Play & Book Excerpts
Venus Genius
(New Degree Press)
© Fabienne Jacquet
Venus Genius: The Female Prescription for Innovation explores innovation from different perspectives: historical, scientific, sociological, cultural and practical — all through the feminine lens. It addresses the shortage of women in innovation and how important it is to address this as a first step to inclusion. This book reveals that any innovator can acquire the necessary skills to create meaningful innovation. Venus Genius is about celebrating the duality of the feminine and the masculine in all human beings and dares us to activate both energies to create innovation that brings true value to our world.
To date, the world (and innovation) has been mainly driven by masculine energy, and we can no longer ignore gender. This book will help you discover that you have latent feminine skills and that, wherever you stand on the masculine/feminine spectrum, rebalancing towards the opposite makes you a more centered human being in your personal and professional life.
To date, the world (and innovation) has been mainly driven by masculine energy, and we can no longer ignore gender. This book will help you discover that you have latent feminine skills and that, wherever you stand on the masculine/feminine spectrum, rebalancing towards the opposite makes you a more centered human being in your personal and professional life.
Why is the female market an untapped opportunity?
WE STILL LIVE IN A WORLD DESIGNED BY MEN
Caroline Criado Perez, journalist and author, shares some juicy examples: “One woman reported that her car’s voice-command system only listened to her husband, even when he was sitting in the passenger seat.”
As she graphically pictured:
“We are so used to thinking of men as the default and women as a sort of niche – a variety of man”
Jessica Contrera has a quite pictural quote:
The end of ‘shrink it or pink it’
I reconnected with Bill Bean - a former colleague from the corporate world - when a “Congratulate Bill” message popped up on my LinkedIn account. These are always great opportunities to rekindle relationships. We caught up on our current lives and when I mentioned InnovEve and my mission, Bill laughed and said: "One of my ex-mother-in-law's favorite phrases when interacting with products was: "This clearly was designed by a man!"
This made me laugh and triggered my curiosity. I asked my friends, and even strangers, and started to gather anecdotes from women's daily lives, some hilarious, others more serious, which prompted me to do some more research.
Eve (a fictitious woman) crystallizes the experience of lots of women - and men reporting for their wives or daughters - I interviewed, as well as my personal stories. I invite you to follow Eve as she moves through her day in a world designed by men.
This is a special day for Eve as she took her afternoon off to run some errands. It’s also a very busy day.
Eve is getting dressed to go to work. No need to elaborate, She feels obligated to wear high heels at work. As Eve cannot properly walk or drive with her high-heeled shoes, she needs to carry a pair of flats with her for the entire day.
What are Eve’s options for a purse?
The logical options to complete her suit outfit are the handbag carried by hand or on the forearm, or a fancy purse to go with the high heels. Although very elegant, it’s not practical at all. Most women have opted for the baggy cross-body purses that fit all their stuff. However, these are obviously not designed for the women’s body, so women end up carrying them on one shoulder. Some (including me) had sustained shoulder and neck injuries from heavy purses.
“I found my right shoulder—my purse shoulder—started to look lower than the left in the mirror. I also felt some pain from my neck down my right side because of the pressure. So, I got a cute and professional backpack. The back pain went away,” says Lisa Gillespie, a reporter in Louisville.
Eve started to wear a backpack at work. It solved her neck and shoulder pain issues and she could comfortably fit all she needed for her day. She faced some sarcastic comments from her male colleagues, as did Laura Wolf, who works at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.: “Several men have made jokes about whether she’s off to a camping trip. “It’s ridiculous to me because many men use full-sized backpacks that could actually hold camping gear”.
Eve takes her car today as she needs it for the afternoon. We will not mention (again), that the cross-body seat belt is obviously not designed for the female body, and that the car crash tests are conducted with male dummies, putting women’s lives at risk.
Eve has a packed morning with back-to-back meetings. Although the topics are different, there is one constant for the entire morning: she is freezing in all the meetings rooms. Indeed, while male and female body temperatures are similar, subtle biological variations make for a different perception, women being comfortable at a temperature 2.5C warmer than men. However, the buildings and meeting rooms temperature is set according to male standards.
Time for lunch. Eve is at one of her favorite ‘bistros’ that serves family-like food, just to hear the new waiter suggesting their wonderful salad menu. Eve actually feels like having a good ‘steak-frites’ (or if she were in France, a beautiful ‘andouillette AAAAA’, the best one!).
Looking around, she notices women pecking at their salad while men are voluptuously enjoying their steak. What is wrong with this picture? According to Paul Freedman, the Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University, starting in the 1970s, kale, quinoa and other healthy food fads are gendered as “female.” Barbecue, bourbon and “adventurous foods,” on the other hand, are the domain of men. Even in the 21st century, echoes of cookbooks like “The Way to a Man’s Heart” resound – a sign that it will take a lot more work to get rid of the fiction that some foods are for men, while others are for women.
