I am on the board of a small organization where all board members have equal power. However, our current President is on a power trip and is trying to use the organization for his own personal purposes. Another woman and I are countering his efforts but we go about it very differently and get different results.
The other woman is upset because he doesn’t respond to her. At first she assumed she intimidated him and made him back down. But, now she realizes he dismisses her entirely – like she isn’t even worthy of a response or acknowledgement. She is very upset by his dismissal.
She doesn’t realize that the reason he dismisses her is because she doesn’t assert herself as his equal.
For example, he cancelled a next board meeting with no explanation. My response was to question why the meeting was cancelled and when it would be held – I wanted an explanation. By making him owe us an explanation, I didn’t let him treat the rest of the board as insignificant minions, subject to his whims. I didn’t let him off the hook. I asserted our equality.
The other woman’s response to the cancellation was “Thanks for the update. Do you have a future date in mind?”
She responded as if he were her boss. She subjugated herself and put all the power in his court. She didn’t ask for an explanation and therefore gave him permission to treat her according to his whim. She left it to him to decide when and if the meeting would be rescheduled. She gave him exactly what he wants – control with no accountability to the rest of the board.
When he didn’t respond, she didn’t have anything left in her court to reassert herself with. But I did. And I continued to assert myself and the rest of the board.
If you are going to challenge a man then you must continuously assert yourself. Once you concede your ground you will not get it back. You will be dismissed from that point on. This is the situation the other woman put herself in and got very frustrated by.
She, like many women, believed that if she asserted yourself, it would be interpreted as her trying to subjugate, diminish or control the man. She was afraid of getting into a conflict with the President. However, asserting yourself is about establishing and maintaining yourself as an equal, as someone who has a right to information and to exercise your role.
When you are dealing with a man like our board President, who I label an Alpha-Wannabe, it is easy to be intimidated by your fear of a big, nasty conflict. But Alpha-Wannabes are typically very conflict adverse and back down – that is why they are Wannabes. When they do lash out, it is as a means of last resort. They are a sinking ship on their way down.
When we continuously assert ourselves, we establish our own power. This enables us to counter the over-reach of men like our board President who are on a power trip. We create a powerful dynamic of full equality for all.
Update: What I said would happen, did happen. He realized the rest of the board wasn’t going to be a bunch of bobble-headed minions subject to his whims. He quit and blamed me. I gladly accepted “the blame” as well as the thanks of many people for asserting myself and holding my ground.
Recently I read an article in which a woman wrote about her experience interviewing for a new job. She did all the research on the job and knew how much she should be paid. During the interview, the men who interviewed her offered her 30% less than she expected and said it was because she was married, her husband had a high-paying job and her career was secondary to her husband’s. Her response was simply “If that’s how you think then this job probably won’t work out.”
Reading the article my first response was ‘Bravo! See you proved there still are gender biases.” But halfway through my gut response, I stopped myself and wondered why she didn’t challenge them or push back. She just walked away. We should never do that!
There are a few sexist behaviors that we should never let go unchallenged. One is unwelcome and inappropriate physical contact. Another is unfair compensation – MONEY. As a woman working in traditionally male roles, equal pay for equal work was a continuous concern.
Back in the early 80’s when I began my career most married women didn’t have careers. If they worked they had menial jobs so, the men in my all-male office didn’t understand why I pursued a career on par with them. I could have been offended and cited a feminist mantra but that wouldn’t help me build rapport. So I gave them a creative but honest answer: “My husband has a long list of expensive toys he wants to buy and my income helps us do that. Wouldn’t you like it if your wife earned as much as you? It takes all the financial pressure off you and you get to buy more toys.”
After thinking about my answer for a couple of minutes one of my coworkers asked “Can you talk to my wife?”
Over the years I’ve come up with other creative and yet effective responses. My responses flip the situation and make men think about how their sexist behavior could personally impact them:
“So you guys are willing to pay a man who won’t do nearly as good of a job as me, more money, just because he has a family? That sounds like a really bad business decision and like you really need me. How hiring me instead of him hurt your bonuses? Will your wife appreciate you bringing home a smaller bonus because you had to take care of another man’s family?”
“My husband and I may be getting a divorce. He would very much appreciate it if you would hire me and pay me as much or more than him so he doesn’t have to pay spousal or child support. Are any of you divorced?” (Believe me, that gets men really thinking!)
As women we want the workplace to be a meritocracy where we are fairly compensated based on the results we deliver. Our performance also helps determine our manager’s bonus so we flip the situation and make our compensation about his bonus. I have no qualms about asking the simple question: “Who do you want to trust your bonus to – him or me?”
It works because men place a specific monetary value on their work and the correlation between their effort and their compensation is never far from the front of their minds. We sell them on ourselves by offering more compensation (a bigger bonus and possible pay increase) with less effort. They do the math and they get it.
As women we always have a concern that our compensation is less than our peers so ensuring our compensation is equitable is something we must always stand up for.
Admittedly when we are faced with a compensation offer that is unfair, it is difficult to come up with a good response in the moment, other than expressing our anger. Too often we let it go. We out to our car or back to our office and think of all the things we wish we said. We kick ourselves for not saying them and that only feeds into how we already let someone else diminish us.
However, just because we didn’t respond in the moment, it doesn’t mean we missed our chance to stand up for ourselves. To stand up for ourselves we again flip the situation and our perceptions – we make it all about them.
We realize inappropriate, dismissive or demeaning comments and offers says nothing about us. Just because someone tries to diminish us, it doesn’t mean we have to accept it. We can push it back on them and make it say something about them. In this case, it means they are stupid – like really stupid. Who in their right mind in the 21st century makes a sexist offer or comment?
There is nothing to stop us from going back in (when convenient) and saying in our “dumb me, I just realized this” tone, say “I can’t believe you did that in an interview. Do you realize you’ve given me a reason to claim discrimination? Do you realize the can of worms you just opened? You realize of course I have to report this! Good, I have your business cards. Thanks for wasting my time while I deal with this!”
Yes, a little acting does help. It’s even good to be a little nervous, flustered and upset because it makes them more nervous. They just had the ownership of their stupidity put back on them.
Follow up and report it to someone else in the company. You will probably get a very favorable response, especially if the company is larger. I did this early in my career when I was being interviewed for a contract job and walked out with a very generous contract.
When we stand up for ourselves we step into our own empowerment and demonstrate we won’t get pushed over and run over – and that is very important to our employers. Think of it this way – if you aren’t even willing to stand up for yourself, then you certainly won’t be willing to stand up for the company. Employers want people who take a stand.
I need to brag about my youngest daughter because she proved herself a good role model to other Millennials.
My daughter is in school to become a veterinary technician where she is required to do internships. She wanted to do an internship at an equine clinic and she researched various clinics in her area finally settling on one. When she asked her school advisers about this clinic, they told her that clinic doesn’t take interns. Several other people in her program also told her they called to ask about an internship but they were all turned down.
My daughter didn’t let what her advisers or classmates said deter her.
