Unhelpful Behavior

Note: I recently shared the content of this entry with a group of friends. The feedback was so interesting and--dare I say it?--thought-provoking, I thought I'd post it here.

*************************

As a woman, I have occasion to reflect not only on my own behaviors, but also to observe the behaviors of other women. Despite all the strides that have been made in women’s rights, there are still things we do that seem to me to hold us back. Here are just a couple of observations:

1. We apologize too much.

When we make mistakes or gaffes, we own them (or we should), but we also seem to over compensate in the area of apologizing. Most folks aren’t looking to hear an apology. They’re looking to hear how we’re going to fix what we flubbed. If someone has helped us remedy our gaffe, they’re also looking to us to express appreciation.

For example, I recently noted that I forgot to make a copy of an important document for my files at work. I had to go to the manager of my group and ask him to contact the folks to whom I’d sent said document and request a copy. I also told him that I’d make copying important documents a priority upon our future receipt of them.

Today, he e-mailed me and said he’d been in touch with the folks with the document. I replied back and said I appreciated his assistance with this matter. End of story. No “I’m sorry again for the oversight.” Please note: watch your male colleagues. They rarely apologize. They just state whatever it is they have to state and move on.

2. We do things that are certainly polite and seemingly helpful, but in fact reinforce our subordinate stature.

When we’re with our male colleagues—whether it’s arriving at a meeting or going out to dinner or collaborating on a team—we defer to them in ways that send the subtle but unmistakable message that we agree with the outdated notion that we’re subordinate.

For example, I watched this morning as our gaggle of consultants arrived for their weekly meeting with our vice president. We require all guests—whether they are employees of our company or not—to sign in at reception. I watched three women arrive with their male counterparts and every single one of these women, in addition to entering their own names into the log, entered the names of their colleagues. They prefaced the action by saying things like, “I’ll take care of signing you in” or “Let me do that for you.”

Ladies! These are grown men. They can write their own names in a book, just as you can write yours. And don’t rush to get them a cup of coffee or a bottle of water, either. Oh, sure, I know. You’re already in the kitchen and it’s easy enough to do, but again, think about the message it’s sending. Unless they’re reciprocating, knock it off!

And in meetings, don’t defer to your male colleagues as the only ones who can impart further light and knowledge on your project. Own that project! Know your talking points! Be bold and confident. And while it is certainly important to ask the guys what they think, don’t start with a man. Turn to one of your female colleague and say, "Rebecca, what do you think of X?”

3. Stop using that ‘little girl’ voice and grow some vocal chords!

I’m noticing a trend lately where many 20-somethings and even a few 30-somethings women talk in voices that are better suited to teenagers and little girls. While this may seem warm and endearing, it isn’t. Trust me. Now, I’m not suggesting that you have to go all butch and lower your voice to match a man’s, but taking it down a notch wouldn’t hurt, either.

When you sound like you’re 16, you’re doing little to prove that you’re professionally competent. In fact, a recent study reported on NPR has shown that women who talk like adolescents are less likely to be taken seriously by their male counterparts.

Think Kathryn Hepburn not Jessica Simpson. Think Charlize Theron not Paris Hilton. Or Helen Thomas not Peggy Noonan. Or Maggie Thatcher or Angela Merkel or Elizabeth Edwards or Jodie Olsen. Or your favorite aunt or grandmother or mom (assuming they don’t sound like they’re 16!)

You can still be feminine without sounding like you’re underage.

Oh, and knock it off with the hee-hee-hee giggling in the workplace, too! Not cute. Definitely not cute. Learn to chuckle. You don’t have to guffaw, but those little twitters all the time are just silly.

Of course, all of this is a fine line and a double-edged sword. I’ve worked with women who were unnecessarily boisterous and inappropriately flirtatious and I’ve worked with guys who were the same. Neither is impressive. Likewise, I’ve worked with women who were perceived as bitches while their male counterparts were seen as assertive. This is an inappropriate double standard. Finally, there’s nothing to say we can’t be polite and helpful, but we should be mindful of when and why we do it and how it might be received. Somehow, we must strike a balance between the radical, bra-burning feminism of our mother’s era and the neo-classic feminism¹ of today’s young woman.

____________________________

1. Better paid, more educated, more opportunities for professional advancement, independent longer, less likely to have to fight for fair treatment in the workplace, etc., yet also less likely to appreciate or grasp the effort it took to create a world and workplace that is a little more equal for them.

____________________________

Illustration copyrights: Unknown (Google Images) and Kirk Anderson, Kirktoons, 1991, respectively.

Beta

I’ve decided that the female of the species is still in beta version.

