It is absolutely obvious, and there is no longer any doubt about the fact that in business women occupy leading positions on an equal basis with men. And if in large companies and corporations they are not always direct leaders, then they are numerous agents, managers, i.e. The “workhorses” of business, bringing the main financial success, are women. I foresee indignant exclamations from managers: whose financial success, for whom, for whom? Of course, first of all for themselves, because they set out on this difficult path mainly for the sake of financial success and the self-realization associated with it. So, there are certain successes: wealth (a relative value, of course, but nonetheless) achieved, a career more or less moves less smoothly. We can say that the first stage is over and I want to look around. The picture often turns out strange: there is practically no relationship left with the husband, he seems to be no longer needed, because after numerous trainings and seminars, self-esteem has been furiously increased and there has been no mutual understanding for a long time with the backward layers of the population, which is now the husband. Financial dependence is also not relevant, because 90% of the family budget rests on the businesswoman. It’s (alas) too late to communicate with children, because they have either simply grown up or are already steadily accustomed to doing without your intervention in their lives.. And somehow it’s sad and lonely.. It creates an unhappy feeling that having built one thing, you’ve lost another. Something elusive, but very important. Where is the notorious female happiness, and what is it? But for the sake of this, everything began, in fact. It is precisely such business women who turn to a psychologist with the eternal questions “What to do?” and "Who's to blame?" and it is for them that these lines were written. Once again I foresee indignant cries: “Again you are with gender problems, we have already considered and resolved them a long time ago!” However, gentlemen, be disingenuous! The Russian businesswoman is a worthy phenomenon, but without the basic components of personal happiness, she is somewhat confused and clearly lacks something. What? Let's try to “look at the root.” Let's try to figure out what and why a woman running a business loses and what can be done to find harmony. But first, a short excursion into history. It has long been known that the two sexes are truly a brilliant creation of nature, allowing it to achieve the highest harmony in the eternal unity and struggle of opposites. Light and shadow, life and death, good and evil, love and hate - literally everything in life is built on the negation of one by the other and on the affirmation of one with the help of the other. Even in ancient Chinese philosophy, they talk about the universality of the dualism of the world. The ancient sage Plato, a preacher of equality between men and women, believed that a woman is inferior to a man only in quantity, in strength, but not in quality. However, he thanked the gods for giving him freedom, and not slavery, for creating him a man, not a woman. The public figure of that time, Demosthenes, listed the functions of women in a unique and not without humor: “Mistresses are needed for pleasure, concubines - for everyday care of us , and legitimate wives - in order to give birth to legitimate children and run the household.” New significant changes in ideas about the relationship between the sexes occurred thanks to Christianity. Under the auspices of Christian love, marriage acquired a meaning that it did not have in the ancient world. The primacy and supremacy of a man, however, was not subject to discussion. Speaking about the social status of men and women in medieval society, it does not hurt to recall the “witch hunt”, as a result of which thousands of women were burned at the stake. However, a certain optimism is inspired by the fact of the discussion at the Macedonian Council (585), at which, although only by a majority of one vote, a positive answer was received to the question of whether a woman can be considered a human being. Still, for the sake of justice, it is worth finding and “bright” spots in the relationship between the sexes against the general dark background of the Middle Ages, for example: to contrast the cult of witches with the cult of the beautiful lady andthe courtly love of knights for their ladies. The Renaissance and Enlightenment eras favorably shaped humanism in women's issues. For example, Voltaire noted the injustice of the female lot. Diderot believed that the humiliated existence of women is a consequence of certain civil laws and customs. Montesquieu believed that women can and should participate in public life. However, despite the progressive views of philosophers, society tried to justify the inferiority of women at the ideological level, limiting the place and role of women in society. Interesting fact: French women were finally sobered up by Napoleon’s Civil Code, Article 312 of which declared that a woman has no civil rights and is under the guardianship of her husband. By the beginning of the twentieth century, a dispute flared up in Russia about the causes of emancipation, discrimination and other phenomena. After October 1917, the first decrees made women equal to men before the law, having the same rights and freedoms. It is obvious that throughout the history of mankind there have been alternative views on the “women’s” problem. The first, least common, states that man and woman are opposite but complementary beings. The second, more popular one, claims that women are sentenced by God or nature to their secondary status, dependence on a man, husband, clan, society. As soon as a woman undertakes to prove the opposite, she develops a feeling of dissatisfaction, since “God’s is God’s, and Caesar’s is Caesar’s,” and while filled with masculine energies, she does not receive enough feminine ones. Famous thinker of the 20th century. Erich Fromm expressed the opinion that in modern society the meaning of the concept of “equality” has undergone a change. Equality now means “uniformity” rather than “unity.” Man and woman became the same, instead of becoming equal as opposite poles. Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of goods, so social development requires the standardization of man, and this standardization is called “equality.” It remains to be asked, why do women need such a distorted “uniform equality?” And why do many strive for it? In recent years, albeit timidly, another slogan began to sound - “equality in difference.” And it’s true: after all, absolute equality between the sexes leads to masculinization, devaluation of traditionally feminine values ​​(family, children, love, care, etc.) and the growth of traditionally masculine values ​​(work, career, personal success, freedom, independence, etc. .), and it is, first of all, women who suffer from this. It seems that our businesswoman will be able to feel fully and harmoniously only with an intrapersonal balance of feminine and masculine values, recognizing and accepting their differences and not trying to overcome them, without giving up her feminine nature, without feeling guilty that dedication to business sometimes gives way to the desire to be loved. After what has been said, only one thing remains obviously unclear: “What should our businesswoman do? How to find the missing joys and sense of inner harmony? Being a strong leader, a successful businessman is great, but as practice shows, this is not enough. What does it mean to sincerely, and not with a Botox smile of success, feel like a true woman? My experience as a practical consultant shows that some quite successful businesswomen (oh... the original Russian mentality!) are primarily concerned with women's happiness, the achievement of which is quite difficult for a business woman, but without which a career becomes not so attractive and desirable. Answer to the question: what to do – is extremely simple: stop, look around, take a deep breath, calm down and joyfully look around. The pursuit of success has turned into a kind of illusion of life and this is worth recognizing. Therefore, I propose a simple exercise: take a blank sheet of paper, a pencil and write down 10 immediate life goals for 2-3 years in a row. Done? - Amazing. Now rank them, that is, highlight the most important, secondary, etc. goals. Write your answer next to it!