File under: inadvertent benefits to shoe-throwing.
Naomi had one hell of a shoe thrown at her the other day. Which sucks. Ow.
And while I don’t want to even slightly imply that being the object of shoe-throwing is a good thing (it’s not!), an astoundingly fascinating thing happened as a result of this particular shoe.
First of all, Naomi wrote about it. And — in doing so — she wrote about the gender thing. It’s the thing that nobody talks about.
The elephant in the room, if the room is the world of online biggification.
So I’m feeling two things.
Sad that my friend got hit by a shoe.
And relieved that she gave me an opening to write about the thing I have been consciously avoiding writing about (but really, really wanting to) for over a year.
You’ll have to take it in bits and pieces, because that’s how it is in my head. And assume that some — perhaps many — of these pieces are contradictory.
It’s a hard topic. A hard, finely nuanced topic. Both because it’s so strangely taboo, and because I have very mixed feelings about it.
So bear with me.
The conversation.
Conventional wisdom — in the circles I travel in — holds that there aren’t any gender issues. Especially when it comes to glass ceilings.
Not online. Not in the enlightened free-for-all World 2.0 that we hang out in.
And even if they do exist, you just don’t talk about it.
Partly because a lot of us agree with Naomi on this part:
“I don’t talk about women in business, because I don’t like to give the gender issue more airtime than it already gets. I think we’d have a whole lot fewer issues if we spent more time getting on with kicking ass.”
The awkward conversation.
Conversations about this stuff (when they happen, which is hardly ever) usually go like this.
Guy friend: Eh, I don’t see any glass ceilings.
Me: Right. That’s why they’re called glass ceilings. They’re invisible. At least, they are to everyone not getting bruised by banging their heads on them.
And the other conversations.
Of course, there are other circles. I could be going to women’s blogging conferences about women in blogging. We’d definitely be talking about this stuff there.
But I’m not.
Much like Naomi and our friends like Pam and Sonia and Colleen, I don’t want to be pushed into the women-in-business category. I want to be me, biggifying it up on terms that work for me.
So we hang out in the world where this stuff doesn’t get talked about. And frankly, sometimes that is easier than others.
But enough about the elephant. More about what Naomi said.
She said a few things that were so right on that I could hardly stand it. Yes, generalizations. Still very relevant.
One is that we have to stop marginalizing ourselves, hating on ourselves and shooting ourselves in the feet.
Another is that ohmygod we are constantly second-guessing whether or not we’re entitled to feel hurt and upset in any given situation. Right — it’s that sovereignty thing again.
Another is that this can lead us into making faulty decisions about what’s worth reacting to (and how to react to it).
And finally, in Naomi’s experience, male and female clients approach business in a completely different way. Women ask “is this even remotely possible?” and men ask “alright, how are we going to make this work?”
Well, that’s my experience too.
Not that men in business aren’t dealing with fear. Because they are.
I have enough male friends and clients to know that crippling, paralyzing fear does not in any way pass them by.
They suffer massive stuckification just as much and just as deeply as any women I’ve worked with.
And I’ll also note that the type of man who’s going to work with me is pretty comfortable sharing that kind of information, because otherwise he wouldn’t be hiring hippie-ass me and the accompanying duck.
But yeah, their attitude is still almost always different.
When clients explain what they’re working on, more often than not it goes like this:
Client (man): So frankly, I’m terrified. I’ve been in complete inaction for months. I need some concrete strategies to get through this and I think you’re the person who can help me. I’d like some reassurance first and then I want help coming up with a plan.
Client (woman): I don’t know. I was excited about my idea at first, but then my husband said that no one will ever buy it.* So I guess I want to know that I’m not crazy. I am, right?
That’s the difference.
*Aside to all the women whose husbands say stuff like that: Is he one of the Right People for your business? Because if he isn’t, he doesn’t get to decide whether or not people will be interested. Just saying.
What all this means for us.
I don’t know.
I don’t want to get tangled up in the “why” of gender differences, both because that would take twenty-zillion posts, and also because I don’t see the point in reinventing a wheel that people already can’t agree whether it’s square or round.
But guess what?
