Quotas, Sexism, Men vs. Women in Business, etc.

[Regis]

Gender Intelligence

I've read the book "Same Words, Different Language" and intend to read the others as well.  Fascinating stuff!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Have your read Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg?
If not, you might add it to your list. 

[Miss Tequila]

Is it possible that a woman's lack of assertiveness is the reason for her not rising through the ranks to the level of a man instead of sexism?

I've never experienced the sexism that a lot of you talk about but I also have a pretty aggressive personality. I've had men tried to speak over me and I quikcly shit then down

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Nov 14, 2015 11:35:47 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Is it possible that a woman's lack of assertiveness is the reason for her not rising through the ranks to the level of a man instead of sexism?

I've never experienced the sexism that a lot of you talk about but I also have a pretty aggressive personality. I've had men tried to speak over me and I quikcly shit then down

Is that an autocorrect or intentional shitting?

[Miss Tequila]

Nov 14, 2015 11:38:22 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Nov 14, 2015 11:35:47 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Is it possible that a woman's lack of assertiveness is the reason for her not rising through the ranks to the level of a man instead of sexism?

I've never experienced the sexism that a lot of you talk about but I also have a pretty aggressive personality. I've had men tried to speak over me and I quikcly shit then down

Is that an autocorrect or intentional shitting?

Lmao! Damn iphone...

[MJ2.0]

Nov 14, 2015 9:33:12 GMT -5 @tbird said:

I just returned from a business trip where I was consulting with a prestigious group. The group was mostly middle aged to older white men and maybe 15% women. The women were of comparable age to the males. After general meetings and discussions, there were smaller work groups that engaged in development activities surrounding their area of expertise.  The product being developed was assessment materials based on medical science - thus, this was not opinion or creative, but taking something and developing it to a complete and factual level and considering the state of science on topic in the current peer-reviewed literature.

Due to recent YM threads, I was more sensitized to the gender communication differences, and I paid more attention to how they communicated. Certainly, these women were respected members of the group, however, I noticed a great difference in how their input was treated and in the tone of voice they used to make that input.

The women tended to present their ideas in a soft and suggestive voice "Don't you think that ......." "But isn't........." "Wouldn't it....."

Whereas the men were direct and assertive, almost confrontational at times when they were trying to get their point across "no, you have to..." "It's...." etc.

Also - I noticed that in order for one of the women's points to carry, nearly every time she had to form a coalition with a male member, and when he agreed with her, then the point would carry. Men, on the other hand, just made their points over and over again. Louder, talking over other members until they said what they wanted to say in its entirety. When talked over, the women gave the floor, and then non confrontationally, resumed their point.

Sounds like the women were actually working cooperatively (which sounds like what the objective was) and the men were being obnoxious and rude. So the moral of the story is: if you want people to listen to your ideas, be a jerk?

[MJ2.0]

Btw, I've never felt sexism or racism in the workplace. Ageism, definitely.

[Tennesseer]

Nov 14, 2015 11:42:32 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Nov 14, 2015 11:38:22 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Is that an autocorrect or intentional shitting?

Lmao! Damn iphone...

I got my cyber hand lightly tapped by a moderator one time because of auto correct on my tablet. Without naming the poster I was addressing, auto correct changed her name to 'piggy'.

[Lizard Queen]

At DH's workplace, an older woman was doing payables on a temp to hire basis for a year, but never hired in.  His female boss said that she wanted to hire a man for the job, and did.  Both ageism and sexism at work there.

[MJ2.0]

He he, horizontal interactions.

[zibazinski]

Nov 14, 2015 11:42:56 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Nov 14, 2015 9:33:12 GMT -5 @tbird said:

I just returned from a business trip where I was consulting with a prestigious group. The group was mostly middle aged to older white men and maybe 15% women. The women were of comparable age to the males. After general meetings and discussions, there were smaller work groups that engaged in development activities surrounding their area of expertise.  The product being developed was assessment materials based on medical science - thus, this was not opinion or creative, but taking something and developing it to a complete and factual level and considering the state of science on topic in the current peer-reviewed literature.

Due to recent YM threads, I was more sensitized to the gender communication differences, and I paid more attention to how they communicated. Certainly, these women were respected members of the group, however, I noticed a great difference in how their input was treated and in the tone of voice they used to make that input.

