We experience a wrong-doing at work. It upsets us. We want justice. We want management to be just as outraged and upset as us but they aren’t. They just make it to go away. This makes us even angrier that this is how the system works. It isn’t fair.
We have all been there – experienced a wrong-doing that seems to get swept under the rug. But it also seems that in these situations women are treated more unfairly than men. Women get dismissed as emotional if not crazy. Men seem to brush it aside and all go out for a beer together. To women it doesn’t seem like men care about justice or righting the wrong.
How do women get justice?
Let’s go through a scenario.
We suffered a wrong-doing and we immediately have an emotional reaction – hurt, anger etc. We tell all of our friends what happened and they are outraged too. They tell us we need to do something about it. We need to stand up for ourselves. Our wrong-doer can’t be allowed to get away with it. Now we are really upset. Our friends did what we needed – they validated that we were right to be upset. Now we are very upset.
We report the wrong-doing to the appropriate person. They give us a patronizing look and tell us to calm down. They will look into the situation. Over the next few days we watch our wrong-doer. We are waiting for them to disappear for a couple of hours then come back looking beaten up and disgraced. We harbor a fantasy that they will be fired and we will watch them take the walk of shame with their box of personal items. That will make us feel vindicated. But as the days go by, our wrong-doer is happy and carries on like normal. We know we were blown off.
The reason we don’t get justice is due to a series of mistakes.
Our first mistake is looking for emotional validation by talking to our friends. (Men do this too.)
Our second mistake is delving into the drama and emotion of the situation. This is what we are taught to do because we live in a society that is in love with drama. So when we suffer an injustice we do as we were taught – we feed the drama monster. (Men do this too.)
Once we feed the drama monster he grows quickly. When our friends feed him he grows even more. Soon he is really big and fat and ugly. As we look at him we believe he was created entirely by the wrong-doing. Therefore the facts of the wrong-doing have to align with and support his existence. We then write our story of facts to align with and support his existence. We tell this story to ourselves over and over again until it all feels natural. We accept that our original perception was incomplete and our current story is true because if it wasn’t our big ugly drama monster wouldn’t exist. (Men do this too.)
When we present our big, fat, ugly drama monster to other people we want them to be horrified. We want a dramatic outcry by the masses. We want everyone to rise up and join us in our feeling of injustice. We want our feelings vindicated. (Men do this too.)
Our drama loving society tells us that if we create enough drama and enough of an outcry then people will be forced to give us justice.
However, it doesn’t happen. People abandoned us and we are left standing alone with our drama monster.
Our fatal mistake was in believing drama gets justice. In reality, we have to build a factual case to get justice.
Men and women get two very different reactions when they present their drama monsters. This is because we are taught to believe that women react emotionally and men react rationally. As a result women get discredited and men don’t.
When men are emotional, even very emotional, they are seen as functioning through the right side of their brain. To act rationally they just need to switch over to the left side. To do this, you drop him on his head, kick him in the butt or yell in his face. Men are literally treated as if they have a switch that can be flipped to make them act rationally. Flip the switch and he is back to normal.
Once he is back to acting rationally, the problem is solved. It’s time to go get a beer.
To women this makes no sense. What about the wrong-doing that initially caused his emotional response? Women continue to feel the injustice until the situation that caused the wrong-doing is corrected. Once they feel justice, then the situation is resolved.
To the male-dominated workplaces this makes no sense. Women are told to let it go – let go of the emotion and it will all be good. Women are treated as if they have a flush valve that once activated will release any excess emotion. The problem men have is that they don’t know how to activate the valve in women.
The reason they can’t activate the flush valve is because women don’t have one. That’s not how women work.
A few months ago I wrote an article about The Difference Between Male and Female Brains. In this article I cited a study about the difference in connections between the male and female brain. The point of the article was to dispel the stereotype and myth that women only respond emotionally.
Because of the connections in women’s brains, women respond emotionally AND rationally.
Women are every bit as rational as men but also filter events through their emotions. Contrary to what we are taught this doesn’t create a weakness. It creates a tremendous strength – a superpower. Women see more, pick up on more and understand more deeply. Women are tuned-in in a way men don’t comprehend.
The problem women have is that they aren’t taught to use their superpower. They are taught they are emotional and react emotionally. And our drama loving society continues to feed that narrative knowing that it discredits women.
Women have to be taught how to use their superpower to their advantage to get justice. They have to learn and practice processing events emotionally and rationally simultaneously. Women aren’t men who separate and switch between emotion and rational thinking.
When women experience a wrong –doing and have an emotional reaction (just like men) they need to vent (just like men). They vent to one person who will listen and nod but not feed the drama monster.
After women vent, they need to start thinking and gathering the facts.
Rule #1 in gathering facts is to keep your mouth shut. Tell no one what you are doing. If you need help use a neutral third party who won’t feed the drama monster. If you tell your friend, the drama monster will get fed.
When women keep their mouths shut, their superpower kicks into high gear. Their emotions become their radar. By listening to initial feelings, gut responses, intuition and funny little feelings they can read a situation. They become incredibly situationally aware.
When you fully understand the situation, you know how to present your case. You also know how it will be countered. You can then present the counter to the counter argument.
Sound complicated? It isn’t. It’s what women already do.
One of my first articles was about the Rachel Letter. The name came from the episode of Friends where Rachel writes Ross an 18 page letter – front and back. Women (and men who have been the recipient of one) know exactly what I am talking about. This letter has a powerful business application. (All men just said “Oh no!”).
Women’s ability to write this type of letter is really about their ability to organize and connect a great number of details. When those details are connected logically and rationally, we build a case that is hard to dismiss or dispute. (Maybe this is why women make such great lawyers.)
Typically when women write a Rachel Letter in their private lives they include emotion and feelings. In business those have to be removed. You want to present the facts, just the facts.
It takes practice to build the skills to eliminate emotion and present pure facts. I used other opportunities such as writing plans, reports and proposals to learn how to write and state a case. I also did a lot of briefings and presentations. For me there was two prong benefit – I got really good at business communication and I could build the detailed case to right any wrong-doing.
It also takes practice to stop feeding the drama monster. It takes practice to stop talking to everyone for validation and to start venting so the emotion is processed and can be put to a constructive use.
Many years ago I knew a woman who caught her powerful husband having an affair with his secretary. She told no one. She gathered her facts. With the help of an attorney she worked out her plan. She then secretly presented her facts to her husband’s boss. With no notice, the boss flew in, walked into the husband’s office and instantly removed him from his position. It was a perfectly executed castration that all of us were in complete awe of. She got her justice.
Women can get justice. For the most part it is a matter of not doing what they were taught – following the drama route. Their justice comes from empowering their natural superpower.
Empowered Women Get Justice.
For more articles on harassment and discrimination go to The Ugly Stuff article category
Empower Yourself – Subscribe to my articles – Contact Me
Assert and Express Yourself – Leave a Comment & Share this article
Follow The Woman In The Room on Facebook for more empowering ideas!
Trackbacks/Pingbacks