She gathered up her grades and letters of reference, got in her car and drove to the clinic. When she walked in she told them she was there to apply for an internship. They told her that they don’t take interns. My daughter then proceeded to tell them that she was passionate about working with horses, she owned a horse and competed in eventing for many years. She went on to say that for 12 years in order to earn extra riding lessons she got up early on Sunday mornings to muck stalls (shovel manure) and exercise horses. The clinic was impressed by her passion, dedication and willingness to work and learn.
She walked out of the clinic with an internship.
On the last day of her internship she walked out of the clinic with a new job.
Her first patient
As her mother I was proud but not surprised. I taught both of my daughters to go for what they want and not to let anyone’s “No” or discouragement stop them.
I taught them this lesson because of a workshop I took early in my career. In this workshop there were only a couple of women and about 200 men. I don’t remember what the workshop was actually titled but I always remember it as: The Career Advice Men Give To Other Men.
The speaker told the story of how he had a dream to become a fighter pilot but when he applied he was denied because he couldn’t meet the strict qualifications. He was told to give up on his dream. Then he told the audience the words I never forgot “If someone tells you ‘No,’ then you are talking to the wrong person.”
He continued his story about how he preserved for almost 3 years until he found the right person who worked with him and helped him get a waiver to the qualifications. He got his dream job.
This is the lesson women need to learn.
There are a lot of doors that are closed to all of us – both men and women. However, men and women are taught to treat closed doors differently.
As women we are taught we need someone else to invite us and open the door for us. When we don’t get an invitation, no one opens the door or the door is slammed in our face, we give up. We chalk it up to biases, discrimination and not being empowered.
Men however are told to go for what they want. When faced with a closed door, they turn the door knob and walk in. They stay until someone kicks them out. If they are kicked out, then they try again.
In my career I walked through many doors – no knocking, no invitation. I was once kicked out and the door locked behind me. I still didn’t go away. I just sat outside and waited. Eventually someone else came up to the door and went inside with him. I didn’t get kicked out again.
Empowered Women Walk Through Closed Doors
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I read a lot of articles about women in the workplace and it seems we are fixated on identifying every slight, bad comment and bit of poor behavior. I’ve been told many times that the intent is generate awareness of sexual biases in the workplace and let women know what they are facing.
I can accept that but sharing bad experiences without presenting solutions that change workplace behavior does nothing to advance women. It only lets us make another notch in our “how women are treated unfairly” belt. We need solutions that actually work.
So why don’t we get solutions?
There are many reasons. One reason is because many people believe an individual woman can’t do anything to change her workplace. They believe change only happens from the top down and it takes CEO and senior management intervention to advance women.
However, that is a myth. The male-dominated workplace already knows (and it can cite lots of its own examples) that top down directed change does NOT work. Real change can only happen from within. This is why it is up to individual women to change their workplace’s behaviors.
So how do we do that?
We think outside the box. We get creative so we make sure we don’t absorb the negativity being thrown at us and allow it to diminish us.
Typically we are taught that that when we are faced with unacceptable behavior we have a binary choice – Let it go or Fight back. Too often women let things go when we would really prefer to take a stand because we don’t want conflict. We are afraid that the conflict will back fire on us – we will be seen as a troublemaker and the sexist behavior dismissed.
There is however a third option that is effective – teach men through humor.
Humor works because men like to jab, joke and prank each other. (It is what makes working with men so much fun.) When we use humor we show that we aren’t easily offended which men then interpret that as being strong and confident. Humor is also an easy way to build rapport and become part of the gang.
I’ve used humor to deal with a variety of situations from mild to crude. Here is an example of how I handled one sexism based situation:
I was a project manager working in a construction office out on a construction site when I kept hearing rumors that I wore “high heels” to work. I typically wore one of two pairs of old shoes. They had 1-1/2 to 2 inch heels and were far from my definition of “high heels.” To me they were “construction office shoes” and not something I would wear if I worked in the main office. If I went out on the construction site, I put on another pair of “site shoes” that I kept under my desk.
One day while sitting in my office I overheard another project manager on the phone whispering about my unsuitability for being a project manager. He whispered “She even wears high heels to the office.”
That was it! It was time to put this issue to rest.
The next time I went home I brought back a pair of black high heels. They weren’t sexy. They were just a nice pair of heels that I would wear with a business suit to look “professional.”
When I got to my office I took one of each pair of shoes and set them on my desk. Under the shoes I hung a sign that said “High Heels, Office Shoe, Site Shoe” with arrows pointing to the appropriate shoe.
That got a discussion going. The guys began an all-day discussion of women’s shoes and their personal preferences. I learned that my “high heels” were nice but not sexy enough to be considered “date shoes.” I told them I left my Carlos Santa shoe collection at home because I didn’t want them drooling all over my desk.
By the end of the day the matter was settled. It was determined that I didn’t wear “high heels” in the construction office. I wore “ugly shoes.”
After that the other project manager and I developed a really good working relationship. We teamed up and used our similar sense of humor to lighten the mood in an otherwise stressful environment. By not getting mad, offended and preaching to the guys, I built rapport and strengthened our team.
Throughout my career I probably experienced many more sexist incidents than most women. However, I’ve only made a few notches on my “how I was treated unfairly” belt because I chose to use humor to flip the situation. By flipping the situation, I stood up for myself and I made a positive impact on my male colleagues. Consequently the sexist behavior that was intended to diminish me only made me stronger and more secure in who I am.
I have more stories and I will share them in future articles.
Empowered Women Use Humor to Take a Stand Against Sexism
For more articles on harassment and discrimination go to The Ugly Stuff article category
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We’ve all worked with that guy – you know, that guy who is so confident he has the answer for every situation and problem. I’ve worked with lots of these guys over the years. However, it was the first guy like this that I helped me figure out how to deal with them. His name was Terry.
Terry and I were in the Air Force as 2nd Lt’s together. He was “a big boy” who liked to project his body mass in an attempt to intimidate. Every morning he spent the first half hour walking around the office, coffee cup in hand announcing what time he got to work. We were supposed to believe that he was so important he had to get to work before anyone else.
As brand new 2nd Lt’s we were given a lot of “special assignments” – things no one else wanted to do so they dumped them on us. On our first group assignment, all the 2nd Lt’s gathered in a small conference room. Terry automatically assumed he was in charge. I was surprised none of the other men challenged him because according to the stereotype they should all be fighting to be in charge. Curious as to how this would unfold, I settled back to watch the Terry Show.
Terry obviously read the playbook that described how to distinguish yourself and get ahead. He followed it word for word. I remember wondering who taught it to him and if he had an overbearing father who had high expectations.
Taking charge, he decided what we were going to do and how we were going to do it.
Listening, I had questions. I didn’t think his plan was well thought out and would work. So I raised my questions to Terry and he blew me off. (I got mandozed) He was confident he knew better.
If Terry expected me to now fall in line (because the playbook says I should be intimidated) he was mistaken.
I didn’t allow his confidence to override my confidence in my doubts.
After the meeting I raised my concerns with some of the other guys but in the end we went along with Terry’s plan.