WE STILL LIVE IN A WORLD DESIGNED BY MEN
Caroline Criado Perez, journalist and author, shares some juicy examples: “One woman reported that her car’s voice-command system only listened to her husband, even when he was sitting in the passenger seat.”
As she graphically pictured:
“We are so used to thinking of men as the default and women as a sort of niche – a variety of man”
Jessica Contrera has a quite pictural quote:
The end of ‘shrink it or pink it’
I reconnected with Bill Bean - a former colleague from the corporate world - when a “Congratulate Bill” message popped up on my LinkedIn account. These are always great opportunities to rekindle relationships. We caught up on our current lives and when I mentioned InnovEve and my mission, Bill laughed and said: "One of my ex-mother-in-law's favorite phrases when interacting with products was: "This clearly was designed by a man!"
This made me laugh and triggered my curiosity. I asked my friends, and even strangers, and started to gather anecdotes from women's daily lives, some hilarious, others more serious, which prompted me to do some more research.
Eve (a fictitious woman) crystallizes the experience of lots of women - and men reporting for their wives or daughters - I interviewed, as well as my personal stories. I invite you to follow Eve as she moves through her day in a world designed by men.
This is a special day for Eve as she took her afternoon off to run some errands. It’s also a very busy day.
Eve is getting dressed to go to work. No need to elaborate, She feels obligated to wear high heels at work. As Eve cannot properly walk or drive with her high-heeled shoes, she needs to carry a pair of flats with her for the entire day.
What are Eve’s options for a purse?
The logical options to complete her suit outfit are the handbag carried by hand or on the forearm, or a fancy purse to go with the high heels. Although very elegant, it’s not practical at all. Most women have opted for the baggy cross-body purses that fit all their stuff. However, these are obviously not designed for the women’s body, so women end up carrying them on one shoulder. Some (including me) had sustained shoulder and neck injuries from heavy purses.
“I found my right shoulder—my purse shoulder—started to look lower than the left in the mirror. I also felt some pain from my neck down my right side because of the pressure. So, I got a cute and professional backpack. The back pain went away,” says Lisa Gillespie, a reporter in Louisville.
Eve started to wear a backpack at work. It solved her neck and shoulder pain issues and she could comfortably fit all she needed for her day. She faced some sarcastic comments from her male colleagues, as did Laura Wolf, who works at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.: “Several men have made jokes about whether she’s off to a camping trip. “It’s ridiculous to me because many men use full-sized backpacks that could actually hold camping gear”.
Eve takes her car today as she needs it for the afternoon. We will not mention (again), that the cross-body seat belt is obviously not designed for the female body, and that the car crash tests are conducted with male dummies, putting women’s lives at risk.
Eve has a packed morning with back-to-back meetings. Although the topics are different, there is one constant for the entire morning: she is freezing in all the meetings rooms. Indeed, while male and female body temperatures are similar, subtle biological variations make for a different perception, women being comfortable at a temperature 2.5C warmer than men. However, the buildings and meeting rooms temperature is set according to male standards.
Time for lunch. Eve is at one of her favorite ‘bistros’ that serves family-like food, just to hear the new waiter suggesting their wonderful salad menu. Eve actually feels like having a good ‘steak-frites’ (or if she were in France, a beautiful ‘andouillette AAAAA’, the best one!).
Looking around, she notices women pecking at their salad while men are voluptuously enjoying their steak. What is wrong with this picture? According to Paul Freedman, the Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University, starting in the 1970s, kale, quinoa and other healthy food fads are gendered as “female.” Barbecue, bourbon and “adventurous foods,” on the other hand, are the domain of men. Even in the 21st century, echoes of cookbooks like “The Way to a Man’s Heart” resound – a sign that it will take a lot more work to get rid of the fiction that some foods are for men, while others are for women.
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Fabienne Jacquet is a disruptive innovator passionate about helping the world become a more joyful place with meaningful and sustainable solutions, starting with the workplace. She is half-French, half-American, half-scientist and half-marketer… yes, too many halves, but as they say in French: “When you love, you don’t count!”
From her Ph.D. in organic chemistry to her marketing experience, innovation has been her love, for more than 30 years: short-term, long-term, fundamental, external, open, and strategic, with a proven track record in Fortune 500 companies. Through her international journey, she has lived between Europe and the U.S. and has traveled the world. In 2018, she settled in the U.S. and created INNOVEVE®, a consultancy in innovation with a mission to transform innovation by embracing feminine energy. Her book Venus Genius: the Female Prescription for Innovation (published in December 2020) has a predominant theme of innovation through the feminine lens. To order a signed copy of Fabienne's book:
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