Pray, smile, and relax at home: Leadership guide sparks uproar at N.L. women's conference

Smile. Don't complain. Protect your appearance by relaxing at home.

These morsels of advice — handed out in a booklet at a government-led gathering promoting women's issues — provoked backlash Wednesday, raising harsh criticism from women's rights advocates in Newfoundland and Labrador over the province's choice of reading material.

What was supposed to be a feel-good "women in leadership" conference, spearheaded by the provincial Women's Policy Office, took a turn toward controversy as audience members filed in to a networking skills session at the St. John's Convention Centre.

They were greeted by copies of Dale Carnegie's Golden Book, originally published in 1936 by the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Among the tips in the guidebook were rules for conquering worry, preventing fatigue and becoming a friendlier person.

The book itself was intended as a non-gender-specific self-improvement guide, but conference attendees say passing these tips out to a room full of women during a leadership conference was an oversight that caused alienation and confusion.

Mary Shortall, president of the N.L. Federation of Labour, said a better approach may have been to include the voices of the 400 or so women in the room, rather than meting out advice that she said many women view as sexist and antiquated.

"Women know intuitively, I think, how to network," Shortall said. "It was very interesting to see that, as the gentleman was going through the presentation, there was a lot of women who were saying 'that's not how we network' and 'this is how we do it.'

"I think that's an indication of the bigger picture and why it's so important to bring women into this room," she continued. 

"They didn't realize the women who were there were very capable of networking," without needing to use tips from a book written nearly a century ago, she said.

Although a number of women spoke at a panel discussion and a woman gave the keynote speech, attendees also took issue with the choice of allowing a man to present networking tips to women.

"I just feel it was really out of place," said business owner Kelly Hickey, who was in the audience. "When there was so much knowledge and wisdom and experience in the room, why is that guy up there on stage for over an hour?"

Hickey said she was disappointed she only had a few minutes to meet other women in the room.

"I wanted to hear what women had to say. I wanted to hear what their experiences were. I wanted to hear the lessons they had to share," she said.

"So that was the disappointing thing, that the organizers didn't put a priority on women speakers."

Female speaker 'unavailable'

Carol Anne Haley, minister responsible for the status of women, said organizers tried to get a female speaker.

"We have reached out to females for this session," Haley said. "Unfortunately we couldn't get anyone available, the ones that we were looking at. So next time we will look a little further, I guess, for a female."

She stressed the booklet was not produced by officials, but apologized for the oversight after the conference.

"Dale Carnegie is a very reputable institution," she said. "With respect to the [booklet], it's not government material. It's their material, and I apologize for going forward with this."

Haley was on hand to promote the province's unveiling of the department's refined modus operandi.

The new office will focus on three main issues, according to remarks made by Premier Dwight Ball at Wednesday's conference: preventing gender-based violence, advancing women in leadership and better gender-based analysis across government work.

"We're not where we want to be. We will not stop until violence is stopped against women," Ball said.

"We've always had a gender-based lens, but we want to do better and we know there's room for improvement."

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