What is a DAO?

(Decentralized Autonomous Organization)

A DAO is both a technology and an idea. The idea manifests each time a group of people come together to accomplish common goals where the objectives for achieving those goals are decided by a system of decision-making based on the promotion of the best ideas.  The proposal of these ideas do not need to gain traction within the male-dominated social hierarchy that we are all familiar with at work .

Crucially, this means that participants are free to propose ideas and the community votes on those ideas based on objective criteria (versus the subjective bias we observe in web2 organizations).

Within DAOs, the hierarchy no longer exists, allowing for equal participation from all members that are willing to participate.

People are only just beginning to understand how DAOs are without the bias and barrier which plague web2 organizations. To the extent that women can come together within a DAO and demonstrate a working example of a productive DAO, this is a HUGE opportunity for women and the basis for my ideas behind the next wave of business in Web3.

Equity is most successful when it is organic and complementary.
In DAOs, women are not only at the table, but they are helping to build the table, have a voice at the table and are inviting others to the table.

The Hierarchical Corporation

Corporations and most places of work, operate through a hierarchical framework.

Example: CEO -> VP -> Managers -> Employees -> Junior Employees ->  etc…

This is the method by which humans have been working since the concept of work began.  A centralized authority that has a goal and delegates downwards in the hierarchical framework to get the goal accomplished.

The organization of labor and resources has almost entirely been decided by a male social hierarchy which is underpinned by biological male aggression & need for dominance in the formation of social hierarchies. There are examples of periods in civilization where this wasn’t the case, but this is rare today.

One only has to look to the primate kingdom to observe the naturally occurring hierarchies that male primates operate in.   The males need to protect the tribe physically and compete with one another to win the gene pool.

Contemporary human males compete with each other in the workplace to gain respect and followers, which ultimately lead to the money they need in order to protect their tribe at home.

For decades of society, this system has worked fabulously for men.   Problems began to occur when women entered the work place.

Just to be very clear, no one is blaming men for doing what they do best to keep the tribe operational.  Thank you, guys!  We really do love you and understand how hard you work to get by in this world. 💪❤️

However, women don’t work well in the same type of hierarchies.

Women and the Hierarchy

Women work in hierarchies based on our roles in the tribe, however, our roles are biologically different from the male.

Female work hierarchies include mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, grandmas, even close girl friends, partners, etc.   Female roles are based on nurturing, protecting, supporting, allocation of local resources and the identification of free-loaders within the tribe. Women are the glue that holds the tribe together and sees to its well-being. 

We are the calm before the storm, the intuition telling the male warrior to “Hey, what are you thinking? Don’t eat that, it’s poison/rotten!…”. or “Hey, what are you thinking? That’s your ego talking, don’t tell that client to pound sand!!”.

If you’ve seen the “This is Sparta!” scene in the movie 300, I’ll give you an example.

[SPOILER START]

Leonidas is just about to kick the Persian messenger down the well, but before he does it, he looks over to his Queen.  Not for approval, but he looks at her to make sure he isn’t about to do some crazy shit.   She nods her head for him to continue because she knows the situation, the people and the King better than anyone else in that courtyard.  The couple have used their natural, individual super powers to make a decision together that is in service of their common goal.   She uses her intuition to help him understand when to use his strength.

[SPOILER END]

Relational

Women are in fact, not necessarily hierarchical, but we are “relational”.   We read the entire room and the environment so we help the entire male hierarchy make better decisions by giving them an intuitive edge.

Females are the foundation upon which the hierarchy can do its very best work.

What happens when females try to act like they are hierarchical males?

We see it all the time and it’s not fun for anyone.  I just want to mention, while Its unnatural,  it doesn’t mean there aren’t good examples of women working successfully in male hierarchies. However, it doesn’t build upon the natural strengths of a woman.

This conflict is happening all over because we are the some of the first generations that are full-time career women, sitting at the table with the men.

Women entering a male hierarchy is hard.  It frustrates us and frustrates them.  It goes against who we fundamentally are, against our biology.  It gives us unrealistic expectations and the worst part is, it also causes us to treat other women poorly. We just don’t work the same way.  We are forcing square pegs into round holes, screaming “how come we don’t fit!??”

Many of the business success models that women have, are men.  Humans tend to mimic what they perceive as being successful.  The issue with that is the models women are mimicking are most successful if you are a man.  As a women, while we can achieve success in hierarchies, not only is it rare, but we are going against what is natural for us.   It is not the best use of the female’s incredible power.   We are not tapping into the sorceress.  We are just letting her sleep inside us because we think being a sorcerer is where it’s at.

All this to say that women can be trained to be hierarchical, but that will prove to take a very long time, with a lot of collateral damage.   We are experimenting and learning now because this is nascent.

And it’s not anyone’s fault.  Men are just as confused about all of this as we are.  They are busy being hierarchical and have no idea where this woman sits in the hierarchy.  She doesn’t know either!

The hierarchy exists, but the woman is the foundation and the guardrails of it.

However, instead of banging our heads against a wall, we need to reach inside ourselves and awaken our sorceresses.  We need to cultivate our own framework and model for working with others, whatever that framework and model is.  We don’t know yet and we haven’t really been given the chance because we keep trying to work in male hierarchies.   We all need to work hard to identify, honor and celebrate the wonderful and unique qualities that are innate, natural and biological to women.  And place them into frameworks designed by women.  Here, we can reach peak success.

Yin and Yang

We need equity, but not the 50/50 type. Instead the equity is asymmetric but equally powerful.  We are the yin to their yang, or the yang to their yin and vice versa.  It is in complementary ways in which women and men can be the most powerful working force ever created.

Sometimes it is 20/80, or 80/20.   It doesn’t matter as long as those percentages equal 100 and they are constantly adjusting based on the mutual goals.

But what do DAOs have to do with this?

DAOs have removed the hierarchical structure.   I see women thriving in DAOs because they have a seat at the table due to the nature of the DAO structure.   Decentralization of authority.   AKA - no hierarchy.

In a typical work structure, proposing ideas means gaining traction within the org through the hierarchy, if you are even in a position in the hierarchy to propose ideas.

The women in a DAO don’t need to bring their ideas to upper management, a committee, have a sponsor or try to lobby for the opportunity to even present their ideas. The ideas don’t have to be safe or constrained.

A group of us gets together, someone presents ideas, we discuss, do the research, involve anyone we want, present a proposal and the entire DAO votes based on objective criteria.

In any DAO I am in, I’ve never seen a proposal from women not pass and our voices are heard for all proposals. It’s not a painful, soul-crushing process of listening to upper management’s drive-by opinions on something they are not equipped with, have no experience with and are not in the weeds on, only to shoot your idea down because it threatens their position in the org.

The other beautiful thing that is happening is, in lieu of the competitive hierarchy, women are free to work with one another and discover how incredibly brilliant and talented we all are. Without the unnatural cognitive overhead needed to compete with one another, we can now focus on one another’s skills and combining them. We are a true team and powerful together. The genuine camaraderie, support and love I feel from other women in my DAOs is something I have not felt in a traditional work environment. We truly are able to nurture, support and learn from one another because there is no position to vie for.

We are learning our strengths as women in lieu of this male-construct. In DAOs, we are allowed the freedom to just be who we are, without being forced into unnatural constructs.   This is the time, and now is the opportunity for women to discover our own framework, success models and tools for working alongside other genders.  We have our own, we just haven’t been given the opportunity to find it yet.

Until now.

Enter the DAO.

The Age of Women.

https://twitter.com/heatherarussell

Decentralized Autonomous Organization