Support your Sisters

Have you as a woman ever caught yourself acting in a gender-biased way? You may answer this question with "no", but think again. We are often unconscious of our gender-biased behavior, especially in a business setting when we are doing our best to advance as quickly as possible. 

An exemplary situation for gender bias

Here is a typical situation you may have at work: you are working in a team project with your close colleagues Tom, Mike, and Sarah. One of you is supposed to be selected to be team project leader. Tom is a laid-back guy who gets the job done, but nothing more or less. Mike is an efficient and reliable employee who goes the extra mile for important projects. He can be persuasive and has proven before that he has leadership potential. Sarah is very ambitious, accurate and reliable. In fact, she is so ambitious that sometimes coworkers remarked she was being kind of pushy and annoying. When she was leading teams in the past, team members said she was behaving in a bossy way.

Who would you prefer to lead your project team?

If you answered with "Mike", then you were probably subject to gender bias. It may have seemed to you that, although Sarah and Mike have similar qualifications, she may be less suitable for the job and corresponding responsibilities. You may not like her as much, because you heard she might be a bit bossy or brusque. Mike is more suitable for the job… Right?

No. As we wrote in our last post, don’t let yourself be fooled by double standards. Instead, support your female colleagues and celebrate them for their qualities and capabilities.

Work as a coalition, not as competition 

Stanford Professor Deborah Gruenfeld puts it simply: “We need to look out for one another, work together, and act more like a coalition. As individuals, we have relatively low levels of power. Working together, we are fifty percent of the population and therefore have real power.”

Sadly, it is mostly women who criticize other women at the top. For example, when Marissa Mayer announced that her maternity leave would only be a few weeks long, women spoke out, denouncing her decision. Instead, why didn’t they cheer her on as a talented young business leader and mother who made the situation work out for herself? Wasn’t this a personal decision of Marissa Mayer?

As women, we need to look out for our female peers. We need to support our female colleagues and cheer them on, and grant them the success that they have earned instead of criticizing them where we wouldn’t criticize our male colleagues. Or would you criticize your boss for taking that promotion when his wife was days away from delivering their first child?

I love Taylor Swift’s quote, which I probe women to never forget: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

Annamarie

Fighting Double Standards

Last December, a short youtube ad originally made for the Philippines went viral. It was created by Pantene Philippines. That could make you wonder for what reason the ad of a hair care company went viral!

The first time I saw the ad, I was pretty surprised to find out it was by Pantene. But have a look yourselves!

The idea for the ad is based on the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report where the Philippines rank fifth concerning gender equality. However, a survey in the country showed a different picture when women and men were asked about their opinion of both genders in the working place: gender bias and double standards are still prevalent.

Double standards at an early age

In my opinion, we have to work on the issue of double standards starting at an early age. As small children, girls are encouraged to play with their dolls and care for them whereas boys are given tools and a children’s workbench. Trying out each other’s toys is fine, but we still want our children to play the right role according to their gender. At this early age, we already start to implant double standards into the next generation. By judging children in different ways based on their gender when they are actually doing the exact same things, we show them that there actually is a difference between them.

The same issue some years later

About 15 to 20 years later, early in our careers, double standards play an important role again. The Pantene ad shows a woman who is seen as bossy whereas her male counterpart is “a boss”. It is hard to see what causes a difference in the perception of women and men. Usually, we expect women to be more caring and reserved than men. Seeing a woman who deviates from our expectancies is often seen as abnormal and negative. Men are usually the more direct and leading forces. It is not seen as natural when a man stays at home and cares for his children. It deviates from our expectancies, too. But where exactly is the difference? Both genders do something they have not been expected to do for centuries. They deviate from their usual role.

Why can’t we cheer both women and men on for doing what they feel like doing and not apply double standards? We should not only support women to realize their dreams, we should also support men if they want to stay at home and care for their family because applying double standards is wrong for both genders!

Carolin

Why good intentions just aren't enough

Ever since Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In, the topic of women in executive roles has been all over the media. By addressing the issue of a gender gap in leadership positions directly, she opened up a door for long overdue discussions and somehow managed to make the topic cool, hot and – most importantly – absolutely vital.

When bringing up the topic of women in the workplace, I have heard from a number of men that they are concerned, even afraid, that men will lack chances in the workplace “with all this pro-female training and coaching going on”.