Marginalization. We can still talk about it — even when we don’t want to.
Even if Naomi is right that a lot of it is us doing it to ourselves and that we need to get the hell over it already.
It doesn’t mean that we have to be mad or stay mad. It doesn’t mean that we have to turn everything into a gender discussion.
But I want to be able to talk about this stuff without being shushed.
I want to be able to talk about it.
I want to be able to talk about why it is that even in places like the yoga world or in Shiva Nata where the vast majority of practitioners are women, the men rise to the top and we never talk about why that is.
About why it is that the women I know wait to get invited to speak on panels or to be approached by a publisher, while the men I know start panels and call people and make things happen.
I want to be able to ask Jonathan Fields (who is smart, sweet, thoughtful and a genuinely good guy), hey how come there aren’t any women in your awesome publishing guide?
Not so much why women aren’t used in examples of successful book marketing campaigns (because yeah, that could be us hiding again), but why is it not even an issue that we’re not there?
Like, why don’t we talk about how weird it is that women don’t show up in this context when so many of us are writing and blogging and biggifying-against-the-tides? I know this is not about any kind of intentional exclusion but still, why don’t we talk about it?
I totally don’t mean to pick on Jonathan — this sort of thing honestly exists all over the place, and his manifesto was the first example to come to mind. And I know I could ask him and I know he’d be cool. I’m positive he wouldn’t mind. But I haven’t yet.
Because I live in this world where we don’t talk about that stuff.
I could be a man, for all you know.
In fact, I pretty much have to be, if you look at my “quick rise to the top”. Don’t tell me you didn’t suspect anything.
Yeah, okay, if you’ve met me at one of my seminars or at a conference, you know that I do a fairly decent impression of a woman, but really, who’s to say? Online you can never know for sure who’s who.
But you know what? As far as I can tell, in terms of fame and fortune in the internet world, there’s not a whole lot to be gained by being a woman blogger (or pretending to be one), whereas being a man? Super useful.
Not for every single man, no. But I have seen men have an easier time of it, in a hundred different ways.
And even if that weren’t even slightly true, a lot of men would probably go ahead and biggify it up anyway. Because of that wonderful self-assured whatever-it-is that makes them think, “Sure I’ll try it — what could go wrong?”
Because they have sovereignty. Or think they do — which in some cases pretty much amounts to the very same thing.
Where am I going with this?
I don’t know. It’s too long and it’s too complicated and it’s too hard.
I guess what I want to say is this:
I am so glad Naomi brought this up. Her post is really good. You should read it. It’s extra-curse-ey and she’s hilarious and she also tells you why you should get our thing while it’s still cheap-as-hell.
And I agree that we treat ourselves like we’re stupid. Like we aren’t deserving of sovereignty.
Like being safe and provided for is something that we’re not even allowed to want.
We spend a lot more time hurting from thrown shoes and agonizing over those shoes and letting our reactions to thrown shoes dictate our decisions.
And if we — ALL OF US, not just the women among us — are going to start thinking big in a mindful way, we’re going to have to pay attention to these stucknesses when they show up. And we’re going to have to start learning how to ask for things.
Because that, for me at least, is where it all starts.
Comment zen for today …
Same as yesterday. We’re all working on our stuff. We’re doing the best we can. We try not to step on each other’s stuff. We’re practicing.
Follow
I’m with you, and Naomi and the rest, that I typically try to ignore the elephant in the room and work hard so it doesn’t make a difference.
What I’ve noticed is that the same is true online and offline.
At the same time Naomi was posting that yesterday, a friend of mine sent out a video of a conservative woman who literally listed out all of societies ills and then resoundingly blamed it all on the feminist movement. (Which did serve to tick me off just the least little bit.)
I’m not sure what the answer is to eradicating this. It seems we, as women, have tried different tactics over the decades and we’ve made big strides.
I also note tremendous differences in the ways my male clients approach situations and problems in their business or career versus female clients, and I think we’re pretty aware that the differences are there.
How to actually move that glass ceiling and get past it?
All my life, I’ve known it existed but tended to pretty much ignore it. But that hasn’t seemed to be as effective as it could be. But I also don’t want to sit around blogging communities talking about it all the time.
