The Red Tent Blog

About seventeen years ago, Mr. G., the head of human resources department, of the large German corporation I worked for, was asked to give a speech about “Women: Job Equality and Career Perspectives” at a prestigious meeting of business hotshots.

Since Mr. G. didn’t know anything about the topic, he sent out a questionnaire to all the professional women of the company and asked us our views or experiences concerning pay equality, possibility of promotion, work conditions in general, and working almost exclusively with men (it’s an engineering firm) in particular. The accounts returned made him blush, he told us at a later point in time, in their frankness. Basically, the women painted a very grim picture of what it was like to work in the company as a female engineer, computer scientist, etc. This did not stop him from going to the meeting and presenting glowing accounts about how the company he represents, a family company, is doing their very best to encourage women in the engineering profession.

To do him credit, the moment he returned from the meeting he offered the professional women in the company the opportunity of forming a professional women’s group. The group was to work out some viable solutions for problems related to women’s issues, such as lack of proper day care facilities, the right to extended periods of leave for women raising small children or caring for ill parents, lack of women in management positions, and networking. We were to act as advisories to the head of human resources department and the company union policy makers.

The group accomplished wonderful work for about six or seven years. We managed to make some fundamental changes in the company policies, as well as form a parent initiative day care and kindergarten, and change a few union policies. All in all they were exciting times, which made the group’s eventual demise, through internal bickering, a painful experience. Afterwards, I more or less decided not to get politically involved in women issues again. I felt that if I were ever to do anything at all, it would have to be on personal and understated level.

Then, about six years ago, I read the wonderful book, I Know Just What You Mean, The Power of Friendship in Women’s Lives, by Ellen Goodman and Patricia O’Brien. The story is about women friendships. The book is very well written, the ideas and thoughts behind the writing intriguing.

Sometime before or after reading I Know Just What You Mean, I read The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant. An absolute must read.

The concept of women’s friendships being equally significant and powerful past and present, overwhelmed me. These two books inspired me to come up with a concept for a website, and outlines for a short film and play. Once done, unfortunately, I just put the documents away and hoped eventually Something would happen, which allowed me to realise my vision.



Last year a few friends and I started our own virtual Red Tent. The idea behind it is to create a place for women to share their thoughts and experiences in a safe and welcoming atmosphere. We don’t have to be friends, just friendly, and curious to know about the challenges other women face in this day and age.

If you’d like to write a post entry please feel free. There is a Topic Of The Month page, but I don’t think any of the writers have necessarily kept to it. If you write something, just send the text to virtualredtent(AT)yahoo(dOt)com. At the moment the entries are in English and German, but we welcome other languages.