Exactly this is the core problem. There is a wide range of formal mentoring, skills training and leadership development courses offered for women in the workplace. And companies deliberately communicate these efforts to the public. Hence the “fear” that men soon will be underrepresented in those sought-after corner offices.

In a study, the organization Catalyst found that despite formal measures, the gender gap in the corporate world is not improving. To illustrate their findings, Catalyst developed the 70/20/10 model, which shows that “leadership development occurs primarily on the job, not in the classroom”. Here is the key: “10% of an employee’s development happens in formal programs, with 20% coming trough networking, mentoring, coaching, and other influential relationships, and as much as 70% from on-the-job experiences – the ‘hot jobs’ that provide challenging opportunities to develop and practice leadership skills.”

It is not sufficient for women to work on just any project and thereby gain hands-on experience. What matters is that these projects are “hot jobs” which advance careers faster. These “hot jobs” can be characterized as:

• Highly visible projects
• With mission-critical roles
• Providing international experience.

Formal leadership programs must not be underestimated as they play a crucial role in the advancement of a career. However, only if paired with “hot jobs” will they help close the gender gap. And study findings showed that women are assigned to significantly fewer “hot jobs” than men. The good, formal, public intention of these programs just is not enough. As Catalyst puts it: "Formal development programs can promote advancement for women if they provide equal access to ‘hot jobs’."

This means that women need to actively seek out highly visible projects and be supported in doing so. Go beyond good intentions and show what you are capable of doing in practice, where everyone will see, notice, and remember you!

Annamarie

Book Review: Nice Girls don't get the corner office

I am a huge fan of reading, however since I started my studies I haven’t had a lot of time left for this hobby. So if I can combine the pleasure of reading with the chance to get helpful advice for my future career, I have to use the opportunity. Such an opportunity is the book Nice girls don’t get the corner office – 101 unconscious mistakes women make that sabotage their career  by Lois P. Frankel. The author is the president of Corporate Coaching International and has immense experience in Business Coaching. She realized that women often unconsciously make mistakes that have detrimental effects on their future career development and keep them from advancing. In her opinion, the root of evil is how women act “in certain stereotypical ways, such as being polite, soft-spoken, compliant, and relationship-oriented” because we have been taught to do so since early childhood. But whether you are about to start your career or you feel stuck in your current position, Ms. Frankel offers a lot of advice on how to change your behavior.

About the book

The book offers a self-assessment test that enables you to find out which of the eight categories Ms. Frankel talks about is causing the most problems for you. She also mentions the Unconscious Competence Model which pictures the challenge of moving from a state of low competence and low consciousness to a state of high competence and low consciousness. At first, you do not know what you are actually doing wrong and finally in the end, the right thing will come naturally to you. This model can be applied to many of the mistakes that are mentioned throughout the book.

Mistakes women make

For each of the eight categories of mistakes, you can find a short introduction followed by the most important mistakes women typically make. The categories range from How you play the game, How you act, How you think, How you brand and market yourself to How you sound, look and respond. What I like most about the book are the many real-life examples that are given and that really facilitate finding yourself in the described situations. The book is an easy read and you can fit in a couple of mistakes each night before you fall asleep! Not every mistake may be relevant for you, but there are definitely some things you do without even noticing their effect on your aspirations. Additionally, there are also a lot of men out there who have to deal with the same issues. 

The TOP 5

These are the five mistakes that are most important in my opinion:
Obediently Following Instructions – Simply following instructions without thinking about the big picture will not always be the most successful solution for a problem!

Striving for Perfection – Well, we all know this one. It is fine to check a finished project, but do you really need to waste time by going over it a second or third time?

Refusing High-Profile Assignments – If there is an opportunity to take over an important customer/ assignment/ position even though it might cost you a lot of time, you should usually take it over. These are the opportunities to show people what you are capable of!

Expressing Statements as Questions – One of the mistakes I am always working on. Instead of simply telling co-workers about an idea, you would camouflage the statement as a question to be on the safe side in case people don’t like the idea. But doing so also means that you lose ownership of your ideas!

Polling Before Making a Decision – Ms. Frankel talks about a negative implementation of participative decision making. While it is good to let several people participate in the decision making process, being unable to make quick decisions on your own when they are needed, is a negative characteristic.

So if you want to have an informative and helpful bedtime story, how about trying this book?

Carolin

The Whip Crackers

“Crack the whip, Annie’s making an announcement!”