I’m not entirely sure where the balance between those two options is.
But I will certainly keep searching for it.
Thanks for a great post, Havi!
All the best!
deb
.-= Deb Owen´s last blog ..are you dorothy or the wicked witch? =-.
I’m always wary of ‘what women do’ and ‘what men do’ statements because I think much of the problem comes from lumping the everyone under those labels. I find it to be especially true when it comes to people defining women (ex: one lousy male driver is a jerk, one lousy female driver is yet another example of why women are lousy drivers)
My actions and approaches are obviously influenced by my upbringing and by how I have been taught (by society/school/personal interactions) to behave, but I may or may not think like the average woman on any given occasion.
I don’t like to buy into ‘sisterhood’ alliances for their own sake either, I like to make my connections where I find them – with people of either gender.
I’m not sure how to make the issues visible to the people who need to be able to see them to help effect change, and the whole thing makes me feel incredibly tired.
Great post, Havi. And timely for me too. I was just offered the SWEETEST full-time position for an organization called Women’s Economic Ventures – as Business Development Specialist in charge of education and training. In fact, the deal was so sweet that I am still having a problem believing it’s true. How did I create THAT for myself? I’m questioning my own sovereignty (as you say). So of course, I took the job because it is a SWEET job and I get to still keep my consulting practice and weekly podcast, and all the rest. AND I get to help (mostly women) entrepreneurs learn how to biggify themselves and their dreams. And YES women in business learn differently, act differently and all the rest. Our world needs us to. Business in a male world isn’t ALL bad, but it HAS kind of gone down the wrong track in many ways and the stuff that women can bring to the party is HUGE. We just need to learn how to see that. And we need help from our sisters and brothers who have figured it out (mostly) — like YOU.
.-= Tea Silvestre´s last blog ..We’ve Moved =-.
Oh, Havi, I love this.
About a year or so ago, I went to a little meeting for women launching their own businesses. There were about 15 women there, and most were pretty cool. Or so I thought initially.
It was the only meeting I ever went to because it seemed like one of the primary ways the women used to build themselves up about launching a business was to tear men down. The comments ran the gamut, but the general gist was “Men could NEVER do something like this.”
It bothered me a lot to hear that. I like men. There are many men that I admire and respect and that inspire me to work harder. But what bothered me the most was that these women felt the need to tear men down in order to build themselves up. In order to say, “Yes, we can do this!” they had to add in, “because men CAN’T.”
I don’t get it. And it makes me sad. Why do we do that? Why are we our own worst enemy? Is it a biological thing? Or is it a society thing?
When I first started interacting online, I didn’t want to identify myself as a women. Since my name is gender neutral it worked…kind of. Men knew I was a woman and women thought I was a man.
I even changed from traditionally “feminine” syntax (ex. women often refer to things relationally like “his chair” and “her table” while men prefer adjectives, “the chair” and “the table”) and still people knew.
I have noticed a more zealous push from guys than from women. I honestly wish I were like that.
.-= Hayden Tompkins´s last blog ..The Awesome Post of Awesome =-.
Is it okay for me to say something now?
Havi, this is magnificent.
That “unintentional exclusion” thing is pervasive and it is so easy to allow by default. That’s why I think men need to practice intentional inclusion. All you (we) have to do is think for a second: “Are there any women who should be asked to join this company/project/club/party/band/conversation/whatever?” Make it a habit. It’s easy and quite a lot of fun.
A lot of men haven’t figured out that the world is just so much cooler when everyone gets to do Their Thing in their own Biggified way. Your post comes at a great (resonant) time, as a few of my favorite women are right this minute doing amazing new things. It is quite honestly one of my most happymaking experiences.
More Sovereignty for everyone! Yay!
.-= Mark W. “Extra Crispy” Schumann´s last blog ..On Velocity, and Being the Chump =-.
Loving the continuation of this discussion. Has had me in deep thought since Naomi brought it up yesterday.
I also just wanted to point out that Jonathan did add some rockin ladies’ case studies to his guide. You can read about Pam and Tamar Weinberg in there.
