In this episode of The Invisible Woman podcast, we speak with mental health specialist, mentor, and coach Sandi Givens, who is passionate about supporting women to find their most courageous selves. We spoke to her about what women can do to stay visible.
To find out more about Sandi Givens and her services, visit
https://www.sandigivens.com.au/
or
https://psychologicalsafetyworks.com.au/
The invisible woman project funded by our social enterprise's impact program promotes awareness and actions for women and gender-diverse people. To age with dignity, security, and safety. Find out more on justgoldwomen.net or on our socials @justgoldwomen.
Hosted by Voula Stamatakis
Edited and produced by Carley Bishop
This is a Just Gold podcast.
[00:00:00] Carley Bishop: This is a just gold podcast.
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[00:00:03] Carley Bishop: Captured on the lands of the peoples of the east Eastern Kulin nation. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging. In this episode of The Invisible Woman Podcast, we speak with mental health specialist mentoring coach Sandy Gibbons, who is passionate about supporting women to find their most courageous selves. We spoke to her about what women can do to stay visible.
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[00:00:45] Voula Stamatakis: Today we have with us Sandi Givens
[00:00:47] thank you, Sandi for coming. Sandi is a workplace mental health specialist, self-employed, and We are discussing today about the Invisible Woman syndrome, which is a world phenomenon. So Sandi, did you think that women are becoming invisible as they age?
[00:01:08] Sandi Givens: To be quite honest, it's not something I thought much about before.
[00:01:13] I had contact from you and I actually, on reflection, think women become invisible much earlier than. or whatever the magic number is. I, I think women can become invisible once we fall into this stereotypical role that is often expected of us. I e we get married, we have kids, right? And, and my sense of invisibility around that was that I didn't have anything to contribute to.
[00:01:49] anymore. Well, you're a mother and that's it. Once I had a child. So I actually think that sense of invisibility for many women may come much earlier. And I, I was listening to a, an online event last night when Jane Carro articulated the exact same thing she talked about when she was younger. And she'd go past construction sites and get wolf whistles from the guys and not something she necessarily wanted or appreci.
[00:02:17] That she noticed when she would be pushing a stroller with her child in, in the stroller, past the construction site, there were no warfare cells anymore. Nothing was happening. Yeah. So I think it's probably something that starts quite a deal earlier,
[00:02:34] Voula Stamatakis: much earlier than 15. So what will you consider being their barriers to the inclusion?
[00:02:43] So that's why they become in. , is it the digital skills that are missing that because they left themselves in time and didn't do what they had to do, so they will progress.
[00:02:56] Sandi Givens: I'm a bit of a contrarian and I, I'm a great believer in working on controlling what we can control and influencing what we can. And not let I don't let myself get frustrated by all the things that I can be worried about, but can't change in any way. So I, your question makes me pause to think about some of the systemic issues involved, and even simple, straightforward things like women taking time out of the workforce to be the primary caregiver to children and therefore their super.
[00:03:37] And they don't have as many years in the workforce accumulating superannuation. So things like that. I think there are systemic challenges for women, but the contrarian in me says it's up to us. I think often our greatest obstacle is ourselves and the way we think about ourselves and the way we hold ourselves.
[00:04:00] One of the programs that I run for clients is confidence and assertiveness for women, which often raises a few eyebrows. Men are saying, oh, what are you doing? And just talking about heating men in that course and everything, . But I run it as a single gender program because women often, well, in my experience of doing this for decades now, women tend to drop their masks more readily in a single gender.
[00:04:29] So they let go of the facade that, oh, I'm here on a business course and I have to behave in a certain business way. And they have real authentic conversations with each other. And what I've found for decades is irrespective of how, how senior a woman is in an organization, or how much responsibility she might hold in her job, a lot of women struggle with negative self.
[00:04:57] With self-doubt, with the imposter syndrome, from what I call not enough, I , I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough, I'm not pretty enough. I'm not young enough. I'm not qualified enough. So I think often the barriers that we face as women that are within our control to influence and break through are those barriers that are really self-imposed.
[00:05:26] which isn't to say I have my life all handled . You know, I, I I'm challenged like every other woman in practicing what I preach.
[00:05:35] Voula Stamatakis: Do you have any specific examples, maybe you can tell us from your profession that really show this women being invisible, that became visible maybe because of the disability?
[00:05:50] Death of a partner, domestic violence or death of dollars. I mean, it just became
[00:05:57] Sandi Givens: suddenly, I can think of two examples. One is a client that I was coaching and I won't mention obviously her name or her organization. And she was the head of a large international health associa. and she engaged me as a coach.
[00:06:18] And one of the things we unpacked for her was that she was frightened of getting things wrong. So at a meeting, even though people looked to her, because she was the head of the organization, she would invariably defer to others in the room because she felt it. It would, she was scared of that being vulnerable.
[00:06:43] and I'm very pleased and she credits my coaching with what has helped her. She's moved on to an even more senior international organization and she's just stepped into her power. So I think women often have this fear of failure that imposter syndrome. They're gonna one day find out that I don't know as much as I've said I know, and that.
[00:07:07] The other examples, me that is I ended up in a marriage where the commitment from my partner became conditional. So I'll stay around. If you lose weight or you know, if you don't do this, then I can't guarantee I'll have your. Those kind of comments. And I'm somewhat ashamed to say I bought into that because I had this huge value around commitment and huge value around marriage and a determination and a tenacity that's sometimes not good for me.
[00:07:51] With hindsight, I, I realize. Probably stayed in that relationship a lot longer than was good for me. So, so my example, it relates to the fact that as a woman, despite the fact that I think I'm reasonably intelligent because of the emotional connection that was happening and, and those kind of emotional connections can happen in the business world as.
[00:08:19] Where it might be the, the female operating in her own business, or she might have a great value around loyalty, and she's worked somewhere for five or 10 years and despite not being heard, and not listened to and not respected, she stays there. So despite the because of the values that drive us, sometimes we, we buy into others' expectations of, of us.
[00:08:46] inadvertently allow ourselves to become invisible.
[00:08:50] Voula Stamatakis: So what your advice would be to every woman that would listen to this podcast to stay visible , not to lose their
[00:08:58] Sandi Givens: own dignity. I, my registered company name is Communicate with Courage, so I talk to women about finding their courageous voice, and it's not always easy to find it, and it's not always easy to use.
[00:09:14] But it's, it's, it's like a muscle. The more we speak up for what we want, for what we believe in, for what's important to us, and the more we let people know what our boundaries are, what, what isn't okay with us, that it's not okay to speak to me in that disrespectful way, way, I believe the more we use our courageous voice, the less invisible.
[00:09:42] Voula Stamatakis: where can people find more about the coaching sessions.
[00:09:46] Sandi Givens: Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you for asking. I've got two websites. Mm-hmm. . The first one is more personal and more aimed towards women's per personal and professional growth and development.
[00:09:55] And that's Sandi gibbons.com.au. It's s a n d i. Mm-hmm. , G I v like in vivacious, e n s.com au. And with my focus on workplace mental health. Now I, my other website. Psychological safety works.com au. Great. Thank you so much, Sandi.
[00:10:18] Voula Stamatakis: Thank you. The invisible woman project funded by our social enterprises impact program promotes awareness and actions for women and gender diverse people. To age with dignity, security, and safety. Find out more on justgoldwomen.net or on our socials justgoldwomen