The Queen Bee and the Cougar: From Insult to Empowerment

I’ve been thinking about how we insult women as they age by comparing them to animals. When I was younger, they called me a tease if the boys thought me attractive. Now that I’m middle aged, they call me cougar. When I was little, they called me bossy for asserting myself or asking that my needs be met. Now that I’m middle aged, they call me the queen bee. 

My instinct is to cringe, the title queen bee is after all, an insult. The queen is seen as selfish, demanding, entitled, and manipulative. People imagine a bee, sitting on a throne, golden crown on her head sipping propolis, while throngs of workers toil all day to keep the hive running. This however, is a profane assessment, and couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, the queen bee is one of the most selfless creatures on Earth, whose entire life is dedicated to the successful propagation of her species.

Life in the hive depends entirely on the fidelity of the queen. It is true that there is only one of her kind, and she is completely unique amongst her sisters, yet by her very nature, she is the one being in the hive that can never change her mind, never stop working and never decide to turn her back on her leadership role. If she asserts any independence, the entire hive will fail. Bees can’t live without their queen.

She is the organizing principle. Everyone follows her orders, yet she rules with a natural wisdom. She knows exactly how many workers are needed for each season, and how many drones will keep the hive warm. With a signal, she assigns tasks with precision and the workers follow her wisdom with their own loyalty. In this way, she is bossy, but in her bossiness, the rest of the hive can relax and truly become one. Everything is taken care of. Every task is held, because the queen holds the hive as one entity, one mind. The hive shows us that many hands are needed in order for bees to live out their role on Earth as pollinators.

The queen bee serves ceaselessly, sometimes as long as five years, with her eyes always on the prize. She doesn’t get a day off. She isn’t sitting on a throne. Instead she is laying eggs, all day, and instructing the hive to ensure that those eggs grow to adulthood. Her sole focus is on procreation and fertility so that the hive might live forever.

Unlike the workers, the queen rarely leaves the hive, once after she’s born in order to mate with the drones, and then only when she has been successful and produced enough bees that the hive needs to split. The queen bee never frolics among the flowers, nor feels the summer sun’s kiss. She can’t—to do so would be an act of treason against those she was born to protect.

Yes, she’s the only one. Yes, she’s in charge. Yet the queen bee isn’t selfish, rather she’s completely at service to the greater good, the whole, the all. I think she’s admirable, and rather than cringe at the comparison, which is often an insult, I think it’s time to accept it, for the path of the queen bee is one who leads through service, without question. I would love to be so selfless and her path is one worth pursuing.

In our complex world, we need more queen bees, not less, dedicating their lives to helping us navigate the serious problems of our time.

So claim it ladies, and aspire to become a queen bee as she truly is—an important part of the ecosystem in which we live. Which leads me to the other animal insult thrown at middle-aged women—cougar—usually as a means to belittle the fact that she has remained sexual past her prime. You know, she actually enjoys sex even though she’s no longer a maiden and her kids are older? (When I googled the word cougar, the first link is one to a dating website for women seeking younger men.)

Again, there is some wisdom in the profane and even though the term is used to cut women down, like the queen bee, the world is in need of this sort of feminine leadership. Just like the queen of the hive, the cougar is the queen of the forest. As the apex predator, the cougar plays a pivotal and critical role in maintaining biodiversity in many different ecosystems. By hunting deer and wild boar, the cougar keeps the herbivore population balanced, ensuring that over-grazing doesn’t occur. As an example, a recent study on the trophic decline of Zion National Park showed that a reduction in cougars led to the overpopulation of deer, which led to the destruction of key plant species, namely the cottonwood tree, which led to not only erosion along the creeks and streams (the trees were no longer there to keep the soil in check) but also the loss of habitat for many insects which fed bird species, which are also now in decline.

Like the queen bee, the cougar keeps the ecosystem in order. Should she be envied for her position? Should she be killed off because she bothers the livestock? Should she be seen as a danger to the order of humanity?

Middle aged women are needed to reorganize a society that has lost its way. One where 50% of our children live in poverty, where health care sends many into debt, where people are left without shelter in the rain and cold. Our human society is in need of strong, feminine leadership. Middle age is a time when a woman is not only wise with years, but she also has more time to serve the whole because the needs of her own family are waning. She can make the effort to grow her talents and assert her power in a larger context.

Beware, there is a price to pay. If you’re too bossy, you’re the queen bee. If you’re too sexy, you’re the cougar. But maybe it means you’re doing something right? Turn the insult upside down and go deeper, and you just might find that both of those animals represent exactly what is needed at this time in history. For to become either is to lead with service, a trait that is sorely lacking in our world, from the boardroom to the White House.

Expect people to strike back. Look at how we fear the swarming hive and do all we can to kill the bees. The same goes for the cougar, who is often hunted by the human because she dares to feed on their penned-in livestock. The queen bee and the cougar live according to different rules, and often pay dearly for it. Yet without them, the natural world could not survive.

So be a queen bee, or a cougar, or both, without shame. For they are beautiful, strong, selfless and completely necessary in the web of life.

The Disruptive CEO—Why Do Silicon Valley Founders Behave So Badly?

The San Francisco Bay Area has been taken over by the cult of “Radical Disruption.” Everywhere I turn I see a new elite college drop-out founding the latest, greatest tech startup that will totally disrupt life as we know it, and make someone a shitload of money, with a workforce of only rock star, ninja programmers and slick, hip PR guys and gals who will remake the world, while also completely fudging the numbers and harassing every employee that comes through their doors. I imagine we can blame it on Steve Jobs, but the leaders of the cult of “Radical Disruption” around here are startup CEOs, worshipped like gurus for their guts, their genius and their ability to both be super cool and create radical new workplaces while totally DISRUPTING some commercial space AND attending Burning Man and Coachella Music Fest each year.

