The Exclusive Human Traits that Make Men “Leaders” and Women “B*tches”
Before going to India on a study abroad program, my teacher told us to go talk to somebody from India. The group I was in talked to two people — a man and a woman, both of whom were international students at our university. When questioned about sexism in the industry, the man said that it didn’t really exist anymore. The woman said that we would see it all the time.
Why did these two people have such different perspectives? They did come from different areas. Regardless, they each would have different experiences of growing up and living in India. However, the experience of many women is that the men just don’t realize or identify the sexism that surrounds them since it isn’t something that has ended up affecting them and impeding their successes in life.
In an article from The New York Times, Charles M. Blow wrote about his male privilege:
“I must follow the advice on sexism that I proffer on racism: If you are not actively working to dismantle it, you are supporting it. It is not sufficient to simply not be a sexist yourself if you are a man. You must also recognize that you benefit from the system of sexism in ways to which you may not even be aware.” [1]
Through recognition comes learning and being able to identify cases where women are treated unfairly due to sexism. This recognition will also develop a more inclusive mindset — knowing and identifying the times women’s voices are ignored can enable people to do something about it, like speak up. Kate Edwards, who started the Geopolitical Strategy group at Microsoft before creating her own company, Geogrify, shared some stories with me that she had seen on a women’s-only Facebook group where women told stories of what they’d experienced in the workplace.
“Some of the stories are just horrible. Just horror stories, where there’s a woman in a meeting and she’s the group leader and then they basically talk her down, or she’ll say something and then they ignore it and then a guy later will say the same thing and they’re like:
‘Oh that’s a great idea. That’s fantastic. You know you’re really smart for coming up with that.’
And she’s just like, ‘Hey, I said that fifteen minutes ago.’
It’s like nobody said anything. . . . they’re like:
‘Oh you’re just — now you’re just being . . . you’re trying to claim his idea.’
It’s like ‘You people didn’t listen to me.’
It really is sometimes that blatant where it’s that kind of level of ignoring her input . . . A lot of it comes from the company culture itself when the companies are run mostly by men.”
Sexism in the workplace exists in many more forms than this. Even the way women are criticized at work amongst their coworkers is different from the way men are criticized. Ways that women are talked down upon do not even apply to their work, but how they look or how assertive they are
Kate Edwards explains, “The industry are criticizing them in a way — but not criticizing them for what they’re saying, or what they’re thinking. It’s criticizing them for how they look . . . or their attitudes, like ‘That woman’s a bitch because she’s always angry’ . . . Of course, if a man is like that then the man is assertive, he’s bold. Whereas if a woman is like that then she’s a bitch and she’s aggressive.”
This is not the first time I have heard about women being seen as “bitchy” in the workplace. People would never describe a man as being a “bitch” for establishing leadership, but women are often looked down upon for doing the same. Just the fact of their gender determines how they are supposed to be leaders. The Harvard Business Review said that “female leaders, much more than their male counterparts, face the need to be warm and nice (what society traditionally expects from women), as well as competent or tough (what society traditionally expects from men and leaders).”[2] This expectation just isn’t something that is reflected for both men and women, furthering the need to have an inclusive mind beyond design, but also in workplace culture.
Inclusive design in this case is applicable to the creation of community norms. The millions of sexist stories against women in the workplace confirms the exclusive traits underlying our communities and speaks to the importance of changing them. We are going to change this by being more inclusive in designing a community that welcomes differences and experiences based on what people have done, as opposed to what they look like.
Women — in tech, in business, in leadership positions, everywhere — face discrimination and exclusivity at many levels. Women are the ones forging ahead to make the mountain of gender equality taller and taller, to support the women who come next. As a woman in STEM, I hope to show others that we have power and can make an impact through our words and actions. This growth for gender equality isn’t linear with the complexities of diversity and religion and personal qualities, but continued advocation and recognition to cultivate inclusion is what is going to allow us to move towards an inclusively designed community.
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In this article series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, Our Exclusive Society: Pathways Toward Inclusion by Design. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you enjoyed it and want to connect you can reach me via email at rhrodney97@gmail.com or connect with me on Twitter @RachelHRodney1. Also, you can also find my book on Amazon — here is the link to buy it.
Sources
[1] Charles M. Blow, “Checking My Male Privilege,” New York Times, October 29, 2017.
[2] Wei Zheng et al., “How Women Manage the Gendered Norms of Leadership,” Harvard Business Review, November 28, 2018.
