The same issue comes up every time I mentor technical women:
"I offer an idea at a meeting, no one listens to me and then a man says the same thing and everyone listens."
Often the woman is the only woman on a team and so the only woman in the room. Often they are smart, nerdy and not very assertive. Sometimes, not always, they are very polite too. Their ideas get overlooked and it's very annoying (and career stifling) for them.
My advice when a woman brings this up is always toughen up, get over it and learn how to assert yourself in a male world. Until you are the boss, or you are in a team that is 50% women, you need to learn how to talk like a man. You don't have to be masculine, but you do need to be understood. If you went to France to work on a team of French people, you would learn French. If you work in a world of all men, you need to learn how to talk Man.
There is a book full of insight on how to do this -- Deborah Tannen's brilliant You Just Don't Understand. Professor Tannen points out that the way women talk creates connection while men's language transfers information. (This is especially true of engineers). Women are creating community as they speak; men are establishing status. We are brainwashed by the media -- women create the home, men are on the hunt. So while we make nice, men figure out who's on top (status-wise of course).
Knowing this is power and the start of the solution to the problem of your ideas being ignored. Complaining about it is a waste of time and energy. Take an assertiveness class, practice speaking up and being heard, find a man on your team who will listen to your desire to change and who will help you. But don't expect the group to change; that's an unreasonable expectation until your group has a significant percentage of women in it.
There is one other thing that can also help with the mental toughness necessary to be gender-isolated every day at work and that is to sign up for some challenge that stretches you and raises your confidence and assertiveness at the same time. Train for a half-marathon, sign up for a weekend hackathon, do a triathlon, join Toastmasters -- and then take the same steel that your challenge requires into your meetings, and remember to smile as you make yourself heard.
Follow Penny Herscher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pennyherscher
I know plenty of men who could use the same course. Why create all the gender animosity?
There are women that have type A personalities as well, so what the big deal? Are your really naive enough to think that even if it was ALL women in the room that there wouldn't be type A personalities dominating? Tell me your joking.
Last week women were outnumbering men and now they are outnumbered? LOL. HP make up your mind! (Feminist Mundy wrote a book, so you have to back up her B_S remember?)
I find articles like this contribute more to women becoming obnoxious and belligerent, then they do in making them more assertive; because now you've turned things into a man vs. women situation rather than a shyness problem (which is all you're really talking about). It doesn't matter how much you scream or yell to get attention, if no one respects you you're not an effective communicator.
Huh? Who teaches that?
or that they should. Overly-aggressive men tend to generate hostility; the power they exude
does not necessarily respect. Women may offer unique perspectives and constructive
approaches that tend to temper decisions.
I recall a contentious meeting where voices were raised to emotional levels. One highly
respected person began speaking in a soft measured voice; the entire room quieted down
because otherwise no one could hear her speak. It made the loud voices sound foolish.
It forced people to listen, and they hung on her every word.
One valuable lesson I've learned from women is the effectiveness of posing opinions as
questions instead of making declarative statements (as men tend to do). Men tend to dismiss objectionable ideas: "It's a stupid idea to bet your pay check on the lottery". Women tend to be more tactful: "Aren't you concerned that you'll lose it all for nothing?"
A simple question often makes the same point in a less abrasive manner.
You only get the edge of sarcasm if you were blatantly stealing my idea.
A variant is, "Precisely! See? RealisticBC gets it!".
It only works if they are indeed saying something you just said rephrased to sound like it is their idea.
And it is devastating in that particular case.
I
And the fact that expressing them at the right time and in the proper context marks the difference between problem-solving behaviors and immaturity.
Our feelings don't trump facts. We don't have to be BFFs to get the project done to spec and submitted on time and under budget.
Yes, you're juggling a lot. So is everyone else.
You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once. No one gets to.
Women see men who "succeed" in any given field while they do not and ASSUME that sexism is the reason.
They FAIL to notice that OTHER men who DO NOT succeed engaged in the same behaviors that they are...
So, it doesn't matter to them that women AND men who do not assert their ideas are passed over while men who DO assert themselves succeed...all they see is a man succeeding and blame sexism.
Modern feminism is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. It constantly tells women how the world is against them or why they will fail...and too many women believe them and it becomes reality.
I understand the nefarious implication...and do not agree or accept it.
But the statement at face value...sure.