Girl Talk
I was having a fabulous, old-fashioned debate with three of my favorite people in the world. All three are male, as it happens. We were talking about a faint whiff of gender bias at our mutual workplace. (It's not a huge deal, mind you. I really do mean "faint whiff," as opposed to "the foul stench of oppression." In the immortal words of the guy who refers to me as his slightly retarded younger sister, "Sure, there may be bias around the office, but there are worse issues. It's like saying, boy, I have this headache OW OW THE BONE IS STICKING OUT OF MY ELBOW.")(Of course, I responded by saying that if I didn't have such a headache, maybe I could help splint someone's arm.)(I have to get the last word, even with myself.)(Must be a chick thing.)
The supreme irony of any conversation about gender bias is that the guys willing to listen are not usually the ones with the problem, and/or the power to solve it. My boss? Hired me, didn't he? The only manager in my fabulous lunch foursome? Four out of his five most senior staffers are female. The only other fellow to whom I mentioned the topic outside the lunch brigade and my boss, one of the few with the power to change things... turned white and went on the defensive faster than a cobra faced with a mongoose. A WEEPING, PREMENSTRUAL MONGOOSE, who might AT ANY SECOND become PREGNANT and QUIT HER JOB. Or something.
But gender bias at a nice place to work is almost worse than a place where the men make the women fetch coffee and slap asses. You can sue ass-slappers. You can mount nasty whispering campaigns against coffee cocks. You can puff up with righteous indignation, and call press conferences, and raise holy hell until you can retire and write a book, when you work at someplace dreadful.
I work somewhere NICE, where I'm treated with respect. I've never heard a "time of the month" joke when I'm angry, I don't take notes unless I'm closest to the whiteboard, and we all fetch our own coffee. If someone slapped my ass, they'd pull back a bloody stump, and I'd get a damned medal.
And yet...
At the very bottom levels of the company, when the boys and girls start out exactly evenly, it always seems like the boys wind up with the chance to run a small team, or manage a small project. Then, when it's promotion time, well, the boy's got that tiny edge. When they come "upstairs," where the opportunities are greater, the fellow has the edge. Maybe the fellow came upstairs sooner, because he had just a touch more experience. When they're both put in a spot just out of their comfort zones, and they both complain, the woman might get a pass, maybe a show of mercy. But the male is prodded without mercy to take a shot, make the effort, try harder. Grow.
In ten years, the female, who was once that male's exact equal, will NOT be equal. She will not be qualified for senior management. She will not have the experience you need to run a big team or a big project. She won't have the skills, the resources, or the connections. And if she got the job anyway, to fill some silly quota or in response to some hell raiser like me, it would be wrong. A genuinely more deserving male candidate who lost that job might walk away with a sour taste in his mouth, back to his middle management desk. And that might be the day he has to pick between a boy and a girl, exact equals in every way, to take on a little extra project and have a chance to shine.
We wouldn't want that, now, would we.
The supreme irony of any conversation about gender bias is that the guys willing to listen are not usually the ones with the problem, and/or the power to solve it. My boss? Hired me, didn't he? The only manager in my fabulous lunch foursome? Four out of his five most senior staffers are female. The only other fellow to whom I mentioned the topic outside the lunch brigade and my boss, one of the few with the power to change things... turned white and went on the defensive faster than a cobra faced with a mongoose. A WEEPING, PREMENSTRUAL MONGOOSE, who might AT ANY SECOND become PREGNANT and QUIT HER JOB. Or something.
But gender bias at a nice place to work is almost worse than a place where the men make the women fetch coffee and slap asses. You can sue ass-slappers. You can mount nasty whispering campaigns against coffee cocks. You can puff up with righteous indignation, and call press conferences, and raise holy hell until you can retire and write a book, when you work at someplace dreadful.
I work somewhere NICE, where I'm treated with respect. I've never heard a "time of the month" joke when I'm angry, I don't take notes unless I'm closest to the whiteboard, and we all fetch our own coffee. If someone slapped my ass, they'd pull back a bloody stump, and I'd get a damned medal.
And yet...
At the very bottom levels of the company, when the boys and girls start out exactly evenly, it always seems like the boys wind up with the chance to run a small team, or manage a small project. Then, when it's promotion time, well, the boy's got that tiny edge. When they come "upstairs," where the opportunities are greater, the fellow has the edge. Maybe the fellow came upstairs sooner, because he had just a touch more experience. When they're both put in a spot just out of their comfort zones, and they both complain, the woman might get a pass, maybe a show of mercy. But the male is prodded without mercy to take a shot, make the effort, try harder. Grow.
In ten years, the female, who was once that male's exact equal, will NOT be equal. She will not be qualified for senior management. She will not have the experience you need to run a big team or a big project. She won't have the skills, the resources, or the connections. And if she got the job anyway, to fill some silly quota or in response to some hell raiser like me, it would be wrong. A genuinely more deserving male candidate who lost that job might walk away with a sour taste in his mouth, back to his middle management desk. And that might be the day he has to pick between a boy and a girl, exact equals in every way, to take on a little extra project and have a chance to shine.
We wouldn't want that, now, would we.
posted by Sanya at 11:19 PM
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