.-= Naomi Niles´s last blog ..Web Designers – Don’t skip the wireframing phase. =-.
Even if Naomi is right that a lot of it is us doing it to ourselves and that we need to get the hell over it already.
I must admit that this makes my hackles rise. Saying to someone “you need to get over it already” is a classic marginalization technique. It others them, damages their sovereignty, makes their complaint (and therefore them) seem small and petty. Most women that I know have been being told “get over it” all their lives, whether it be from them pointing out glass ceilings or PMS or the fact that movie heroes are always male. Is it any wonder, then, that they’re less likely to stick their neck out and take a risk?
Yes, some women in the feminist sphere do seem to spend more time complaining than taking action. But it takes time to come to terms with the hugeness that is sexism in our culture once you finally become aware of it, time to internalize the fact that you’ve essentially been brainwashed all these years into thinking everything’s okay. (That’s where I am right now.)
We do need to start talking about it. And while we’re at it, we need to stop seeing each other into enemies.
.-= Heather Freeman´s last blog ..The Thousand Cuts =-.
I like the nuanced way you have discussed this. Also like the issue of sovereignty and want to do more with that.
I feel very close to the feminist issue because I am the product of a mother and father who took the equal rights fight to the streets. Actually, they took it to our country club, asking for equal time on the golf course (where business deals are made) and equal rights for women to be on the club’s board. This was such an uproar that it garnered the attention of Gloria Steinem and the national media. It was, if I finally get your terminology right Havi, biggification for me as a woman.
Heather Freeman put it right when she said we need to stop seeing each other as enemies. From my first hand experience, it was/is women who often became the greatest threat to equality. After a battle had been won on their behalf, they’d retreat behind their husbands and say that there was no need to fight in the first place! They would justify their second class status.
While the man who hated on Naomi (ugh, that email was startlingly blunt) it is women who often do the real job of hating. They self hate, a terribly insidious act that is a lot worse than blunt hate emails!
Let’s watch out for this.
.-= Lydia, Clueless Crafter´s last blog ..Sew Not Happening =-.
Thank you, to you and Naomi, for addressing this. It’s an issue I find myself thinking about from time to time – with all the contradictions you describe. I wonder “why, why, why?” and, “why won’t those people just do xyz?”
After thinking a lot about this today, I’m remembering that I can’t control anyone’s behavior except my own, so I decided to make a list of some of the things I can do in my own life that might make a difference. (All of these should be understood to be modified by “when possible/worthwhile/I’m in the right frame of mind.”)
• Keep my eyes open for women in my life who can be positive role models for how to stand up for myself and be more confident.
• Say something when I see women being hostile to one another.
• Stand up for myself when I perceive that someone has thrown a shoe at me.
• Encourage people I know to include a diverse group of individuals in their projects/conversations etc.
• Offer gentle… alternative interpretations to some of my coworkers when I hear them saying “ALL men xyz”. (Need to vent: As if it weren’t enough to state that their husband NEVER remembers x, they have to generalize to the point of saying that ALL MEN never remember x. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’d read Nonviolent Communication even if I left copies lying around.)
Marvelous, and thank you for stepping out of the ladies-don’t-discuss-this shadow to DISCUSS THIS. You and Naomi.
It’s so dreadfully, hopelessly painful to look at this and realize “We’re not there yet.” Because we’re not. Nuh-uh. No way. This is a patriarchy, and while women have vastly expanded opportunities compared to years of yore, we have many of them at the expense of our wholeness and integrity. You can have this thing, lady-person, but you need to STFU about x, y and z. You need to compartmentalize and contort yourself–that’s the cost of entry into the club.
Painful.
FWIW, I find great joy in visiting I Blame the Patriarchy now and then. It can be unsettling sometimes, when I run hard up against something where I’m all “B-b-but…”
But Jill (the Chief Blamer) is unflinching and she’s right and she’s WILDLY sharp and funny and true. It’s a tonic.
.-= Colleen Wainwright´s last blog ..Poetry Thursday: What consumes you =-.
Just want to say how much I love this post, and the discussion it’s starting. Mark, *thank you* for deciding to practice “intentional inclusion.” Because as much as women need to work on ourselves, this equality thing will get much further if men do a little work on it too. Truly, thank you.
