6 tips for surviving a sexist workplace
How to stand up, speak up, boss up and more
When the daily microaggressions, Mad Men-style harassment, offhand sexist remarks and constant male favoritism had driven them crazy, Jess Bennett and her female friends formed a support group — they called it “The Feminist Fight Club.” They met to talk about the systematic sexism plaguing their workplaces, the strategies and tactics to fix it and the personal coping mechanisms they needed to survive it.
Now, Bennett has written about that time and those strategies, but she isn’t calling her latest book a memoir — she’s calling “Feminist Fight Club” a “manual.” More specifically, “an office survival manual for a sexist workplace.” She modeled the title and the structure off the club she and other female coworkers formed at the start of her career, when she was fighting harassment from the bottom rung of the corporate ladder.
Bennett says she wishes the younger version of herself had had a manual like “Feminist Fight Club,” to be deployed in workplace battle. She joined our Pay Up community to share some advice on those everyday workplace battles, talking about how to detect — and fight! — the sexism women still face in offices throughout the country.
Bennett’s responses below have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
On taking the first step
I think one of the biggest challenges is subtle, internalized sexism — not the kind with a name or even a legal definition, not a guy slapping your ass or being told by a boss that you are a woman so you can’t do X, but the more subtle things like: being talked over when you speak; having your ideas being attributed to somebody else; being seen as bitchy or shrill or “pushy” when you “ask for too much.”
Other names for this kind of sexism: everyday sexism, micro-sexism, subtle sexism… (add your own!). To help ourselves: I try to think about this on three levels: 1) Systemic, 2) Individual, 3) Collective.
1 = we have to change the system. better parental leave policies; programs in place to make *sure* there is salary equity, etc.
2 = We have to be able to fight for ourselves, because I’m tired of waiting around for somebody else to solve the problem. these are the office “hacks” I try to provide in the book — things like, find a wing-woman who can be your “womanterrupter,” and interrupt the person interrupting you so you can get an effing word in.
3 = Find a girl posse to support you! We have to support each other if we are going to win this battle. Rule #3 of the feminist fight club: view other women as your allies not your enemies.
On finding male allies
Two ways: appeal to their senses and goodness (lol). That may work, but also: hit them with data. At the most basic level, companies with more women are more successful — statistically. They are more profitable, more collaborative and more inclusive. Women are actually more effective leaders: less likely to take unnecessary risks, great at multitasking, and have higher emotional intelligence. And if you want a real hard number: true gender equality, according to a study by McKinsey, would increase the US GDP by 26 percent.
I also find appealing to them as “feminists” can be helpful … [maybe] he just doesn’t realize he needs to take extra steps to account for his internalized bias, or privilege — and that those steps can actually be really easy!
On forcing company leaders to acknowledge and fix a problem
I hate the word “pipeline” — like what does that even mean? — but you hear every company talking about it. So I hear you: it’s “hip” now to talk about gender equality, and companies do it all the time, but you have to walk the walk, too.
GE just announced that they would not do business with companies that did not have staffs that were equally representative of the population — stuff like that is real.
On fighting your own bias
That’s the thing — we’re all a little bit sexist, even women. The nicer way to say it is we all have deeply rooted unconscious biases — key word unconscious — meaning, we may not be assholes, we may in fact be feminists, we may in fact want gender equality, and yet when we hear — say — Hillary Clinton’s voice we find it to be “shrill,” or we see a woman in a room and we immediately assume she’s in an assistant role not the boss.
Facebook has an interesting training for unconscious bias. I’m not a researcher, so it may be true that some of these trainings are not the most effective — but I find simply knowing what bias is and that we all have it is incredibly helpful toward combatting it. At least for those who want to combat it. Like, check yourself.
On gaslighting
I find that having other women on my side that I can use as a compass — i.e. “I’m not crazy, right? You agree?” — is incredibly helpful, so that I don’t lose my nerve and stand down. For me personally, I doubt myself really easily, so I need to know other people have my back so that i can stay strong and not back down.
Sometimes I turn the language back on them: “No, I think you’re misreading the situation.”
On showing emotion
Research shows that when women emote almost anything they are viewed as “emotional” or “hormonal.” But when men are angry they are viewed as “passionate.”
A quick note on anger: one way for this to play out would be, for example, person is saying to you: “I think you’re misreading the situation” or “I don’t know why you’re getting so upset.” A hack for that: making it about your passion for the job. So instead of saying “I’m upset that you blah blah blah,” make it about the work and the bottom line: “I’m upset because xxx behavior is undermining our [progress/sales/whatever your business goal is].”
All of this stuff is incredibly tricky. We should not have to deal with any of this, let’s be clear. But if we do, sometimes I literally turn it into a game. “How can I follow exactly what the research tells me to do — about, say, making something I’m angry about about the work not my emotions — and see how it plays out?” or: using the language that the person is using on me that in find condescending to respond.
We shouldn’t have to do any of this. But some of it, I find effective.
On handling all this — without giving up
Having a fight club! A group of badass ladies I can complain to, who will make jokes, and at the end of the day we can get it out, laugh about it, but also come up with strategies for dealing with it.
Also: anger. lol. Anger goes a long way.
Pay Up is a private, Slack-based community dedicated to fostering conversations about the gender wage gap. It was formerly managed by the Washington Post.
