Hello again.
For our first article in June, here is a wonderfully thought provoking piece from my colleague, published author and virtual friend Beverly Barna, based in Tampa, Florida. In her article, Bev jumps into a time machine and goes back to 1998 to remember a time when… and considers the extent to which things for women in the workplace and the attitudes encountered have now changed. Or have they?
According to a recent news story and an interview, Sir Stuart Rose, Chair of retailer Marks & Spencer, believes that there are now “…really no glass ceilings, despite the fact that some of you moan about it all the time.” The Observer newspaper’s article referenced here refutes this statement with some useful reminders of numbers (a gender pay gap of 17% in 2008, anyone?) and the reality for many women, courtesy of the Fawcett Society.
Sir Stuart’s stance put me in mind of the wise words on bias issued at our book launch event last month, when Binna Kandola suggested that, “if you’re comfortable in your environment, you’re unlikely to question if where you are is a meritocracy.”
Here is Bev’s article, which reminds us that some things are both universal and untouched by the hand of time.
“A lot can change in a decade. Eleven years ago, I was two years away from having my daughter, four years away from publishing my first book, and two moves away from my job with PwC in Tampa’s Knowledge Services Organization (KSO). September 11 was just a gleam in Osama bin Laden’s eye. GM topped the Fortune 500 list. And folks were still frantic about a certain White House intern and a besotted blue dress.
I had been out of Corporate America for six years by then, having left a top financial services company and the sooty streets of urban New Jersey for the warmth and havoc of post-Hurricane Andrew South Florida. I took classes, wrote articles, ran a marketing department for a large Palm Beach non-profit, basked in Florida’s special flakiness, felt in many ways, liberated.
I was able to look back on my six years in the corporate arena with fresh understanding and clarity. I started writing a weekly humor column for American Cities’ South Florida Business Journal : 700- to-1,000 words summing up a corporate quirk or exorcizing some lingering political poltergeist.
My topics, my way. It was, as they say these days: Sweet!
Last week, I was doing something that would not have been a verb back in 1998. I was Googling around the web, in search of knowledge and inspiration. And I came upon a particular article that was one of my favorites from my “Business Journal” days: a rumination on the differences in the way men and women are viewed in the workplace and how the rules vary by gender.
I like it because it’s a spot-on observation of a phenomenon that is rarely discussed. I love it because it was a collaboration with a dear friend. Here was the part she inspired from the Friday, March 13, 1998 piece, ”Men could get hosed by an incredible set of dynamics," South Florida Business Journal, with an assist from my pal, then a Human Resources vice president in Washington, DC:
So I go into this meeting today, she reported, and there are three guys in there, and me. We're all basically at the same level in the management scheme. But the difference is, I have to be on my best behavior at all times, while they're sitting around like it's Super Bowl Sunday.
This one has got his feet up on the credenza, the other one's scratching himself, and the third one has his arms flung over his head like a baboon and he has these huge sweat stains under his arm pits. All I could think was,” imagine if I did any one of those things during a meeting, I would be out of there so fast.”
The other night, I asked my perfectly poised friend if she had a fresh example for our dear readers. We will call him the Marlboro Manager. He comes to his executive office in dress shirt, dress pants. And high-heeled cowboy boots. But it’s not the boots alone that earn him mention here. It’s his body language: knees as far apart as Obama and Cheney. And an overall attitude that blares: You are all just squatters in this world that is really all mine, all about me.
Now. Imagine a woman sporting that gear and that ‘tude. Picture a middle-aged woman in a decent yet unremarkable blouse and slacks. Wearing Texas-large high-heeled boots with leather as thick as a Deep South (US) accent. See her straddling a conference room chair as if it were a palomino. There is: No way she would be able to carry on in that mode and retain her authority (such as it might be) and her peace of mind (such as that might be, especially these days).
She would be talked about, spoken to, spoken down to, and generally made a pariah until she found some way to compromise between who she is and how she is perceived. And she most likely would have to scurry about, trying to repair the perceptual damage. Or decide to go elsewhere, perhaps working somewhere behind a counter, where the offending footwear and riding posture remained out of sight. She would be, as Barbara Bush famously said, known as that word that "rhymes with ‘rich’.”
As it happens, I once wore to the office at a former job a Carole Little jacket. It was classically cut, perfectly fitted, black, with small silver and turquoise studs dotting the lapels and a little fringe across the collarbone. Not for the Boardroom. But not for the dude ranch, either. A colleague passed my desk. And under his breath, but not my radar, he breathed, in a derisive, dismissive tone one would think reserved for someone who had pilfered his sheep: “Cowgirl”. I could hear his eyes roll.
My friend and I, and no doubt others in our story, have moved on.
Yes. Lots can change in eleven years. But not everything.
As I was writing this, my 8-year-old daughter was watching one of her favorite TV shows; it features two pre-teen girls, host and co-host of a web-based comedy show for kids. In tonight's episode, a commercial network was looking to add them to its line up. But they wanted to oust the feisty sidekick. Seems they deemed her too aggressive. (I have found her to be pretty amusing, as these things go.) The girls stuck together and declined the deal, the better to sustain their relationship. Would that such would happen more often. But that’s another topic for another day.
Oh, the hu-woman-ity.”
Thank you, Bev. And remember that, if you too have a story to share with the Gender Agenda, I have a copy of “The Value of Difference – Eliminating Bias in Organisations”, signed by Binna Kandola and dedicated to “A Gender Agenda blog reader!” to give away. Normal blog rules apply: please write me an article, of c. 500-600 words, describing how bias has impacted your life or career in some way, and what actions you took to overcome it. Feel free to change names and identifying details in order to respect your privacy, but do share your story, which we will publish in a future edition of the Gender Agenda. I look forward to receiving your entries – the closing date for receipt of them is later this month, on Friday 19th June. Thank you.
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