Hi Ladies,

As you all probably know our aim at ‘Women in Work’ is to encourage strong, confident women to learn the skills to reach their career goals and stride above any limitations they may face while doing so. While our conferences and events allow convocations and networking opportunities to take place, we also want a strong social media presence to keep empowering you all every day during this academic year. One segment of this is our blog, each month, along with other posts, we aim to produce a book review for books aimed at all the great things we stand for as a society. We hope these reviews will inspire you to take a look at these books and others to motivate you to achieve all your goals whether they be academic or not.

So this academic year we are kicking things off with a review of ‘The Confidence Code’ by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman.[1] I’ve decided to start with this book as it tries to explore the science behind confidence and uses examples of successful woman and science experiments to try and get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding confidence and have we can fully achieve it. Spoiler alert: it seems to be all down to our perceptions of ourselves rather than science, however, like confidence, self-esteem is also rather hard to just achieve. For this reason, I really liked all the background research and personal antidotes throughout the book as I feel reading real examples motivates us and shows us that anyone can achieve a strong self-esteem and therefore grasp the elusive skill of confidence. 

The book starts out by saying, ‘Life on confidence can be a remarkable thing’.[2] This introduction highlights how worthwhile working on confidence can be in the long term and all the amazing things having a bit of confidence can achieve. They support these claims by giving examples of strong women such as Malala Yousafzai, who had the confidence to keep fighting for her rights for her education.

The book then goes on to look at a different aspect of confidence. First by analysing current science experiments on the topic of brain activity and confidence and comparing these to strong influential women to come to conclusions on how confidence can be achieved and developed.

Quite a lot of the points made throughout the book compare female brains and personalities to that of men. Personally, I did not enjoy all these comparison as it seemed to play into conventional stereotypes of women. Furthermore, I feel that both women and men struggle with confidence so these simple and general comparisons aren’t needed to motivate the women reading this book. However, the book does allow a glimpse into society and the intergradient ideas about the genders which a lot of industries and careers have and this gives the reader a lot more motivation to fight these stereotypes.

Overall, I feel it is important to recognise how society is conditioned to believe these between men and women so we can fight it and break glass ceilings. However, this book spends a whole chapter comparing men and women with included stats and figures, and personally I feel this is not needed, I feel that as a society self-motivation without comparison is much better for confidence and that when trying to better yourself and your future the only person you should compare yourself to is yourself.

Later on, the book moves away from these comparisons, thankfully, and focuses on the building blocks to build confidence ‘the confidence cousins’.[3] These are… ‘self-esteem, optimism, self-compassion and self-efficacy’.[4] I liked this section of the book as the authors go into details about each ‘confidence cousin’ and how having a grasps on all of these aspects can build your own confidence easily and successfully.[5] They concluded this chapter with the quite ‘Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into actions’.[6] I loved this quote as it is exactly why we are such confidence campaigners here at Women in Work – we don’t just want you to have dreams we want to be able to support you in gaining the skills and confidence to go out and achieve them.

Another significant chapter, which builds on this, is Chapter Six, this chapter focuses on how to ‘make your thoughts an ally’.[7] It enforces the importance of positive thinking and goes into detail on how confidence is more than just working on yourself but also learning how to included others in your confidence so they too can build theirs. [8] The chapter focuses on skills such as ‘being grateful, thinking small and the balance of power in a convocation’ to make you seem effortlessly confident and help others feel comfortable and secure around you.[9]

In conclusion I feel this this book is more factual then it is motivating but there are elements within that do give women, looking to build their confidence, a point in the right direction and the building blocks to do so. So if you are looking for a starting point in developing your confidence yourself this book summarises the context of confidence perfectly and gives a lot of real world examples to how their methods and tips work within different industries. This book has a focus on women working within the STEM and business industry too so it is helpful for researching breaking glass ceilings in those areas.

Anyway ladies, I hope you all enjoyed this first book review – if any of you do read the book feel free to message us and tell us what you think, cannot wait for all the exciting things we have coming up this year!

XOXO

Amy and Sacha are advertising graduates, creative partners, and co-founders of their own brand, Gen.u.ine cosmetics. Gen.u.ine is believed to be the world’s first gender neutral make-up brand specifically designed for chemotherapy patients. It has just been shortlisted on the D&AD Future Impact ‘Ones To Watch’ list. The girls have also been noted on Badass Gals list of influential creative women 2019. The two graduated in September 2019 and are currently looking for creative placements in London whilst running Gen.u.ine.

They met like all great friends do, starring across the room at each other with a preconceived dislike for one another. It was only until 4 months after they had been studying on the same course, Creative Advertising, that they got to work together on a brief for the Motor Neurone Disease Association that they realised they actually quite liked each other. Like turned to love as they got to know how similar they are, despite being from opposite ends of the country. Both hate cooking. Both love swimming. Both love crime documentaries.

Differences and similarities played a huge part in choosing each other as creative partners. In the wild world of advertising, you have to choose a partner. A work wife for life. One is the art director and the other a copywriter. In simple terms, one of them is better at creating the image and the other is better at crafting the words to go with it. However, their brains work together to create an advert for each brief.

Over the 3 year course, they have received briefs for many brands, including PureGym, Hyundai, and Supreme. In their final year, they started a brief titled ‘Famous & Effective’ and were given just over a month to become famous in the advertising industry. They had complete free range over the brief, and whist some people worked on promoting themselves to make them famous, Amy & Sacha started to develop Gen.u.ine cosmetics. Their initial aim was to become known in the industry for doing good, helping people, and making a tangible societal impact.