As it turned out I was right. We wound up in turmoil. Fortunately because I never gave up on my doubts, we were able to quickly put together a recovery plan. It was not fun but we pulled it out in the end.
On our next group project Terry assumed he was in charge again. He came up with the plan and again I had questions. He mandozed me again. I looked to my male colleagues for support but they didn’t want to challenge him.
After the meeting I grabbed a couple of the guys I had become good friends with and told them we couldn’t repeat the mess from last time. We held our own meeting and I told them where I thought Terry’s plan would fail. We developed a recovery plan in case I was right.
I was right – Terry’s plan failed where I expected. My colleagues and I put our recovery plan into action without even consulting Terry. We saved the project. And even though this experience wasn’t as bad as the first, it still wasn’t enjoyable. I was done working this way.
When we gathered to plan our third project, Terry stood at the head of the table assuming he was our de facto leader. As I sat along the conference room wall, I observed how he stood at the front of the table exuding the confidence of a man in charge.
However, he wasn’t the only highly confident person in the room. I was also confident. I was confident that:
Terry was primarily interested in making a name for himself and promoting his career.
Terry’s plan wouldn’t work and we would have to jump through hoops again to save the project.
If we continued to go forward with poorly planned projects all of our careers would suffer.
I didn’t have the perfect plan either.
If we all worked together we could come up with a good plan.
So, as Terry began talking, my frustration got the better of me and I suddenly blurted out “We’ve done it your way twice. Both times were a mess. We’re not doing it your way anymore.”
I got up and stood at the side of the table daring him to challenge me. (My girldozer dared him to try to mandoze me again.)
He didn’t challenge me.
Initially I took the lead. As a team we figured out how to do our project. As we worked on the project, one of my male colleagues transitioned into the project leader. Terry occasionally challenged him but the project team pushed back. Working as a team, our project was more successful than we expected.
We learned teamwork and allowing different people to lead as their skills are needed was the key to success.
For our fourth project we had to hold a fundraiser and were expected to raise at least $2,000. Our team decided to put on a carnival. As the scope of the carnival grew, we all took a leadership role. We hoped to beat expectations and raise $8,000-$10,000.
Unfortunately the week of the carnival a blizzard hit and we had to postpone. We held our carnival two weekends later and it was a hug hit! We raised over $32,000.
But our biggest surprise was how Terry stopped working to promote himself and became a team player. Over the next two years we remained a tight team. No one threw anyone else under the bus in order to order to advance themselves.
Our projects taught us a lot about leadership and teamwork, however I also learned a lot about confidence.
I learned to be confident in my questions – in what I don’t know and what I don’t understand.
Too often men want to charge off without proper planning or understanding the consequences of their actions. Women are told this is being bold and confident. But after lots and lots of experience in dealing with this, I learned it’s a red flag that they really don’t know what they are doing.
I’ve learned to counter men’s need to act by firing up the girldozer and blocking them. I voice my questions and concerns. If men can’t answer my questions then they can’t proceed until they can.
As a manager and leader, this has been critical to my success. It has saved us from wasting countless dollars and man-hours and from making mistakes that make us look professionally incompetent.
Many women don’t explore the power of their girldozer because we are taught that the mandozer is more aggressive and powerful and can run right over us. Believe me, it can’t. We have an incredible power to hold our ground, to not give in and to say “No.”
By being confident in our doubts and questions, we drive better planning and avoid catastrophes. I can’t even count how many times the guys have come back to me, hat in hand, grateful I stopped them from making a mistake. It’s in these moments my confidence gets bolstered and I get to hold up that infamous girl-sign that says “I told you so.”
Empowered Women Are Confident In The Value of Their Doubts and Questions
A couple of years ago I was introduced to a woman who coached professional women. When I told her I was in the construction industry we struck up a conversation about the male-dominated workplace. As she talked I kept thinking “That hasn’t really been my experience” but I continued to listen because I am interested in other perspectives.
Eventually she talked about how working mothers are judged differently from working fathers. That’s when it struck me that her words were directly out of the 1970’s and 80’s. I interrupted her and told her that – thanks to divorce – the male-dominated workplace has dramatically changed its attitude towards working parents. Now that men get joint custody and experience being a single working parent, they understand and empathize with the challenges of being a working mother or a single working mother.
As she began to talk again, I started wondering where she was getting her information from. She never worked in the male-dominated workplace, so in my mind I began challenging what she said.
As I tuned back into our conversation she was discussing how aggressive men are and how they use “tear-down-to-rise-up” in order to get ahead and get promoted.
Before I could stop myself I blurted out “No they don’t! That’s just something women believed back in the 70’s. We watched too much Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom growing up and believed that since survival of the fittest worked in the animal kingdom it also works in the male-dominated workplace. It’s women who promote the idea of tear-down-to-rise-up and it’s one of the biggest reasons we make.”
After our conversation I began thinking about how much misinformation about the male-dominated workplace is still out there – how, even though we are well into the 21st century, we still discuss it using outdated 20th century narratives.
The problem with the old narratives is that we wrote them while we were still dependent on men for financial security and social status. They were obtained in the larger world outside the home. We thought we understood this world and believed it was driven by power and strength. Everything we were taught in school, in history, in literature, on TV and even in fairy tales told us men always fought each other and the winner was rewarded with money, respect, power and status – everything women didn’t have.
We knew men didn’t go to work every day and physically fight each other – it was more of a mental battle. The men with the more dominant, forceful, aggressive and bold personalities were the ones who got ahead. We even believed that companies were successful because the men at the top had larger than life personalities and it was the sheer force of their personality that drove the company’s success.
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By the 1960’s women wanted their own respect, status and financial security. So we entered the male-dominated workplace anxious “to compete with men” and fight for our power, wealth and place at the top. We were ready to be aggressive, forceful and climb the corporate ladder the only way we were taught – by battling the man above us, beating him and taking his place.
We assumed we had it figured out. But we didn’t know we were sold an image of the male-dominated workplace designed to portray men as heroic figures to women. The idea, that men tear-down-to-rise-up, fit our romanticized ideals and imagination but it wasn’t reality.
The reality of how men get ahead was far less gallant.
The male-dominated workplace hierarchy is really a carefully constructed network of alliances. Men use their connections to be invited to join an alliance. When the alliance does well, the men in the alliance also do well. Therefore, if a man wants to move up the corporate ladder, it is critical to be part of the right alliance.
Women went into the workplace without understanding this and that using tear-down-to-rise up brings the wrath of the entire alliance down upon us.
Alliances are built on trust. Alliance members look out for each other and take care of each other. When women used tear-down-to-rise-up men saw us as a usurper who stabbed an existing alliance member to gain entry to their alliance. This meant we couldn’t be trusted and therefore had to be removed. The alliance became aggressive and pushed the women out or down.
For women, this aggressive response reinforced our larger narrative. Men want to keep all the power for themselves. Men don’t want women in the workplace. Men are aggressive. Femininity is weak. Women need to ramp up their aggression in order to beat men in the workplace and rise to the top.
Because these narratives are self-fulling they have endured. Today they are main-stream and accepted as truths. They are told to women as career advice but actually only serve to hold women back. Let’s look at one example all women are familiar with – the conference room meeting.
