it is not about gender, mind you?

this week, one of the key woman figure in top management resigned... i am referring to the resignation of Carly Fiorina as the CEO of HP. even though i have not followed her career much during her tenure at HP, i must say that for a woman to lead one of the biggest companies in the world has much to be admired and an inspiration for all women.

what's upsetting is that after her resignation, questions about whether she was capable of running the company, what being a female in a male-dominated role!

women has always been taking a back seat since the dawn of time and traditionally, it has been men who would go out and 'save' the world. but let's face it, time has changed. women has played a significant role in this world. during world war II, while men went out there to fight the war (totally unnecessary in my opinion - men were just living out their fantasies when they were boys to play with the toy guns and tanks), women has stayed behind and helped revived the economy. we may be slow in getting our presence felt - slowly but surely. there are not many women holding top management positions but when we do, i believe woman makes a significant impact - just as good as men.

perhaps carly's high profiled rise to the top has made her contributions and what seems to be failures to integrate the merger between HP and Compaq to be over analysed and over publicised. there are other CEOs of other large companies who has failed to turn things around just like Carly did but we don't see much of that being publicised now, do we? why is that? is it because they're men? and men are allowed to make mistakes but not women? did all of you ever considered that the failures to deliver may be due to other reasons like political, culture?

i feel that with women trying to achieve as much as men can, at the end of the day, every little thing that we do are being scrutinised. we are in constantly in perpetual limelight to prove to everyone that we can do it and we fail, it is not because we failed to deliver but because we are a woman. there is no end to this, now is there? i don't know what it takes to get us out of this vicious circle..... may be a matter of decades (it has been decades now) and perhaps centuries before man, woman, gay, lesbians and what nots will be treated equal. i don't think i will live to see that happen.

as for carly, i wish her all the best. deep inside i know that she will succeed elsewhere and make another impact on woman-kind. she has already made an impact on yours truly.