When I get a migraine, all I want to do, in the initial stages, is pop my left eye ball out of its eye socket and soak it in a glass of cool water. The resultant hole in my head from the absent obicularus oculi would also serve to relieve the pressure that comes with said seismic migraine and all would be well.

If the migraine were too far advanced, however, I’d like hinges on my neck, so I could take my aching head off and set it on a shelf. Let it do its migrainy thing, then come back to it in 24 hours and put it back on my neck. In the interim, I could flick a switch on my hip or wherever and my back-up generator brain would kick in, allowing me to maintain my other necessary bodily systems like my heart and lungs until my main system is back online.

And how about that cycle every 28 days? Since I can’t seem to convince either my gynecologist or my internist to let me have a hysterectomy for my birthday—something I’ve been begging for for several years now—then I say, let my uterus be detachable. At the start of my monthly cycle, I’ll just take it out, stick it in a bucket in a dark corner, and let it do its thing for 3 – 5 days. At the end of its menstrual moment, I’ll take it out of the bucket, toss in the dishwasher, give it a good cleansing, and stick it back in it’s pelvic pocket—brand-spanking new and ready for another month of lining itself and flipping eggs out of my ovaries and into its cushy recesses.

One of these days, God and I are gonna have a talk. And I’m not talkin’ some rinky-dink little, “Gee, golly, God, I love that You created Gerbera daisies. They’re just so friendly and all.” Unh-uh. No sirree. I’m talkin’ the serious talk. The talk about how God made the beta version of females and then suspended all funding for further R&D, clinical trials, and whatnot. I'm tellin' ya, He quit too soon in the research and trials. And men were obviously the control group, because if God ever had had a period, believe you me, He would tossed the research protocol and started over again.

So there!

Drew Gilpin Faust: The 21st Century's Charlene Wells?

Last week, Harvard University announced it had appointed Civil War scholar Drew Gilpin Faust to be president of its storied institution. Faust, a woman, is noted for her early stand against segregation in the 1950s as a nine-year old Girl Scout growing up in the Commonwealth of Virginia--a very southern, Confederate, Dixiecrat, segregated state at that time.

Faust will replace Dr. Lawrence Summers who came under fire for suggesting that men are innately smarter than women, which is why there aren't as many women in the sciences as there are men. Summers tried to hold onto his job, but eventually the power of public outcry prevailed and he stepped down.

The appointment of Faust calls to mind a situation in the 80s when disgrace fell upon what was then considered an American icon on par with Mom, apple pie, and baseball--the Miss America Pageant. Founded in 1921, the pageant has become schmaltzier and less credible as an institution over the years, but in the 1980s, it was still a highly anticipated and watched event.

In 1984, that year's Miss America was a young woman named Vanessa Williams. Ms. Williams was, like her predecessors and sister competitors, beautiful, talented, intelligent; she possessed all the characteristics of a perfect Miss America. Until six months later, when it was discovered that Ms. Williams had posed for Playboy magazine. The media metaphorically stripped her to rags and public opinion finished the job. Ms. Williams was disgraced (albeit temporarily) and forced to resign her crown.

The next year, Sharlene Wells of Salt Lake City, Utah, won the vaunted title. Ms. Wells was everything Ms. Williams had been portrayed as not being. The most important being she hadn't posed for Playboy. As a lily-white, never-been-sullied, fifth child of staunch, conservative, "moral" Mormons, she was the perfect answer to the previous year's embarrassment. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief that spread across the nation, saying, "Whew. We don't have to worry about this one." In some respects, it was almost an insult to Ms. Wells and her sister contestants. And yet, was it?

Certainly, the pageant folks knew Ms. Wells, a devout Mormon, would be less likely to have posed for Playboy than her predecessor. Undoubtedly, in the minds of the judges, she was low/no risk.

Perhaps the same could be argued regarding Dr. Faust? She's low/no risk because she believes that women (and all other minorities) are people, too. I dare say, Dr. Faust will be a breath of fresh air at stodgy Hahvahd. Hopefully, she will a bellwether upon which selections by other universities will be based when institutions of higher learning seek new leaders.

To read more about Dr. Faust, go here. And here.

Photo copyright: The Boston Globe

History

Whether or not you like Nancy Pelosi is irrelevant. The fact is, we witnessed a great moment in American history last night: the delivery of the State of the Union that began with the words "Madame Speaker."

As one of the oldest democracies on the planet and one of the last to see women achieve such high ranks, it's about time.

Here's to women everywhere who are shattering the glass and marble ceilings, including Madeleine Albright, Condaleeza Rice, and Nancy Pelosi, to name but a few.

And here's to the day we have a president who isn't a white guy!

Pabst Beer

I think that just about says it all.