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For years, high-profile lawyer Mai Chen wished she were a white man. Growing up a Taiwanese girl in 1970s Christchurch meant a double-whammy of racism and sexism, she says.
But the 44-year-old Wellington woman realised she wouldn't have achieved what she has without that experience. Now she's challenging other women to "leverage off your weaknesses".
In a provocative address to an International Women's Day event in Auckland tomorrow, Chen will tell women the ball's in their court.
"You can decide what to do with your experiences of discrimination, and what I chose to do is to rise up on my feet and overcome it, and that's empowering," she told the Herald on Sunday. "I remember when a group of women said, 'Oh, it's not fair, men have got the old boys' network'. I said, 'It's easy, girls. Let's set up an old girls' network'."
She had felt cursed as a girl. "[The] Chinese have a saying that 'having daughters is like maggots in the rice'. I always knew my parents were disappointed I wasn't a boy." And she was taunted for being Chinese. "I wished most sincerely that I was a white male."
She told the Herald on Sunday, "I used to resent my past. Now I embrace it as something that's been positive in my life. What does it benefit anyone to be angry and hurt? This is ultimately why I became a public lawyer - because I was interested in power, who had it, who didn't have it."
Chen sees financial independence as fundamental for women. "I find that much easier to relate to than gender analysis or whether we should have a Ministry of Women's Affairs."
She heads public law firm Chen Palmer, which she founded with former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer. She concedes the glass ceiling's still intact, but women have to break through. "I don't think it's PC to say it, but I observe it all the time because I live in a male world. I know that as an Asian woman I have to be better than anyone else."
The mother of a 4-year-old, Chen said her heart went out to Katherine Rich, the former National MP who is retiring to focus on her family. "There are days [as a working mum] you feel you're not winning on any front, and all you'd like is 10 minutes to stand under the shower or half an hour to walk the dog. There's no such thing as work-life balance."
But she has little patience for using discrimination as an excuse for failure. "I hear complaints from women, but I think, 'Have you worked hard? Have you gone and done the training? Are you prepared to make the commitment? Are you prepared to be confident? If you want a job go and get it. And if you don't get it, and you think there are reasons of discrimination, well, you can either complain about it or you can work harder."
