The future of women in property is more than WISHful thinking
Tracey McEachran, London Chair of Women in Social Housing (WISH) and founder of Curious Minds Consulting, talks to maniF3sto.
I envisaged that my interview with Tracey McEachran, Chair of Women in Social Housing, (WISH), would lead us into the labyrinth of the public sector, instead we end up discussing shadow selves and Jungian visualisation. Which is no great surprise given her day job at Curious Minds Consulting is that of someone dedicated to building high performing teams and individuals, via a sojourn as an artist.
It is also not surprising really, given the view by many women that they are not to be treated as a minority (they aren’t, statistically there are more women than men) but as part of a whole. Our discussion therefore wasn’t all about women’s issues, but about the whole. That in itself is seismic. A beleaguered male approach would be to bemoan his problems. Aquarius Rising is about seeing across the whole landscape. Another tick on my assumption that sooner than later, women are going to step in and sort out our masculine mess.
Through her training at Curious Minds, Tracey “helps people get a better lens on themselves” and this too seems to be a major part of WISH, which she describes as being “a place where women can safely come together to build their network, to seek advice on building their career, build their personal brand, understand and build their purpose and think about what they want their legacies to be.”
Again, I’m agog, as when men meet in groups the personal brands discussed tend to be on their wrists and the legacies debated are usually those of their football teams. Over-simplistic maybe, but you get my point.
While Tracey acknowledges there is a very real discrepancy in the property industry where there are certainly less women in high posts than men – as indeed the same for ethnic minorities and those from the disabled (hateful word) community she doesn’t finger point in any of the usual places.
“Female role models”, she notes, “are a lot less visible than male; conference platforms are dominated by men, yes, but also men are much better at doing things for each other.”
WISH embraces the more female mind-set of doing the training, “Men talk about skills and maybe swap training for role models whereas women focus on doing the training,” she adds.
Men give themselves a tick, women really value formal training where perhaps, society gives them a tick. Men somehow already have the badge.”
The “badge” Tracey refers to is not only in property and is perhaps losing its lustre. One need only look at how female led governments such as Germany and New Zealand fare against male led governments such as the UK and the USA in dealing with Covid, or as Tracey sums it up, “Where women educate themselves, in a property world that is still very much about who you know, men are still caught up in the fake it till you make it.”
More women are taking the lead in public sector. More women are setting up and running successful property companies. Women are also more focused on getting qualified.
Time for the fake it till you make it approach to sharpen its pencil…