We’ve all read or heard that when we attend a meeting in the conference room, we must sit at the table because that is where men sit. By sitting at the table, we can lean-in and jump into the raucous battle of ideas. Our goal is to defeat all the men so our idea is the winning idea! That’s how we show we are confident, bold and have that larger than life personality that will get us promoted. (Ironically we are told this by people who used connections and alliances to get ahead.)
But as any woman who has experienced in this scenario knows, having the winning idea is not the same as having the best solution. The winning idea is an incomplete solution that results in problems and unintended consequences. It may produce a conference room victory but it won’t deliver the expected results. And without results, you don’t get invited into the best alliances.
Let’s correct this narrative and bring it into the 21st century.
When we go into the conference room for a meeting, we aren’t after a win – we are after a solution, the best solution. To do this, we don’t sit at the table – we use the power seat. From here, we can take control of the room, stop the debate and begin collaboration. We know the best solution comes from listening to everyone and combining ideas. We want to be the person who makes this happen – we want to be the leader.
As the leader of the collaborative effort we then continue to take a leadership role through the implementation. Even if we aren’t the person officially in charge, we can still assert our leadership by continuously working the solution to keep it on track and on target.
When our efforts produce the expected or better than expected outcome, we are seen as achievers. And everyone wants to be associated with the best achievers. This is what creates new connections and invitations to join the best alliances. This is how we advance ourselves in the 21st century.
We are 17 years into the 21st century and it is way past time to drop the narratives that focus on power, competition, aggression, personality, a me-first attitude or natural male superiority. We have to understand how the male-dominated workplace really functions, what drives it and how women can excel in it.
Our 21st century success will be determined by our ability to work with and manage complex issues, problems and situations. This takes collaboration, teamwork, systems-thinking and leadership from within, all qualities women possess in spades. But it also requires one major step first – accepting that we are complimentary equals to men.
The 21st century a perfect era for women to advance – but – we have to leave the 20th century narratives behind and write new ones for the 21st century based in our inherent equality and value.
Empowered Women Think and Act In The 21st Century.
Every 4 years, when the U.S. has a presidential election, women’s issues are discussed…mainly by male politicians, commentators and pundits who ignorantly speak with great authority . This cycle was no exception.
We had a debate over which bathrooms transgender people should use. My facebook news feed had posts and comments from men who didn’t want trans women using the women’s bathroom for fear of sexual predators. My response was: “Guys stay out of it! We are fully capable of policing our own bathrooms.”
This goes to a larger societal issue – lingering paternalism where women’s issues are usurped by men. When this happens, women’s thoughts, perspectives, opinions and solutions on the issues that affect us are lost.
As women we need to change this. We need to reclaim our issues and solve them amongst ourselves.
This of course requires us to step forward and shush men. For years I’ve harbored a fantasy of being up on a Presidential debate stage with a bunch of men. When the inevitable question is asked about a women’s issue, I walk out from behind my podium and tell the men, who are all talking over each other, to “Shut up.” Then, using the death stare, I dare any of them to utter a single word. Now that I have the stage, I invite all of their wives up to join me and inform the Moderator that we will resolve the issue. After we decide how to move the issue forward, we will expect our male-dominated government to enact it. If they don’t, well then they will go to that special place called Hell on Earth for men who don’t support women.
This fantasy sustains me through the drama of our politics.
Many women were hoping this cycle all the issues we care about would have a louder voice. I had more hope when Ivanka Trump used her clout to put out a plan for maternity leave and child care tax credits. From the announcement, it sounded like a group of female political leaders developed and wrote the plan. If true, that’s a significant step forward.
However, the subject of women’s maternity leave and the discussion it merits, is being overshadowed by the need to fill the media with political drama. The plan drew immediate criticism: “More than any other problem with the plan…omitting half the population is its profoundest and most revelatory flaw.”
This is where I say “Hold on. What are they really saying?”
Are they saying that women can’t have maternity leave unless fathers get paternity leave too? Isn’t that men usurping another women’s issue?
Let’s take a minute and look at maternity leave from a purely woman’s perspective and understand what we are asking for.
Women give birth.
We need to time to physically recover and for our bodies to transition to a postpartum state. As birth mothers we also have a unique relationship to our babies. We were once one, and now we are two. That relationship deserves respect so both mother and baby emerge healthy. (Adopted children also deserve this consideration)
Giving women 6 weeks to physically recover and adjust to motherhood meets the lowest bar of civilized consideration and respect for new mothers.
So before anyone chimes in with – “What about fathers?” Or, “Maternity leave without paternity leave is discrimination.” – can we first establish that the basis of maternity leave is due to the physical demands of giving birth and give women just this little morsel of respect?
After all, we all know that getting the bare minimum of 6 weeks of paid maternity leave for all U.S. women is an uphill battle. Adding in paternity leave men will kill any plan. So let’s achieve something for women’s health so we put women’s health issues more on par with men’s.
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To get our maternity leave we have to overcome politicians and the male-dominated workplaces that offer up reasons why the U.S. “can’t afford” it. They say small businesses can’t afford or accommodate it. They make it sound like it will be too much of an inconvenience or have too great of a negative financial impact on a company.
However, this is where I pull out and wave the great big BS flag!
Sorry, guys. Let’s be honest.
The male-dominated workplace accommodates men’s illnesses and unexpected long absences all the time. I know this because I’ve dealt with them countless times!
Early in my career my workplace had to schedule a critical Red Team review meeting around the panel members’ individual prostrate surgeries. My workplace was very accommodating even though it impacted their largest and most important contract. (As the only woman on the team, I learned more about prostates than I cared to.)
Since then I received many phone calls telling me the man who supervised a project, won’t be back to work for a while (3 months) because he had a heart attack or needed by-pass surgery. I can’t even begin to count how many times I was called to tell me a man suddenly had to take off an unknown amount of time for his high blood, diabetes, stress related ailment, immediate surgery or rehab.
We dealt with all of these situations. And they are far more difficult to deal with than a 6 week maternity leave that you know about for months.
Oh, and let’s not forget that there were financial safety nets for all of the men, even in a small mom-and-pop company. The men and their families were taken care of, somehow, someway.
The reason the male-dominated workplace can deal with these situations is because men empathize with the ailment. They also understand the work the absent man did so they don’t panic about getting his work done. The absence gives someone else the opportunity to step up and fill-in. And if the replacement screws up, no worries. The man will straighten it out when he returns. There is no doubt his job will be waiting for him.
Let’s compare this to a woman who works in the office paying bills or collecting payment from customers who takes maternity leave. If she is part of a large office, her colleagues help fill in as she takes her unpaid leave. Yes, there may be some overtime and the office may fall a little behind if temporary help isn’t brought in. But the impact is minimal.
The more critical situation is in smaller businesses where the woman is the one and only accounts payable and receivable person. The man who owns the small business doesn’t know what she does or how she does it. He is completely dependent upon her and lost without her! While he can manage when she takes a week off for vacation, a 6 week absence gives him an absolute panic attack. And that is the real issue.
