Femininity and the Workplace

M. Leblanc of Bitch Ph. D has an interesting piece up about "Acting like a Man" with respect to the workplace. In it, she argues that women need to promote themselves more, to be more self-interested in order to succeed. I have to (mildly) disagree.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm all in favor of strong women, aggressive women, independent women - and any other sort of women; that's the point.

Women - and men, for that matter - should be free to have whatever personality is natural to them, to behave in whatever way they wish (within reason, of course). And people can of course react to that however they want to as well, including not hiring them for being less confident.

But consider this: do one's "self-promotion, confidence, and even occasional arrogance" really have a great deal to do with ability in most careers? I, for one, could do with far less of that kind of thing with the (largely male, admittedly) people I work with. A debilitating lack of confidence is a problem, of course, but most people don't have that issue.

For me, it's quite simple. I like being slightly self-depreciating. I like saying 'sorry' and using tag phrases. I like speaking softly in formal situations. I don't like to appear confident when I'm not, etc. It's just who I am.

It seems like the real trouble is with the employers who are unable to see past the mask of confidence to a persons ability, and who are so used to judging people by specific proscribed attitudes that they can't accept anything else. It's not that women are somehow 'naturally' more sensitive or non-aggressive - as in Ms. Zandt take on the subject (Which M. Leblanc rightly criticizes), but that women and men who choose to be less confident, less self-interested (dare I even say, kinder!) shouldn't be punished for it.

M. Leblanc:

These are natural, human ways of behavior that women are pressured, cajoled, and outright prevented from engaging in, from puberty on. Humans are an ambitious bunch, and we're self-interested and selfish. I don't think we need to jettison that aspect of human nature in order to live in a more just, free, and collaborative society, as Zandt suggests. What about ambition that seeks power and authority in order to bring about justice? That's the kind of ambition I have.

I respectfully submit that ambition, self-interest, and selfishness aren't 'natural human behavior' any more than self-sacrifice, or a desire to live simply is. Surely there's room enough for all kinds!

Don't get me wrong - any woman who is ambitious (especially for justice!) is to be greatly admired. But it often seems as if the presence of strong women is used an excuse for society to continue to discriminate against femininity.

So I suppose I'm not really disagreeing here - Shirky's original article was just so much tripe. I'd just like the feminist response to that sort of thing to be more balanced.

What do you think? Is there something intrinsically good about ambition and self-interest?

Apathy

Take a look at this image:


See the blue line? That represents the number of people who visit cnn.com. The red line? It represents the most popular blog (The Huffington Post). The cyan line? Feministing, the most popular (so far as I can tell) feminist website.

Yeah.

Think about this for a minute. An order of magnitude more people visit the boring, business-as-usual site (represented by CNN) than the mainstream liberal (in the most general sense) site (represented by Huffington). And an order of magnitude more visit Huffington than the real social change site (represented by Feministing). And Feministing is constantly under fire from other feminists for being too status quo and privileged!

I'm not complaining. I'm not trying to claim that feminism is somehow irrelevant. I'm not even unhappy about the small numbers - in fact, the deviant part of me would probably want to do something else if everybody was doing it! But I am curious, even frightened: What on earth are all those people, the CNN readers so to speak, even doing?

Lest you think I'm assuming that these (admittedly inaccurate) Internet statistics are representative of the whole world, let me assure you that I did attempt to research other statistics as well. They didn't make much sense - supposedly, some 20% of women consider themselves feminists. It depends on who you ask, too: One study showed that 60% of women and men were favorable to the 'women's movement', whatever that may mean. But I'm not sure I buy it. There are 1.5 BILLION internet users. Somebody is visiting CNN (and Facebook, etc.). Are 20% of those people really working in any way for social change?

Have you ever noticed when an article about feminism (or anti-racism, or gay rights, or any other social movement) gets published in some major news outlet? Most people respond with indifference. A few identify, but more respond with outright hostility. You'd think that would provide the motivation for that 20-60% to act, but it doesn't.

People are simply... apathetic.

I attend a university with some 20,000 other students. There's no feminist organization - it died from lack of interest. There's a GLBT organization - which managed to score a grand total of 10 protesters at a recent marriage equality event. A student wanted to start a women's center recently - got published in the student newspaper and everything. On further investigation though, it turned out she really wanted the university administration to start a women's center - the students were only needed for lobbying, and she didn't have a plan to actually do anything.

Do nothing, and hope someone else does it for you. That's the way of the world, it seems. It seems that every time I turn around, someone's insisting that people are busier than ever. That we rush around, and don't take the time to appreciate life, etc. But for all that supposed rushing, there's very little being done. People, eat, sleep, watch TV (assuming they live in a privileged country), have sex, and die. They're miserable, but they don't care.

Back to the Internet for a second - how is it that millions upon millions can read the news, visit some random entertainment site, and never even consider that they might be able to do something worthwhile, to change the world in some little way? And the Internet users represent the most privileged fifth, the people most responsible for oppression. It's not that they actively mean to oppress, of course - they're merely apathetic in a patriarchal society.

Feminists like to make a lot of noise about some small specific issue. "If only that violence could be stopped, that inequality rectified, we'll have accomplished something", we say. And that is true, without a doubt. We'll have accomplished something, done some good. But is it enough?

Sometimes I wonder: Can we effect real change at all, without somehow convincing the apathetic people? Won't the stories simply repeat themselves? Even if people only noticed that there was something wrong, I believe it could make all the difference.

Just something to think about.

Male Authenticy

(A surprise visit to relatives ate up all of my writing time this weekend, so instead of anything remotely original, this post turned into an impassioned rant. My apologies.)