The women tended to present their ideas in a soft and suggestive voice "Don't you think that ......." "But isn't........." "Wouldn't it....."

Whereas the men were direct and assertive, almost confrontational at times when they were trying to get their point across "no, you have to..." "It's...." etc.

Also - I noticed that in order for one of the women's points to carry, nearly every time she had to form a coalition with a male member, and when he agreed with her, then the point would carry. Men, on the other hand, just made their points over and over again. Louder, talking over other members until they said what they wanted to say in its entirety. When talked over, the women gave the floor, and then non confrontationally, resumed their point.

Sounds like the women were actually working cooperatively (which sounds like what the objective was) and the men were being obnoxious and rude. So the moral of the story is: if you want people to listen to your ideas, be a jerk?

Yup, or be a man.

[violagirl]

That's interesting. I had a similar conversation about assertiveness. I was contacted by a recruiter for a senior manager role. I told my husband about it and said, I'm not really qualified for a senior position for probably another 2 years. I'm not being humble, it just is the facts as I see them. He said take the interview anyway, let them decide if you are not qualified. But my first reaction was to not even try.

I also have to constantly monitor my emails at work because I often say things like "I believe this is.." instead of just "It is.." It makes a big difference in how you come across either confident or not sure. So I try pretend I'm 100% sure. 

I don't think the men were consciously being obnoxious and rude. 

[MJ2.0]

I don't like pretending to be 100% sure of something I'm really 70% sure of. If I'm wrong, then I'm that girl that doesn't know what she's talking about.

[violagirl]

Part of my prevarication stems from my personality (my brother fights the same thing). We are people who feel we need to know everything, and if we do not know everything then we always need to add the possibility for unknowns in everything we say. We feel like big pretenders that are going to be found out, even though we are knowledgable, capable professionals.

I always figured I'd grow out of that, but I'm approaching 40 and still don't feel "grown up". I think the feeling that I have always associated with being grown up is that assuredness that you see in your parents and other grownups as a child. But the older I get the more I think it is all a ruse. 

I work in tax so I suppose it is a good field for someone like me who has to have a disclaimer on everything I say anyway, but it must be hard for people who come to me wanting a straight answer. There are no straight answers. 

[Ryan]

Nov 17, 2015 13:05:37 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

I don't like pretending to be 100% sure of something I'm really 70% sure of. If I'm wrong, then I'm that girl that doesn't know what she's talking about.

That's the way I am as well and I really haven't experienced most males in the workplace to be as forceful as what was outlined above.  

For a long time I must've been naive about people or something.  I had no problems spotting a major league BSer, but there were other BSers that were a little tougher for me to figure out. These were people that appeared to be smart and somewhat normal and would speak with authority about a variety of topics.  When I was young, I didn't know anything so I just assumed they were talking about stuff they knew about.  As I got older and picked up more things, I realized that these morons would talk with the same authority on a subject whether they knew about them or not.  I find this to be fairly common in the workplace.

There are another sub-classification of a BSer, but it's a little more elusive.  These are people that gain knowledge, but don't really cite the source of their knowledge and don't admit that they might have learned this piece of information like yesterday.  I've heard people speaking very confidently about something that I literally told them yesterday and repeating the advice like they have 1st hand experience with it.  When I am explaining something to somebody and using information that I learned from someone else, Ill usually say "Now this hasn't happened to me, but Joe was telling me that he's seen a drone fire a missle at a parked car".  I can't help but think that this kinda makes my knowledge seem a bit watered down.  People that are a little bolder will just say "Yes, there are definitely drones that fire missiles at parked cars. It happens more than you think".  

A good example of the 2nd person is Tim Ferriss (author, podcaster).  I have heard him interview someone and learn something on the air and question the guy about it.  Then later in another interview, he'll speak the previous piece of information and leave out how he learned this or the fact that he just learned in a week ago.  If you heard the second interview in isolation you'd think "Wow, how does this guy know this stuff?"

[milee]

I'll be the first to admit that Tim Ferriss' books are very amusing, but the idea that he might be classified as a sub-classification of BSer that's "a little more elusive" is really, really funny. That guy is total, 100%, no nonsense, utter BS. Not hard to spot at all.