So when asked about maternity leave it is easier for him to express all his fears and say “No” than to figure out how to replace her for 6 weeks. If there’s no maternity leave, he never has to leave his comfort zone.
This is why we need to take charge of our own issues. This is why we sought our empowerment and equality – so we no longer have to wait for men to champion our issues.
How do we begin?
We can all take the small steps – just keep talking about the issue. Make it a topic that is always in the air. This is an effective way to build men’s comfort with the topic and lower their resistance. (If I can hear about prostates at work, men can hear about pregnancy.)
If your company doesn’t provide any paid maternity leave, ask “Why not?” Is there something that can be done with a PTO policy? Or a short term disability plan? Find out how your workplace deals with typical male conditions that require long recovery times. Raise the idea that there should be equitable treatment across the board for all health issues.
Keep in mind that solutions come from thinking outside the box and challenging the “we can’t do that” attitude. When it comes to business, our male-dominated workplaces are very good at overcoming the “we can’t do that” attitude and making things happen. We always come up with solutions to business problems because failure is not an option. When we apply the same “failure is not an option attitude” we will find solutions to women’s issues.
If you have a Congresswoman or female Senator, keep pressure on them. I’ve already contacted my Congresswoman Martha McSally. She was the first woman to fly in combat and the first woman to command a combat aviation squadron so she is experienced in breaking through barriers to advance women. Recently, she formed a Working Group for Women in the 21st Century Workforce. I intend to get involved so the group comes up with solutions and not just talk.
The issue can also be worked at the state level. Right now California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have paid maternity leave by making it part of a disability claim. Massachusetts guarantees 8 weeks unpaid maternity leave for all women regardless of the size of her employer. As more states implement maternity leave, it makes it easier to adopt a national policy that accommodates all women.
The bottom line is that as women we need to champion our own issues. Yes, there are a lot of challenges to making sure we don’t get lost in political or media circus. But we (our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers) have been here before and with a lot less clout and power. They were successful and we can be too.
Should a woman quit her job after being sexually harassed?
http://www.123rf.com/ 24249834 –
Recently Trump stirred up some media controversy when he said that if his daughter Ivanka was sexually harassed at work “I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case.”
This of course created a storm because it wasn’t the correct answer that states that a woman shouldn’t have to upend or disrupt her career because a male colleague is a jerk and an idiot. However, the idea of changing jobs isn’t something a woman should rule out or feel bad about. It can be the best decision.
After you report what happened, you know your company’s response. Hopefully, they will take it seriously and take the appropriate action. There are plenty of good men out there with values and morals. They have wives and daughters in the workplace and have no tolerance for harassment. It is important to know who these men are in your workplace even if they aren’t in your direct reporting line because they can help you.
However, there are still many workplaces that just want to make the issue go away. They ignore it. Or they “address it” by having with a “confidential conversation” with the offender and you know nothing will change. The offender now knows “what not to say,” but the attitude remains. You know there will always be an excuse as to why you don’t get the recognition you deserve or the subsequent new opportunities to advance your career.
It makes you feel angry and hurt and frustrated.
You want them to apologize. You want them to recognize what you do. You want to force them to change.
You then begin listening to outside commentary. They say you can’t let men get away with it. They have to pay! You need to sue! They tell you to fight on and get justice for yourself.
But this is where you have a choice.
This is where you feel your empowerment.
You get to decide how you want to expend your energy.
You can spend a lot of time and energy trying to fix your workplace. But to what end? Your career still won’t advance, your colleagues will be uncomfortable around you and you will dread going to work.
Is it your duty and responsibility to all other women in workplaces everywhere to fight on? Is there going to be a special place in Hell for you if you don’t?
If you don’t take a stand then will the company continue to harass and discriminate against women?
Maybe.
But maybe they won’t be hiring any more women…or men, because their business is declining.
Before you put you make the big decision on how to react, make a honest and realistic assessment of your workplace. Are they growing, stagnating or declining?
I’ve found that a workplace that allows women to be harassed has a slew of other problems as well. The same culture that believes men are superior also creates problems with clients, customers and other business relationships. It creates performance problems. My guess is that they aren’t a thriving and growing company. They aren’t the industry leader. If you make an honest assessment you will probably find yourself on a sinking ship.
So why stay with a sinking ship?
Why rescue a sinking ship?
Instead of expending your energy trying to fix your workplace, would your energy be better directed on yourself? Can you find a new job where your talents are recognized and rewarded?
What we don’t tell women enough is that we have the right to reject their workplace. We don’t have to make them see our value, we can tell them they aren’t worthy of our energy and efforts.
This is what men do. If they are mistreated, or not given opportunities they think they deserve they move on. So take a look around, are the men unhappy? Are the best men leaving?
My advice to any woman who is in a declining or stagnant backward workplace is to start looking for new opportunities. You don’t have to quit your job right away. Take your time. Find the right new job. It may take a year or two.
Contrary to what we are told by people who are zealous to make men pay, there is nothing wrong with prioritizing yourself ahead of your workplace. You aren’t upending your career; you are taking positive steps to move yourself forward. The sexual harassment may have just been the eye opening wake-up call you needed to make some changes.
What is ultimately most important in this situation is that we maintain our positive energy. By staying and fighting we attract and absorb negative energy which makes us angry, stressed and miserable. Are they worth it? Is the situation worth it? Can you make a point by having a group of people write negative comments on Glassdoor?
Only you can answer that.
Just remember your goal is to invest your energy in yourself and your future. It takes courage and strength to stand up for yourself, move yourself forward, and leave them far behind in the dust. That is what being empowered is really about.
Empowered Women Can Choose to Leave a Bad Situation
For more articles on harassment and discrimination go to The Ugly Stuff article category
When I was a kid growing up we understood that when people went to work, they did something tangible. We understood what the mailman, policeman, salesman, doctor, dentist, nurse and teacher did. Then a new job emerged – the middle manager. We asked our parents what they did but our parents couldn’t give us a good description. They really didn’t know. They just told us we should become one.
Eventually an image of managers emerged. Managers were smart, well educated, and driven to climb the corporate ladder. In their upper echelon, they develop strategies, attend meetings and conference calls, make decisions, read reports, meet with clients, play golf, have two-martini lunches, drive expensive cars, live in a big houses and belong to a country club.
Since managers were selected and promoted into the management ranks, we assumed they were the best and the brightest in our workplace.
However, in spite of all of the status and air of importance associated with managers, the workforce had a different opinion. They often thought that if a manager disappeared, no one would care; if they even noticed.
Their perspective brought us back to the greatest mystery in business: What does a middle manager really do?
When I entered the male-dominated workplace in the early 1980’s I joined the throngs of people wondering what managers do and why the workplace needed them. I expected managers to interact and supervise their staff but I hardly saw my managers and rarely talked to them. They always seemed to be busy but they didn’t produce anything.
In 1987 I got my first middle management position. I asked my predecessor what he did. He showed me to my new office stacked to the gills with 102 unresolved open project folders and I realized he never knew what he was supposed to do as a middle manager either.