Every idea has to be inspired by something. This may be by surroundings, events or in some cases, people. For Gen.u.ine it was Amy’s nan, Margaret Palmer, who inspired the initial idea. Margaret suffered from bowl cancer for just over two years. She loved make-up, amazing colours, and had fashion to go with it to match her big personality. When she started chemotherapy her skin drastically changed. It became dry and at risk of infection. This is when Amy and her mother realised that the chemicals in Margaret’s high street make-up had disastrous effects on her skin. They had no choice but to get rid of her make-up. This left her feeling low in confidence and not able to be herself. This meant Margaret had to test very expensive make-up through a tiring and disheartening ‘trial and error’ process. During her treatment, all she wanted was to feel like herself. Unfortunately, Margaret passed away before she was able to use any of the Gen.u.ine products, but for many others, when they start to lose their sense of self, Gen.u.ine is there to step in, pick them up, and help them through. With the great support of co-founder, Sacha, who respected Margaret’s memory every step of the way, they we’re able to develop Gen.u.ine from a university idea to a worldwide reality. You may think it ambitious for two twenty-one year old women to start a business in an area which has not been highly researched, but if we had never taken up the challenge, we would never had the chance to help so many people restore their identity. The ‘Gen.u.ine’ range currently consists of three shades of eyebrow pomade, three shades of liquid lip tint, a cheek tint, and an eyeshadow palette with nine individual shades. Each product is dedicated to someone who has an experience with cancer, the first eyebrow pomade being named after Margaret.

Amy and Sacha, only wish is that Margaret was still with them to celebrate Gen.u.ine’s achievements. They are breaking into the London advertising scene bit by bit, and started gaining experience during the summer of their second year at Lincoln. The pair secured work experience at one of the best advertising agencies in the world, Grey London. Having spent two weeks in the studio, working on live briefs, a fire was lit under them and they have relentlessly pursued a career in advertising ever since.

They have had ‘book crits’ (portfolio reviews) at over 20 agencies in London, including the BBC, McCann, and Adam&Eve. The relationships they have built with senior creatives at each agency have been the most valuable to them. Networking is a huge part of becoming successful, and if it’s in a field you truly love, it can be really fun and incredibly rewarding! Although getting a job in any profession is very competitive, you just have to keep going with the grit and determination that inspired you in the first place. Remembering your original motivation can push you through the hard days and make the success even sweeter.

It’s great to see more and more women entering the advertising industry, with many awards being created specifically to champion successful, hard working women. Women in Work is a great platform for girls on all courses at Lincoln to start networking and getting support from other likeminded women going through the same steps. You never know, you might even meet your business partner!

Amy & Sacha’s biggest piece of advice, as cringey as it sounds, is to be yourself. Never change yourself to fit into a class, industry or profession. Your personality will shine through and people will respect you for it in the long run. As hard as it is to not be sucked into certain preconceptions of what you’re expected to be, look like, and dress, stick to your guns. Don’t doubt your own originality. Trust your instincts on people, yourself, and your own ideas. Listen to yourself and be honest with your opinions. University is a great place to explore and experiment, to learn who you are and develop, but you don’t have to have everything figured out all at once! It’s ok to learn! All the best of luck to everyone involved in Women in Work and have a great year.

Email: amyandsacha98@gmail.com

Insta: gen.u.ine.cosmetics

Website: amyandsacha.carbonmade.com

PCOS – A Life Changing Condition

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a syndrome in which a hormone imbalance causes a whole range of problems. The most common of this, and where the syndrome gets its name from, are cysts that appear on one or both ovaries and are painful when the cyst is burst.

"PCOS affects over 7 million people. That's more than the number of people diagnosed with breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and lupus combined."

-Louise Chang, MD

I was diagnosed with PCOS during my first year of university. I struggled with severe pain in my lower stomach, similar to menstrual cramps, and therefor went to see my GP. After blood tests and many scans they found cysts on my ovaries. To treat PCOS I was given the contraceptive pill and was told that if I ever went wanted to have children I would have to go back for more medication.

Leaving the doctors office that day I was still so confused as to what PCOS actually was, what it meant, what was going on? I took ‘The Pill’ and I learnt to deal with the pain, thinking that If a doctor shrugged me off I must have been over-reacting.

A few weeks later I decided to see if there was anything more I could do to help myself. Online there were chat rooms filled with women all experiencing the same things as me, a lot of women had it even worse. Side effects of PCOS included; weight gain, insomnia, unusual or heavy bleeding, depression, anxiety, IBS, unusual or rapid body hair growth. There are more than I have listed here, each women has her own experience with PCOS, like a painful snowflake.  

With all these effects of PCOS it is really easy for you to feel buried, it is so hard to keep on top of it all. Living a normal life seems 100 times harder. For me the mornings are the worst, usually tired from a sleepless night with insomnia, another problem will swiftly knock me off my feet. But I have just learnt to keep getting back up. I have also learnt that it is okay to give yourself a rest when you need it. Self-care is a pillar of my health, without it I would crumble.

Like most women living with PCOS, I really don’t want your sympathy. I do want to spread awareness for this chronic illness millions of women have to experience. I want more research going into how to help these women without relying on birth control. I want these women to be able to thrive without PCOS holding them back. Please follow the link to The PCOS Awareness Association and donate if you can.

All images used belong to The PCOS Awareness Association.

https://www.pcosaa.org 

Kerry Michelle Wilson.