“Give a man a fish and he will feed himself for a
day, but give the means to catch a fish and he will feed himself and his family
for a lifetime.”
In the words of Marketing Magazine’s Andrew
Marsden, “The Oxfam campaign..sells hope. Hope that something can be done…The
campaign is mould-breaking... It aims to find long-term solutions, rather than
short-term emergency help.”
The fish
and rod proverb has often come to my mind when discussing life balance, quite
simply because I feel so many of us are turning to short-term help, rather than
long term sustainable solutions.
A dear friend commented on this website that she had been “treading water until something magically happens by itself”. Many employers are at a loss as to what else they can do to raise the happiness and diversity of their staff. In most professional firms, flexible working is now available to all, yet women continue to be poorly represented at senior level, and in the UK we are coming up to our 13th National Stress Awareness Day (7th November 2012). A sense of hopelessness emerges.
A dear friend commented on this website that she had been “treading water until something magically happens by itself”. Many employers are at a loss as to what else they can do to raise the happiness and diversity of their staff. In most professional firms, flexible working is now available to all, yet women continue to be poorly represented at senior level, and in the UK we are coming up to our 13th National Stress Awareness Day (7th November 2012). A sense of hopelessness emerges.
Look to
the origin of this phrase and the poignancy is remarkable. Originally
quoted in the work of a 19th Century author, Anne Thackeray Ritchie
and her 1885 much celebrated novel Mrs Dymond, the heroine shuns the
passivity of a widow grieving her ‘duty’ husband, and determines to radically change
her life by marrying for love. Ohio State Press describes Anne Thackeray as
‘revolutionary’.
“..all gifts should be spiritual and capable of infinite division?’… ‘I suppose
the Patron meant that if you give a man a fish he will be hungry again in an
hour. If you teach him to catch a fish then you do him a good turn. But these
very elementary principles are apt to clash with the leisure of the cultivated
classes.’"
Written by a ‘revolutionary’ author, about a heroine who has an ‘overwhelming desire to change her life’, observing a discussion on the value of possessions for the ‘cultivated class’.
Less
remarkable is the subsequent Oxfam use of the proverb in support of their 2011
International Women’s Day campaign – a campaign
which, true to form for this annual event, holds the dubious honour of
patronising both men and women
simultaneously: “Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.
Teach a woman to fish……she’ll teach her friends, set up a business, and pretty
soon the whole village is on the mend!”
I now
hold Anne Ritchie in such high esteem that I will deface her words no further.
However, my belief is that the vast majority of professional employers, and the Government, through equality, life and family balance policies, have moved away from handing out fish and have given many of us a rod.
All we now need to do is
learn how to use it and we will have fish aplenty.
Any company truly hoping to improve their employee engagement will need to provide lessons, and the cultivated classes will need to want to go.
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