I began to work on my own definition of being a manager. I interacted a lot with my three departments solving our functional problems. We rewrote all of our operating processes and procedures. We tightened communication and coordination. We all began moving in the same direction together and eliminated people going off randomly on their own doing what they wanted. Our performance soared.
Then about 15 months into my job my boss was unhappy in his life so he called me into his office to counsel me. He told me that I didn’t yell enough at my staff. He wanted me to follow his example where he had been yelling at and insulting the men in our weekly staff meeting. He directed me to go down to my Planning Dept. and yell at all the planners.
At least I knew his definition of what a manager does.
So I went down and met with my planners. I told them I was sent there to yell at them and asked them what they would do if I yelled at them like my boss wanted me to. Their answer was: “We will ignore you just like we do him.”
I still didn’t get how men thought about management. At the time I was getting my master’s degree and decided the department head was the perfect person to answer the mysterious question of what a manager in the male-dominated workplace is supposed to do. In response he set me up to take a one-on-one course with a new visiting professor.
My new professor explained the role of a manager by drawing a diagram based upon Juran’s interpretation of the workplace vertical hierarchy. For some reason I immediately renamed it the Dollars to Doughnuts model.
This model explains how a company should function holistically.
At the bottom of the pyramid is the largest group – the workforce. The workforce is comprised of unskilled, skilled and/or professional workers depending upon the product or service the workplace produces. The workforce can be of any educational level ranging from uneducated unskilled laborers to highly educated, highly skilled neurosurgeons. They use processes and systems to produce the products and services purchased by the workplace’s customers.
I call these people the doughnut makers. They know how to make the doughnuts and how to operate the shop that sells the doughnuts. They live in the world of the doughnut shop and they speak in the language of doughnuts.
At the top of the pyramid are the CEO, CFO and Sr. Management. They represent the company to the outside world. They speak in the universal business language of money. Using the language of money, they can compare themselves not only to other doughnut making companies but to companies in other industries.
Since the top of the pyramid speaks in the language of money and the bottom in the language of doughnuts, there is a communication problem.
For example, a senior manager knows the doughnut shop is short on revenue and is busting some budget lines. So, on his semi-annual scheduled doughnut shop walk-thru he asks the doughnut makers: “What’s going on?”
The doughnut makers tell him about how the doughnut fryers keep breaking down. They have to wait for new parts to come in so that means they are down on fryers. Being short on fryers they have to work overtime in order to make the doughnuts. But that makes the working fryers run longer which means they break down faster. They are also short one person because he is busy dealing with broken fryers. They were so busy dealing with the fryers that the flour and sugar orders got messed up and they had to expedite some deliveries. But then the flour and sugar supplier changed their weekly delivery date based upon their expedited delivery so they ran short the following week. They need him to change it back because it conflicts with their heaviest production day.
This is the truthful answer that drives senior managers right back to their office and to never step foot in a doughnut shop again. The only response the overwhelmed senior manager can offer is the obvious solution: “Get those fryers fixed as soon as possible.”
To this the doughnut maker response is – “Duh. What do you think we are busting our butts trying to do?”
This is why the workforce doesn’t find value in management.
The real problem is that the senior manager asked a question speaking “Money” but the doughnut makers replied speaking “Doughnut.” They don’t understand each other.
What they need is a translator. (That sounds like a communication skill and something women excel at!)
Translation is the real definition of what a middle manager does.
In Juran’s original model, he said that middle managers convert doughnuts into budgets. That is true however it is only a partial definition of translation. I expanded the definition to leverage female traits.
What a middle manager really does is know how to make money making and selling doughnuts. That goes well beyond developing budget lines and tracking monthly whether you are over or under budget.
Making money by making and selling doughnuts requires understanding how the doughnut shop operates and how actions within the doughnut shop impact financials. Very simple examples of translation are:
An expedited delivery of flour will have a $100 delivery charge
Two people working two hours overtime will cost $190
If the shop makes 100 doughnuts per hour doughnuts cost 20 cents to make. If they make 120 doughnuts per hour doughnuts cost 18 cents to make.
Translation begins by focusing on the doughnut shop’s processes and procedures. We want standardized processes and procedures so we have consistent outcomes. When the processes are standardized, the outcomes are consistent and it is easy to see the financial results. With experience we instinctively learn to see what is happening in our doughnut shop and immediately know the financial ramifications.
What many middle managers do is wait for the month-end financial statement, look for discrepancies, then make up stories that sound plausible to explain the discrepancies to senior management. They do this because they can’t translate.
When we become good at translating we don’t have to wait for month-end reports. We see a variation in how the doughnut shop functions and we know in real time what the financial impact is.
This then triggers us to work with our doughnut makers to improve the processes, so the variation doesn’t reoccur. By reducing these variations financial performance improves. For a middle manager this is your claim to fame.
The problem is that many of our workplaces don’t operate through standardized processes even if they supposedly have them. Individual departments or projects tout they are different or unique so the standardized processes wouldn’t work for them.
The real reason this happens is because in the male-dominated workplace men aspire to autonomy – to being independent and doing things the way they personally think is best. Standardization works against everything men are taught about being men. Without standardized processes laying the foundation, male middle managers can’t translate.
Women however, don’t aspire to autonomy. We enjoy and know how to work in groups. Standardized processes don’t threaten us. We enjoy leading from within, not leading from above and dictating downward. This makes us perfectly suited to lead our doughnut shop to map out their processes and then improve their processes.
Translation is the major discriminator between male and female middle managers. It is how women can distinguish themselves and set a new standard for middle management performance.
Translation is also what set us up to move up to senior management and excel there too.
Those of you that have read a lot of my articles know I love to give a different perspective anytime there is an issue based on something women do differently from men and there is the assumption that what women do is wrong or inferior. Last week I was going through old emails from my daughter and I came across and article she sent me on how much women use the word “just.”
The article caught my attention because not long ago while editing my book, I tuned in to just how many times I use the word “just” in my writing. It has to be one of my favorite words!
While editing I just deleted the word “just” because it just wasn’t needed – it seems superfluous.
However, according to the woman who wrote the article, women use “just” as a permission word. And using “just” casts women into the “child position” and the person we are speaking to into the “parent position.” For example saying:
“I just want to talk to you about…”
“If I can just get an answer on…”
“I am just seeing how you are doing on…”
The relationship caused by the word “just,” just ruins our credibility.
Now, I know I use these phrases all the time at work. However, I usually preface them with: “Hey, you got a minute? I just want to discuss…“
I know I use the word “just” to establish a limitation or set boundaries. In my writing I use “just” to limit my thoughts and prevent myself from going off on tangents. It helps me remain focused. But if “just” is a bad word for me to use, then should I just say what I am really thinking:
“Hey, you got a minute? I’ve got a lot on my mind and there are 3 things we need to talk about. But I’m not ready to discuss all of them yet and also I don’t have enough time right now. So, I want to discuss this 1 topic.”
Sounds awfully wordy. So to me, saying “just” is just easier.
