The Human Spirit!

I was invited to a wonderful and joyous evening of the London book launch of a friend's old school friend from Phillips Academy Andover and Yale last week. Gerry Shea has written an inspirational book called 'Song Without Words' because in his mid-thirties - despite having achieved a stellar career in law - discovered he'd been partially (not completely) deaf since the age of 6 years when he'd contracted scarlet fever. The scarlet fever had damaged some of the epithelial cells of his inner ear which evidently once wilted never grow back so this had affected his hearing deeply.  However, he was not conscious of this at the age of 6 - he thought everyone had a better understanding of what they had heard and just assumed he wasn't as bright as his fellow pupils and would have to work harder!

The book is about his sometimes painful journey from childhood to youth and the ingenious compensating skills he invented and the stress of his long struggle with undiagnosed deafness. The deafness was only discovered when Gerry took a routine physical exam at the age of 34. A doctor did a hearing test and told him he was deaf - he didn't believe him at first and did nothing for a year - however he finally got hearing aids fitted and the rest is history. To listen to him talk about hearing nature for the first time in nearly 30 years is moving - he calls them his 'songs without words' - it might make us all appreciate those wonderful sounds even more!

This is a no 'poor me' wallowing memoir - it's a book about triumph over adversity with no self-pity over his sense of isolation in being deaf - just sheer chutzpah and determination to achieve. The book goes into great depth about how partially deaf people communicate through 'lyricals' - for the wrong words that they hear - these are more of Gerry's 'songs without words'.

A story of true courage and fantastic stength of will and enlightenment of the human spirit. The added bonus in writing the book is that it has given Gerry great joy and he has now found his new vocation and another form of communication that unites us all!

I had a frisky French grandmother (my father's mother) who was partially deaf too and she would often tell me that when you're deaf the other senses are heightened! So not so bad then Gerry........

The party was full of Gerry and his wife Claire's friends and held at Laurie and Laetitia Oppenheim's beautiful home. Thank you Karl Ziegler for the lovely photos.

'Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes'  -  Ludwig van Beethoven

'Lean In'?

Lean in

Just as the furore over Sheryl Sandberg's book 'Lean in' has died down I wanted to add my voice to the debate. Unless you're not aware - how cool - Sheryl is the COO of Facebook (since 2008) and this new book has now sold 275,000 copies up to last week. She is hoping to create a national movement to help women advance in the workforce and the book became the focus of intense debate even before it's publication on March 11th 2013. It's part feminist manifesto and part how-to career guide. Obviously the book has nothing to do with helping Facebook's languishing share price since it's bungled I.P.O? Or as the Washington Post succinctly put it "simply the elite leading the slightly-less-elite, for the sake of Sandberg's bottom line'. Whatever, she believes feminism has 'stalled' and I think one of the good things this book has done - is that it has got everyone talking and opened up the debate again. I want to be supportive, but I don't think 'Lean In' is the answer, it sounds more like a 1980's mantra and surely we've moved-on from that? Sheryl's message is that 'women internalize the negative messages they get throughout their lives - most men don't. Women are told it's wrong to be outspoken, aggressive and more powerful than men and so rather than pull-back which many women choose to do, she thinks they should 'lean-in'.'

I believe there is a shortage of women in global boardrooms and in senior positions because most women don't want to go there! Not from lack of ability but from preferring to start their own structure - be it a business or joining forces with other like minded people and creating their own cultures and making lifestyle choices. We can do success differently from many men who make themselves ill with heart problems and diabetes by becoming workaholics which doesn't look fun! We want to make the time to unplug and re-charge.

Being a woman has never held me back. If you know your subject - you won't be thrown by anything. But you have to be strong and have the hide of a rhino sometimes from all the sniping successful women get and I understand why many women don't think it's worth it. I think successful women get a huge amount of flak - it goes with the territory - but I found it unbearable sometimes.  Tina Brown says "flak means you're hot in business" - so there will be a lot of resentment as it's such a competitive world - but does it have to be like that? There needs to be a complete cultural change from the media to governments to the corporates if they want to appeal to more women.

I find it's interesting that the 'millenials' or 'generation y' as they are sometimes called (those born 1977 to 1993), place a higher value on their work/life balance and have expressed a desire to pursue work that is personally meaningful. They say that they have learnt by watching their mothers (baby boomers) tearing their hair out trying to balance career and family and have no intention of copying them!

In my experience if you lean in too far you're likely to fall flat on your face. There are lifestyle choices women can make and most choose not to be at the top table because it doesn't look that appealing. They want to be more individualistic. Unless there are systematic and cultural changes I think this will continue.

I think it's interesting that Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo who also launched her book with much debate is dissing feminism as too negative. I don't think she'd be saying this if she'd been born 20 years earlier when all those amazing women fought for all the fights she doesn't have to now.

Another extraordinary woman - whatever your political views -  was Lady Thatcher whose passing has opened up the debate even further. Why are there so few women MP's? I think you just have to look at Prime Minister's Question Time (PMQT) to understand why. All that aggressive city-type blustering is so last decade/century - it's a toxic Punch and Judy show - women don't want to be part of that culture. It's time for a re-think.

(The cartoon character above is of me which one of my film director's drew - it always makes me laugh and I think shows he understood the acrobatic act I had to go through when running my film production company!)

"One girl is worth more use than 20 boys" - Peter Pan - J M Barrie