I don’t mean to sound snarky. Both of my teen-aged sons inform me on a regular basis that I’m not funny and thus snark is way out of my element. However, as I watch the world of technology from my seat in the sleepy Santa Cruz Mountains to the south of Silicon Valley, all I can do is wonder, “Who the hell are these people?”

I get it, I’m old. But not that old. I mean, I didn’t have to program using punch cards. I actually learned to write code using an actual keyboard. To give some perspective, I’m only five years older than Uber Founder and CEO, Travis Kalanick, so I’m not sure we’re of dramatically different generations. Yet I’m astounded by the allegations that show up in my newsfeed everyday about him, and many others, that live and work just over the hill from me. They have come to power and what do they do with it? Use it to disrupt EVERYTHING, and I don’t mean the actual commercial space they occupy, but the lives of the employees and investors that prop up the very dream they seem to think is their divine calling.

Let’s begin with Travis Kalanick, the Uber CEO, who has been accused of spying on former employees who have dared to sue him,  tagging iPhones even after its app had been deleted and the devices erased — a fraud detection maneuver that violated Apple’s privacy guidelines, creating a workplace rife with sexual harassment where female employees weren’t given the same black leather jacket reward because there weren’t enough women in the department to get a group discount. And my favorite? Alphabet’s Waymo lawsuit against Otto (purchased by Uber) for allegedly stealing the design of a key self-driving system.

Wow. You get to be CEO of a company about to IPO while all this shit is hitting the fan? Travis Kalanick, you are sooooo lucky to be a rock star CEO in 2017. Seriously, because if you’d been the CEO of a company in the 1990’s, you’d be finished.

It appears that sexism exists all over Silicon Valley, but certainly not in a company founded by women, right? One would think that at Thinx, a company that makes period-proof underwear, things would be downright utopian for the ladies. Not so, and this story really breaks my heart. Meet Miki Agrawal, one of the cutest Valley CEOs and the founder of a company I completely adore. I use the Thinx period panties and while they’re a bit pricey, they’re a great technological feat. I wanted her company, and the brand she was selling, namely herself, to succeed. But that was not to be, and just a month ago sexual harassment charges were brought against a “SHE-E-O”!!!! Allegedly, Ms. Agrawal touched employee’s breasts, and demanded that one employee to let her look at the empolyee’s new nipple piercings in front of the male co-worker in her office. Ms. Agrawal also often changed into other clothes and period-proof undies in front of everyone in the office. In her post on Medium, Agrawal writes that her lawyers have found no evidence for these claims, however, the case is still open and awaiting trial, and she’s stepped down from her post of CEO. Of course, in another post on Medium, she details her adventures in the Orgy Dome at Burning Man while promoting her products, so, I guess that's okay for a CEO to reveal in public as well?

Now, for those reading this that live in the Midwest, Deep South, or even the East Coast, this is happening in California, the land of the free in more ways than you can think of. Nudity is common, I see it when I walk down the main street of my town, polyamory is in, and many women flirt and make-out with one another all the time. It’s cool, for some, you know? But in the workplace? No. It isn’t cool, even in Silicon Valley.

Sexual harassment, stealing trade secrets and spying, I imagine that’s what you have to do to be a successful CEO in the cult of “Radical Disruption” because that’s what venture capitalists are looking for.  But how about completely lying to investors about key metrics? Take Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, the blood-testing start-up that she started as a 19-year-oldStanford dropout, which was valued at some $9 billion. That was before the Wall Street Journal reported in October of 2016 her company was basically a sham and that Theranos used competitor’s products to do all of its testing because its own technology didn’t actually work.

Oh my. Holmes was a female self-made millionaire in a world of male dominance, and a shining light here in the Valley. She even wears nothing but black turtle necks, just like Steve Jobs. Theranos was going to disrupt the health care industry by providing lab work at a fraction of the cost. Yet when Ms. Holmes’ technology failed, rather than report it, she purchased competitor equipment and lied to her investors.

But Ms. Holmes, you’re not alone. Let me introduce you to Evan Spiegel, your male twin when it comes to hiding data from investors, and Snapchat’s founder and CEO, who not only said, according to a former employee, “This app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain,” his company also exaggerates Snapchat’s user data to keep top executives completely misinformed about key metrics. Now if you are an actual investor in Snapchat, Evan wants to assure you that these metrics are really no big deal, honestly, they're not, because in the end lying to your investors is also part of the cult of “Radical Disruption.”

All of this troubles me. I wonder, what will happen to our technology and our future when these types of people are considered glamorous and fit to found and run the companies that will define the future? Do business schools assign case studies on these innovators as a means to encourage their students to follow in their enlightened footsteps? Each one of these founders set out to create something new—a new way to hail rides, a new way to manage your period each month, a new way to administer blood tests, a new way to communicate with your friends. Yet each and every one has created a workplace of harassment, poor benefits, or lied to their investors and the public. Where did they learn how to do business? Who were their role models?

If companies are now being founded on the cult of “Radical Disruption” is it any wonder that everything—from workplace security to honesty in reporting data—is being disregarded? To disrupt means, “drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something).”

What do we lose when we encourage this next generation of leaders to destroy in the name of success, brilliance and destiny?

Personally, I expected more from my generation. Corruption is corruption, even if you attend Burning Man.