The quote is the right epitome for our teams situation right now. Gender difference should have not been an excuse for you to assume someones capability especially if the person is a woman. So, as a solution I will suggest a few ways to solve this unnecessary problem.
First of all, instead of assuming Sarahs capability as a leader before testing it is a truly unprofessional action. Yes, I agree that Sarah could get emotional when making any decisions in the future just because she is a woman and I believe she suited for the job because she is capable, responsible and has good communication skills.
But we are all adults and we all want to make good differences when we are at work. So, if we come to work with the goals of doing amazing job instead of making assumptions or judgements on other peoples capability, this will be a life-changing result. The thing that really matters is how Sarah works with people in the previous jobs and experience along with good communication skills in order to achieve instead of giving it to the less experienced worker.
Instead of judging her with these questions, Why did you make those decisions?, Are you on your period?, Did you ask for permissions? and etcetera. If she were to make bad decisions, that is when our responsibilities steps in, guiding and helping her to re-decides what is for the best for the company.
Moving on, we can try and learn to appreciate and respect your male or female partners. In order to maintain a harmony work atmosphere let alone with the other races in Malaysia, gender equality issues should not be spoken as both women and men are surely two different beings. Everybody has their own achievements and experience in their whole career. People these days are so obsessed with physical appearance and neglects their true capability especially towards the women. The best thing that we should do as a team is to always teach each other to make better changes for the companys future. Men are proven physically stronger by nature but they could be aggressive and women are usually labelled by the ideal of inner dignity and surely more subtle in their work. Most people would misunderstand the term subtle with womens weakness but the word itself defines intelligence, keen, wise and sharp.
I genuinely hope that the two solutions I have explained could somehow solve this gender equality at our workplace which are putting a trust on other people and also learn to appreciate plus respect your partners in order to put a stop to a negative working environment. I hope that with these new guidelines in place, our company will prosper, and that gender inequality will be the thing of the past in the company.