Is it still 1969? Just checking…

When I was in college, I took one of those personality tests to determine what careers I should consider if and when I decided to grow up. Two things I remember from the “results”: the recommended professions for me were journalist, lawyer, and social worker. (Should have listened…) And there was some sort of M-F sorting out, in which I came out high on M traits like analytical. When my results were explained to me, the person doing the explaining told me not to worry too much about coming out high on the M scale, because I also scored high on “nurturance” which was, of course, on the female side of the personality equation.

But this was fifty years ago, at the dawning of the feminist era, so what would you expect?

We were moving from a world in which “women’s work” was defined as teaching, social work, or nursing. I went to a Catholic women’s college (Emmanuel, Class of 1971), and I’m guessing that more than half of the women in my class became teachers or social workers. I know that when some of my classmates went for interviews in business, they were told ‘Why should I hire you? You’ll just work for a couple of years, get pregnant and quit?” But many women of my era kept pushing at the wall that existed between “approved” professionals and jobs traditionally held by men. Women I went to college with became journalists, doctors, lawyers, judges, business people, college professors, psychologists…My two closest friends from college became a) a librarian who specialized in library technology and held senior positions for major library systems; and b) a kick-ass buyer who headed up the off-the-rack designer buyers team for Neiman Marcus. Arguably, these positions somewhat fall under “women’s work”, but they weren’t on the menu when we were in school.

After graduation, I waitressed and traveled, waitressed and traveled, then fell (via Kelly Girl) into the world of business. I ended up in business school, MIT Sloan Class of 1981, where women were in a distinct minority. I can’t remember exactly, but top of head, I’m going to go with 20-25% of my class were women.

The business world I entered was not all that women friendly. I worked in tech, where women were again a distinct minority, and I learned early on that a woman’s voice is like a dog whistle: only certain ears are attuned to hearing it. So life as a women in the tech world – note that I wasn’t a techie, but worked on the tech periphery in product management and marketing – was not without its challenges.

It took me quite a while, but things got better when I came across a book, How Men Think: The Seven Essential Rules for Making It in a Man's World. This book – now nearly 25 years old – helped me understand how and why women’s ideas were so often dismissed (or, more likely, commandeered and put into action when men suggested them) and helped me negotiate the most significant raise of my career. (A biggie: the one that got me over six-figures.)

But I would’ve thought that by now – after a couple of generations of women in the business world and other areas that once were nearly exclusively the domain of men - things would have gotten better.

Then my cousin Ellen gave me a head’s up on an article she’d seen on some training that 30 female Ernst & Young executives participated in, in June 2018.

Among the bits of advice offered these execs during their Power-Presence-Purpose training:

When women speak, they shouldn’t be shrill. Clothing must flatter, but short skirts are a no-no. After all, “sexuality scrambles the mind.” Women should look healthy and fit, with a “good haircut” and “manicured nails.”… (Source: Huffington Post)

Women were advised not to “flaunt their bodies”. Admittedly, sexuality has been known to “scramble the mind”, but would a group of E&Y executives have to be told not to wear open shirts that showed their cleavage? Seriously folks…

Then there was this gem (from the program’s PowerPoint preso):

Women’s brains absorb information like pancakes soak up syrup so it’s hard for them to focus, the attendees were told. Men’s brains are more like waffles. They’re better able to focus because the information collects in each little waffle square.

I can honestly say that I have never, ever, ever once found during my career that women had a harder time focusing than men do. Perhaps this is because my pancake of a mind couldn’t focus on how men, with their waffle brains, were just so damned good at focusing.

While some participants had high praise for the program, others were less enchanted by it:

The training was billed to participants as advice on how to be successful at EY, according to Jane, a training attendee and former executive director at the firm who’s in her early 40s…

After she attended the event, Jane said a male EY partner told her, derisively, that it was a “male-bashing” program. With hindsight, Jane realized he had it wrong. “It was more of a woman-bashing event, ironically enough,” she said.

Some advice was along the lines of what I found so many years back in How Men Think.

Women don’t interrupt effectively like men. Women “wait their turn (that never comes) and raise their hands.”