I'm really pissed at this thread. Specifically, at the person in the thread who goes by the name of 'Chinese Gorden'. Yes, I am aware that complaining about Internet trolls is a pointless exercise, but this person was unusually interesting/horrible.

To spare you the trouble of reading the thread for yourself, somebody made an announcement for a show by a all-female cover band (DandeLion, which is fairly good, to judge by their myspace). The Troll trolled in with an offhand remark that women just couldn't really play rock music. Needless to say, other (more sensible) people tried to jump in and refute him, they did a poor job (since he's a professional troll), and he ended up getting the last stupid word. Predictable, I know. But here's the interesting quote:

Rock-and-roll almost has to be 'male' to be authentic.It has to be ugly and raw and sexual and in-your-face and unpleasant and powerful. It has to imply rebellion. It's about standing up on your hind legs in your life and in your music.

Great rock and roll is not passive, feminine, playing-by-the-rules, having babies, having a hobby, being someone's bitch, staying neat and clean, avoiding a fight, wearing skirts and makeup, playing-it-safe....

Leaving aside that this is one of the silliest definitions of 'rock and roll' ever, notice the first sentence: "Rock-and-roll almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."

How many other subjects could that sentence have been about, and still be seen as true by many, many people?

"Science almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Professional sports almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Business management almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Building things almost has to be 'male' to be authentic.".
In general:
"Earning a living almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
How about:
"Technical writing almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Journalism almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
Even:
"Reasoning and logic almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
and, for that matter
"Sex almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."

It almost seems, that for any thing that actually matters, "[noun] almost has to be 'male' to be authentic." In other words, male=good, female=bad. And women need to become more male in order to matter. Even very well-meaning individuals sometimes fall victim to this attitude. Take this otherwise excellent article:

So what flaws can female characters have? Uh, I don’t know. How about the same flaws a male character would have?

Now, I'm not sure that the author really meant it, but that almost sounds like "Male characters are just fine - now let's make female characters just like them!"

Perhaps I'm just in a screw-the-gender-binary sort of mood, but I believe that everybody tries to apply this concept to real life, too. Men want women to be like them, but not too much, of course. Feminists want women to be almost just like men, to accomplish the same things, etc. Unless, of course, they want to be the same 'tough slut' types that men like - and that's okay, too. I'm certainly guilty of this myself - I'm a femmeish lesbian - guess what kind of women I'm attracted to!

Why can't we admire feminine individuals for themselves, both women and men? Why are certain concepts, power or intelligence or rebellion or creativity or even simple non-object value almost always associated with being, at least, somewhat masculine.

It's something we all need to work on.

On the other hand...

A mathematical solution to the door holding problem

It seems strange that such a simple custom as holding a door open for someone should cause as much trouble and confusion as it does. It started out as a highly gendered, benevolent sexist activity (men holding doors for women). Later, feminists began to reject the door holding custom along with many other benevolently sexist actions, leading many to refuse to allow a man to hold a door for them at all. More recently, door holding seems to be a relatively gender neutral activity, with women and men holding doors for each other, irrespective of gender. (Except in a dating context...)

So - common courtesy, or sexist holdover? To hold a door, or not to? I know almost nothing about etiquette, but the scientist part of me has come up with a rather different solution...

Calculations

It seems to me, that the entire purpose of social courtesy is to work for the common good - to improve society a bit at your own expense, with the idea that the favor will be returned. So, correct door holding behavior must satisfy these criteria:

1. It must contribute to the overall good of society - in this instance, it must decrease the collective walking time.


2. It must not be biased or unfair toward any group.

Thus, that surprisingly large minority of men who still insist on holding doors for women immediately fail the second criteria - they can be dismissed offhand.

Some quick numbers: The distance in question is defined as the distance from the swing of the door, plus an equal area on the other side. It took me, walking at an average speed, around 2 seconds to traverse that difference on a typical door. It took twice as long (4 seconds) if I had to open the door toward me. It took almost no time longer if I had to open the door away from me - several trials averaged out to about .25 seconds.


Now, there are two different ways of holding a door:

• Simply holding it after you, so that the other person does not have to open it, and


• Holding the door while letting the other person pass through in front of you.

The latter option we can dismiss immediately. Even in the ideal case (the other person is exactly two seconds behind you), it takes 2 seconds to open the door, 2 seconds for the follower to pass through, and 2 seconds for you to pass through. 2+2+2=6. In the worst case, the other person might have to wait up to two seconds for you to get the door open and get out of their way, for a total of eight seconds. Of course, holding the door for someone farther away might take even more time. Thus, even those super-polite types who hold doors for everyone, are still not really helping society as a whole!

The former option, at best, only takes the same four seconds that one person would take. How long to hold the door open behind you? Maximum 2 seconds. Your total time comes to 4+2=6 seconds, and the other persons time is 2 seconds, bringing the total time to eight - the same time as two separate operations would take, with only half the effort.

Holding a door opening away from you is almost pointless - you could only hold it for 1/4 of a second!

Conclusions

The maximum benefit to walking time will come from holding a door open behind you for approximately two seconds. Just don't open a door, count "one, two", and let it shut in someone's face - people might not like that! Certainly, don't hold the door and let someone walk through unless they are disabled or carrying something - there is no overall benefit otherwise.

Following these guidelines, you can still be polite and help people without feeling like your actions are derived from sexist tradition.

(If you have actually managed to read this far, congratulations - you are almost as weird as I am! I do have an excuse - CS class was really, really boring, and I couldn't exactly leave, so I wrote this instead! Crossposted on Constant Thoughts)