This is one of the sentences often exclaimed by my male colleagues when I would raise my voice to make a statement in front of a student committee, which mostly consisted of males. Whenever I delegate, make a comment, or raise my voice, fellow male students get out their smartphone and crack the virtual whip application. It certainly cracks them up every time. This behavior gave me something to think about: why is the whip cracked whenever I speak up? The women I know wouldn’t start cracking an electronic whip when a guy starts speaking in front of a group of people. Is this because it simply seems more natural that a man takes the rhetoric lead?

In her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg comments on similar experiences: “We evaluate people based on stereotypes. Our stereotype of men holds that they are providers, decisive, and driven. Our stereotype of women holds that they are caregivers, sensitive and communal. Because we characterize men and women in opposition to each other, professional achievement and all the traits associated with it get placed in the male column.” This passage explains not only my experience, but also that of many other women very well: while it seemed perfectly natural and familiar for one of the men to lead the group discussion, my same behavior was perceived as bossy and dominant, because it did not suit the stereotype of a woman. My colleagues’ whip-action may also be due to society’s deeply rooted image of women as a sex symbol. A driven and perhaps dominant woman can be seen as dominant such as a domina. This in turn triggers the image of a whip-cracking domina… Do I have to elaborate any further?

Getting this kind of negative attention can be disheartening for many women. Especially when it took overcoming insecurities to speak up in front of a group of people. I encourage women and men to point out their colleagues’ behavior and support females who do pluck up the courage to speak up. This is the only response that will point out such negative reactions and help avoiding it in the future.

Annamarie

Accepting Your Potential

When Marissa Meyer was appointed CEO of Yahoo back in July 2012, the business world was stunned: a pregnant woman as the new head of a struggling internet company. Would any good become of this change in management? I was amazed at the news: it clearly showed that a woman can climb the corporate ladder and realize her family aspirations.

Beauty and success

Then, a couple of days ago, I read an interesting article covering -in general- the relation between the beauty of CEOs and the success of their companies. The author mentions several different researchers who wrote about similar topics in the last years: generally speaking, if people have a high level of beauty or are more beautiful than the average, the return of their company or their income is higher. Up to now, this is not a specific women-men issue, but what stirred my attention was the example given by the researchers for the CNBC article: Marissa Meyer! Why does it have to be exactly this woman to illustrate the relation between beauty and higher return of the company? Following the example, the research scientists say: "Of course, we don't mean that all the increase in stock price is from her appearance. We just find that there might be some positive correlation between the two". So, why pick exactly this blonde woman as an example? Could it be the fact that her performance has been stunning and now people do not want to believe solely in her abilities but search for different explanations? This might not have been the conscious reason for the researchers Halford and Hsu choosing Marissa Meyer as an example. However, the concept of looking for different explanations for success apart from one's own abilities is a phenomenon also often seen with female managers.

Be proud of yourself!

On the one hand, we tend to search the reason for our success in lucky circumstances or other external influences. On the other hand, we usually attribute the reason for failure to ourselves. We can definitely improve here: next time you give a great presentation, hand in an awesome paper or get that internship you really wanted: it was your personal achievement. Celebrate (just like Marissa Meyer did when she found out about being No.1 on Fortune's "40 under 40" list) and show what you are capable of!

Carolin

Feminism - share your passion

I have made my share of experiences as a feminist student. In Germany, being called a feminist is a clear insult, but I was raised to believe it was a compliment. I find women shouldn’t be afraid of “outing” themselves as feminists.

In many countries, especially in Germany, talking about topics such as gender equality and women’s empowerment (and heaven forbid in front of a group of strangers!) is deemed a social taboo and one is immediately labeled a man-hating feminist. Whenever I strike up the subject among friends, both male and female, I get a massive eye-rolling response.

By now, having read the first part of my article, many of you probably think I am an awkward feminist geek.  Women especially will think: “She’s a man-hater! I would never speak publicly (and certainly not during a date!) about women’s empowerment!” My response to that is: If you are deeply interested in a topic, why not share your enthusiasm with others? If a guy told you on a date that he is committed to sustainability and ecological preservation, and therefore spends his spare time raising awareness for endangered species or deforestation, you would most likely find this attractive. Why do women think talking about women’s empowerment will make a guy run for the hills? It is about time this conservative and out-of-date way of thinking stops. I myself have made many positive experiences when talking to strangers (and, yes, also on a date) about my passion for gender equality. No matter what your commitment, it is important to share this with others to foster your passion.

Annamarie