The more things change…Sigh…

It’s not clear from the presentation if these “rules” are offered as legitimate expectations or false stereotypes. Jane said it was the former when she took the course. The presentation has a few “discussion questions” that ask women how these rules manifest in their organization and “how can you ‘manage’ yourself now that you’re aware of the ‘rules.’” But there’s little that suggests the “rules” can be broken ― only that women need to navigate through a world structured by these rules.

What I found the most stunning about the E&Y training was that, prior to the workshop, attendees were asked to rate how well they lined up with so-called masculine and feminine characteristics.

Because I’m having a problem inserting images in my blog, I’m going to spell those Masculine-Feminine Score Sheet traits out for you:

Masculine attributes were:

• Acts as a Leader
• Aggressive
• Ambitious
• Analytical
• Assertive
• Athletic
• Competitive
• Defends One’s Beliefs
• Dominant
• Forceful
• Has Leadership Abilities
• Independent
• Individualistic
• Makes Decisions Easily
• Masculinity
• Self-Reliant
• Self-Sufficient
• Strong Personality
• Willing to Take A Stand
• Willing to Take risks

As for us girly-girls, we’re:

• Affectionate
• Cheerful
• Childlike
• Does Not Use Harsh Language
• Eager to Soothe Hurt Feelings
• Femininity
• Flatterable
• Gentle
• Gullible
• Loves Children
• Loyal
• Sensitive to the Needs of Others
• Shy
• Soft-Spoken
• Sympathetic
• Tender
• Understanding
• Warm
• Yielding

You will note that pretty much all the Masculine characteristics (other than Masculinity itself) are ones that pretty much help you get ahead in the workplace. (Way to go, guys!) While so many of the Feminine characteristics make women sound weak and idiotic. Childlike? Flatterable? Gullible?

Sound more like an episode of I Love Lucy than something that will help you in the management ranks.

Seriously, these lists look like someone came up with them in 1919, not 2019.

Nothing wrong with being Affectionate, Gentle, Loves Children, Loyal, and Sympathetic. Those characteristics ware precisely why everyone pretty much adores Labrador Retrievers. But associating them exclusively with women. Women in the workplace no less…

Yikes. I say, yikes, yikes.

Jane said the message was that women will be penalized, by both men and women, if they don’t adhere to feminine characteristics or if they display more masculine traits. And that if you want to be successful, you have to keep this in mind.

The Power-Presence-Purpose seminar is run by one Marsha Clark, who “served as an executive at Electronic Data Systems, the Texas technology company founded by Ross Perot, for 21 years before striking out on her own as a consultant in 2000.”

Working as one of the few women in the C-suites of the Texas tech industry in the 1980s and 1990s would have been a sexist minefield. That experience may be why Clark’s advice still follows an older approach of telling women how to navigate within stereotypes rather than confronting them more directly.

I once had a colleague (male) who’d worked at EDT. He was once reprimanded for taking his coat jacket off while standing in the company’s broiling Texas courtyard while waiting for the all-clear from a fire drill. So I’m guessing that EDS may well have been an especially tough and rigid place for women.

But I worked in the Massachusetts “tech industry in the 1980s and 1990s” and while it was for sure a sexist minefield, I never once felt that any of the men I was working with – even the biggest a-holes – thought of women as “childlike” and “gullible.”

The full article is definitely worth a read, but here’s another gem:

Attendees were even told that women’s brains are 6% to 11% smaller than men’s, Jane said.

Well, women are smaller than men in general, so I’m guessing that, when it comes to the brain, size doesn’t matter.

The only reason to talk to women about their size of their brains is to make them feel inferior to men, said Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University. “It’s implying their brains don’t work as well,” he said, but in fact there is no link between size and function. “Brain size is irrelevant.”

Hah!

Which is not to say that there aren’t differences between men’s brains and women’s brains. I just don’t think these differences result in women being more Childlike and Gullible, while men get to be Assertive and Act Like Leaders.

Can women in the workforce still be subjected to this nonsense in 2019? Oh, those poor women at E&Y. Wait! That was me being Sympathetic. Here’s me being Willing to Take a Stand: I CALL BS ON THIS CROCK OF CORPORATE HOOEY!

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A tip of the Pink Slip fedora to my cousin Ellen for sending this one my way. Ellen is one of the smartest (and funniest) people I know. A few years ago, she retired from a long career as a teacher, and those eighth graders were fortunate to have her!