Given how bad the word “just” supposedly makes women look, I decided to check another source. So, I looked up the word “just” in the dictionary and some of the definitions are:
Within a brief preceding time
Exactly or precisely
Only or merely
Funny, the dictionary doesn’t say “just” is a permission word. But if the “experts” say it is a bad word for women to use, then what happens if we change out “just” and use “only” instead?
“I only want to talk to you about…”
“If I can only get an answer on…”
“I am only seeing how you are doing on…”
Does using “only” do a better job at conveying a limitation or boundaries better? Or do we still sound like we are still asking permission?
Or, do we sound a bit bitchy?
Obviously tone has a lot to do with it. And if a woman is asking a question and sounds all mousey, then there is something wrong. But did you notice all of these examples are examples of interrupting someone? (In which case is it better to sound bitchy or mousey?)
When we interrupt someone, we don’t know what they are working on or how important it is. When we use “just” we are conveying a limitation or boundaries so they can gauge how much time we will need. This allows them to determine if they have time for us. That is being respectful and having some manners.
Suppose instead of using the word “just” we say:
“Excuse me, do you have time to talk about…?”
“Excuse me, do you have an answer for me on…?”
“Excuse me, I want to see how you are doing on…?”
If a woman said that would the “experts” tell us she still be asking permission because children used to be taught to say “excuse me”?
OK. Let’s just get something straight.
Just because women show deference to someone else it doesn’t mean we are timid, insecure or that there is something wrong with us. It doesn’t mean we see ourselves as subordinate or as a child. We just might be using some manners and we just might be showing some respect for someone else.
And there is just nothing wrong with that.
And maybe for that reason alone, I will continue to use the word “just” as much as I want.
One more thing.
Do you know what I just hate?
I just hate it when a man just comes walking into my office and just starts talking to me about something and expects me to just drop what I am doing and pay attention to him and whatever it is he wants to talk about. I just find that rude. Maybe he should just take a few lessons from women in how to use “just.”
The tagline to my website is “Empowering Women to Lead the Male-Dominated Workplace.” Since writing it, I’ve been amazed at how controversial this statement is. This is because as a society we created a controversy instead of simply understanding the different perspectives men and women have about empowerment.
First, let’s understand what empowerment means. I like the definition in Wikipedia: “Empowerment refers to policies and measures designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in the lives of people and in communities in order to enable them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority.”
I like this definition because it uses the terms autonomy and self-determination. In my list of male and female balancing traits, I list Autonomy as the primary male trait. Men understand Autonomy – doing what they want, when they want based upon what they think is best. Men naturally think autonomously.
Men’s Autonomy allows them to empower themselves. As teenagers they couldn’t wait to turn 18 so they could become legal adults who no longer had to ask their parents for permission. Men believe that once they become a legal adult, they are fully empowered. Period.
Today, there is no reason why all women shouldn’t have this same attitude – that once we are an adult we are fully empowered. But many of us still don’t assume the empowerment that is rightfully ours. Part of the reason why is because we don’t have the same instinctual perspective about autonomy as men. We don’t see ourselves as an individual first. We see ourselves as part of a group. Unlike men, when we take action we recognize it impacts other people. Therefore we feel a need to check with others and validate that our action works within the group. We expect other people to give us feedback and tell us how the action we want to take impacts them. Women give us this feedback. Men however wonder why we are asking for permission or validation. To them, if we believe the action is what we need to do, then being autonomous and empowered we should just do it. If we ask for permission or validation, they will assume we see ourselves as teenagers and treat us as such.
In my senior year at Virginia Tech in the early 80’s I was explaining my career decision to an old male administrator. He got a very annoyed look on his face then yelled at me: “You’re free white and 21. You don’t need to explain what you are doing to me.” I was shocked by his statement for two reasons. The first was his obvious bigotry. The second is why I always remembered this moment. While I heard the statement before, I understood that it applied only to men because women based on gender had no rights or privileges of their own. In a shocking way, he told me I was fully empowered. He told me to think of my autonomy and self-determination exactly the same way any of my male peers would. I was a legal adult and I have every right to go out and live my life on my terms. Period.
And that is what I did. And my life on my terms put me in traditional male roles in one of the most male-dominated industries. Through my experiences I got to understand empowerment from both a male and female perspective.
Where women erode their inherent autonomy is in believing that we need laws, rules or policies to empower us. But, from a male perspective being empowered through permission makes empowerment an oxymoron. You can’t have self-determination if you have to ask to be granted self-determination. Our view of empowerment is backwards from how men understand and use their empowerment.
As women we need to reverse how we think of empowerment.
Once we turn 18 we are adults and therefore are fully empowered with the right to our own self-determination. It then takes laws, policies, rules and values to limit our autonomy and self-determination. This is how empowerment works in the male-dominated workplace. This is why we hear men at work say “It is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” Unless you are explicitly restricted in your action, you are free to act according to what you believe is best. Women have to understand this perception of autonomy and empowerment in order to be happy and successful in the male-dominated workplace. The women that do, love working in the male-dominated workplace. They don’t create barriers that don’t really exist. The women that don’t get it, unknowingly hold themselves back.
Being empowered also means accepting yourself for who you are and knowing your value. This is how society truly works against empowering women in the workplace.
Our society values stereotypical or traditional male traits more than female traits. This is especially true in the workplace. Men don’t have to question their value or right to empowerment. But, for women, it is a constant reminder that the traits they naturally feel are inferior. If we empower who we naturally believe we are, then, we are empowering inferiority. This deters women from feeling the same empowerment men take for granted. After all who wants to stand up and proclaim “This is who I am and I am proud to be inferior!”?
The reason I started speaking out on empowering women is to tell women that our natural traits are not inferior in the workplace. Who we naturally are is powerful and very much needed in the male-dominated workplace.
From my experience I know that in today’s complex workplace, female traits are the most powerful and most underutilized tools the male-dominated workplace has at its disposal. Throughout my career I’ve proven that when I added my female traits to my male-dominated workplaces, performance soared. I know our female traits are the keys to success the male-dominated workplace has struggled for decades to find.
So, the foremost “measure” society needs to take to empower women is to stop promoting male traits as the be-all, end-all in the workplace. We must stop the constant messaging telling women that they must identify with traits our society labels as “male” in order to be successful.
Male traits represent only half of the equation. The other half is female traits. We must recognize that men and women are designed to work together, in balance and only when both sets of traits are present can there be sustained superior performance.
No law, rule, policy or other person can empower women as much as our own attitudes and perceptions. As women we must embrace who we are and understand how everything that we are told is “wrong” about us is actually right, valuable, powerful and transformative. Then we must grab ahold of our full empowerment that has just been sitting over there in the corner getting dusty. No one else is going to pick it up, dust it off and hand it to us. We don’t have to ask anyone’s permission and we shouldn’t assume we have to run through a blockade of men to get it. It is completely your choice as to whether or not you pick it up. It is completely your choice how you use it in your life. And because these are your choices, you are empowered.
