it appears right now is substantially different from how the Conservatives initially re-drafted it?

Perhaps the lobbying that BPW did has had some affect.

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At the December 2008 Executive Meeting, Mary McBrearty, BPWL Treasurer, presented the results of the 2007-2008 annual audit completed by our accountant, Sandy Pearce. On behalf of all BPWL members, the Executive would like to thank Mary for maintaining "consistent" books. In Sandy's report she included a special note on Mary's organized and detailed record keeping. Congratulations, Mary!

Women's Community House - Holiday Heroes Light Up a Life, UPDATE, by Doris Hall

We have a light on the Holiday Heroes Christmas tree in front of Women’s Community House and a gift tag hangs on the indoor Christmas tree at the Wellington Road shelter with the name of BPW London as the sponsor.

Click to view more ways to help and be a Holiday Hero.The Holidays maybe over but contributions are appreciated all year-around.

CALL THE HOLIDAY HEROES HOTLINE
WOMEN’S COMMUNITY HOUSE
519-642-3003
Pamela – extension 2252

Bosnia Update