Empowered Women Chose To Use Their Inherent Empowerment
I read a post from a male friend on facebook who was upset over Carly Fiorina quoting Margaret Thatcher during the Republican debate: “If you want something talked about, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
He was angry at her for both saying it and thinking it. He thought she was being sexist against men. He was upset that none of the male Presidential candidates took issue with her. He assumed the reason they didn’t was out of fear of being labeled sexist.
I suggested to him that they didn’t respond because from a female perspective there was a lot of truth to what she was saying and they didn’t want to step into that hornet’s nest.
His comments reminded me once again how sensitive many men and women are about the subject of empowering women.
The reason why is simple. We grew up with values and norms that told us how to be good and successful people. They told us how we can fit into society and find our acceptance. So we all have perceptions about ourselves that we depend on to make us feel good about who we are. If those perceptions are challenged, questioned or even if someone expresses a different point of view, it can affect how we feel about ourselves. So we naturally become defensive and protect our perceptions about ourselves.
For many men the idea of empowering women still makes them feel very defensive. They believe that empowering women means disempowering men. This is why I love the concept that women hold up half the sky. It says we don’t need to take power from men because we have our own. But even with that there are men who grew up believing men hold up the entire sky and will still see themselves losing half the sky.
A former employer told me my website was “politically incorrect.” They were afraid I was offending men (potential clients) who didn’t perceive women as equal. But their perception was actually based upon their own perceptions of the potential clients. In reality the potential clients supported advancing women as evidenced by the women’s STEM and educational programs they generously funded.
Many women don’t like that I say men and women have some differences because they define equal as being the same. To them, for women to be equal to men, means we must be the same as men. They believe that if men and women have different traits, then female traits will be rated as inferior to male traits.
Some women say I bring back the stereotypes if I group career women and stay at home mothers together as women. Many people still perceive them as two very distinct types of women with very little in common.
Much of this sensitivity exists because our society still highly values traits we classify as male. We were taught to equate success with male traits. Therefore, we haven’t thought there was much value in exploring the traits we classify as female or understanding the characteristics unique to women so we can find their value.
Going back to my facebook friend, his perception comes through his pure male perspective. He never worked with a woman as his peer – he only understands women from the perspective of his personal relationships. Therefore he has no experience to draw on in order to understand the how women think and work in a business or government environment.
I suspect his real problem with Carly’s quote was that it threw off his perception that she was a man in a dress. For the first time he saw her as a woman with a female point of view. That made him very nervous. Then using the rest of his perceptions he evolved her into being “part of the sexist divisive liberal culture.” That allowed him to dismiss her and protect his comfort zone.
The reality is that he isn’t ready for a female President because he has no concept of what that would mean. He has no idea how a woman acting through a female perspective would be different from a man.
Margaret Thatcher, Carly Fiorina, Hillary Clinton and many other women know men through society’s male perspective and through their own female perspective. It is from their female perspective they make statements like “If you want something talked about, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
It can be shocking statement to men who haven’t heard women in a professional setting express themselves through their female perspective. But the truth is professional women make these comments all the time – amongst ourselves. Kudos to Margret Thatcher for openly expressing her female perspective.
Making men like my facebook friend comfortable with a female perspective requires exposure and experience. And we obviously still have a long way to go. Like my male peers through the years, he has to learn first-hand that a female peer doesn’t diminish him in any way. Women help men like him along when we openly express ourselves through our female perspective. That doesn’t make us sexist or divisive and we shouldn’t stop speaking just because someone throws out those labels. Their intent is to stop us from expressing ourselves so they can remain safely tucked in their comfort zone. But we are much stronger than that and we will continue to speak from our female perspective.
I was going to publish another article but just saw that the Secretary of Defense is going to announce a plan to open all combat positions to women. I’m glad women will now have the opportunities I couldn’t.
When I was in the Air Force women weren’t allowed to be any “combat” position. I was offered a pilot slot but turned it down because I couldn’t fly fighters. Women were limited to transport and refueling aircraft which meant we had to either “haul trash” or “pass gas.” Neither was appealing to me.
As an engineer, men could be part of the “combat engineers” which to me sounded like a great adventure because they got to do all the really cool stuff. As a woman, sorry, no can do. However, I was sent to the training and I was either the first or second female officer to go through the course. The instructors literally wanted me to sit in the tent and watch. I refused. I wanted to direct the entire exercise scenario because I had experience doing it back at my base. I was told “No.” So they sent me out to the field where they expected me wilt under the Florida heat and humidity.
In our scenario we had to recover from a major strike. It began as chaos and only grew worse. Very hot and frustrated I grabbed a radio out of an NCO’s hand and started talking to the “director” about the situation. I described the scene and what I thought the priorities should be. The director was confused. He was removed from the scene and couldn’t picture what was going on. Eventually I started directing from the field. It was multi-tasking Nirvana which is why I always loved that role.
Afterwards, I went up to the instructors and told them that for the next scenario I was going to be the director. I was and the exercise went very smoothly. The instructors who looked down on me the first two days were now suddenly very friendly and dragged me off to meet the commander to talk about how well I did even though I was starving and dying to take a shower.
For the third exercise I didn’t direct, I instructed the man who was the director.
What I noticed was the difference in my perspective about being the director from the men’s. The scenario was set up with the director removed from the action because men believed that is how you direct – to manage the big picture you have to be removed from it. For women, to understand the big picture we do better when we are part of it. For the first scenario I was in the field, amongst all the action so I understood what was happening. For the second scenario when I was removed from the field I still kept asking questions and picturing what was happening to make myself feel like I was amongst the action. When I instructed the next director I tried to teach him to be part of the action and not removed from it.
To their credit the instructors understood exactly what I was doing. After the third exercise we had a long discussion. Because of their previous roles the instructors were used to being in the field and part of the action. They were uncomfortable being in the command tent and like me really didn’t get it as to how you can direct something without being a part of it. We talked a lot about communication and how during the first exercise I described the scene so they understood what was going on even though the director who hadn’t been out in the field was clueless. What we really discussed was blending male and female perspectives to improve how we approached the scenario. Until I came out there they didn’t know what was possible. They didn’t believe that a woman could actually enhance the exercise.
That training only intensified my desire to be part of Red Horse which was the Air Force’s combat engineers. I knew I would excel at it. That Florida training proved it. But I couldn’t. Every few months the assignment people would call and ask me if I would go to Korea. I always had the same reply “Can I be in Red Horse?” Their answer was “No” so my answer to them was “No.”
I am glad women now have the opportunity to enhance combat roles. There may be only a few women who are qualified for the various roles but I have no doubt they will make a significant positive impact. It’s been a long time coming.
Empowered Women Have the Opportunity to Fulfill Any and All Roles
When I got to my office I took one of each pair of shoes and set them on my desk. Under the shoes I hung a sign that said “High Heels, Office Shoe, Site Shoe” with arrows pointing to the appropriate shoe.
We’ve all worked with that guy – you know, that guy who is so confident he has the answer for every situation and problem. I’ve worked with lots of these guys over the years. However, it was the first guy like this that I helped me figure out how to deal with them. His name was Terry.
Women went into the workplace without understanding this and that using tear-down-to-rise up brings the wrath of the entire alliance down upon us.