.-= Catherine Cantieri, Sorted´s last blog ..The power of the Inbox =-.
KTer here…
I thought Naomi’s post spot-on, and yours, too.
See, here’s what makes me a woman. I’m about to apologize for what I am going to say, before I say it.
The way I see it is that women are socialized still, and in millions of ways, in the very construct of our nation, to be second class citizens, and to get our hair blown back when we are assertive, get angry, or god forbid, act like a bitch. After being tamped down enough times, we spend a lot of time second-guessing when it’s OK to get angry stick our backs up.
sound like the victim card? SORRY, see? apologizing again! but ain’t it the truth?
doesn’t help that I, like many in my 70’s generation, had parents who were from the Archie Bunker generation. That means a lot of ‘put up and shut up’still going on.
Jillian Davis
Hey Havi,
Love this post. Especially because I’m reading it after I read Naomi and Penelope Trunk.
No doubt, this is discussion that needs to not just BE opened, but KEPT opened. Because, as a guy, I get the chance to learn and grow from it. Like Jack Nicholson said to Helen Hunt, the conversation “makes me want to be a better man.”
Also, an FYI on my book marketing report, what you may have seen was a draft that hit the streets a bit early. Within hours the final one replaced it. There are, in fact, women in the report, including the fabulous Pam Slim. And, I’ve been aggressively seeking out and finding others who are being profiled in even more detail in the blog and newsletter that are about to launch along with it next week.
That said, it was never my intention to slant anything toward men, but what I discovered was that the people who fit the narrow criteria I used to select authors…and who I either knew or was able to find in short order…were mostly men. And, that was both eye-opening and a bit disconcerting even to me.
So, here’s a request – If you, Selma or anyone else in your awesome crew of readers can point me in the direction of women authors who’ve built large digital tribes then tapped them to launch and sell a lot of print books in innovative ways, I’d love the leads. 🙂
.-= Jonathan “Not the cookie lady’s son” Fields´s last blog ..Do You Really Need it Every Day? =-.
This is such an important topic Havi. And I admire you even more than I already did for talking about it with a great mix of insight and clarity.
I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. But I totally know this glass ceiling exists, because I see it just about everywhere I look. It’s like there’s a certain level of success that’s acceptable (read: non-threatening to men), but after that – that last bit of the road – seems to be an amazing battle.
And that makes me sad and angry and completely perplexed.
Whenever anyone is held back, for whatever reason, no one wins. When people can’t freely offer their best, and enjoy the success that comes from that, everyone involved is missing out.
And unfortunately, a lot of men I know would rather maintain things as they are and feel safe, instead of shattering that glass ceiling and let everyone shine equally.
Which, of course, is as shameful as it is damaging.
I’m glad you and Naomi are talking about this. I’d like to see more men talking about it too. We, as men, have to let go of this ridiculousness, and not just passively accept, but actively support and nourish women at every step of the way.
We have to not just get out of the way so that women can enjoy equal success, but actively work to support that success in whatever way we can.
Otherwise we’re losing out. And no matter how much men who maintain this glass ceiling think they’ve succeeded, they haven’t. They’ve failed at the most basic level.
Thanks to you and Naomi for putting this on the table. I’m really grateful to you both.
.-= Fabeku´s last blog ..Now That’s Ninjarific #2 – The Mechanized Muse Edition =-.
This is so interesting because I was really into the “woman power” thing when I was working in a corporate job. Then when I went out on my own to do my ittybiz, I figured I didn’t need to worry about the whole “woman” thing anymore.
Of course what I found was that things were still not exactly equal. I think it’s great that we’re finally talking about the elephant in the room.
We’ve got a distance to go, but we’re in it together. N’est-ce-pas?
.-= Nathalie Lussier´s last blog ..Let’s Change the World Together: It’s a Freak Revolution =-.
I’m amused because you’ve pointed out one of the problems I’m currently at the mercy of; that of, “Am I crazy?”
Being currently unemployed and having been so for three months, I’m getting really nervous. One solution that keeps coming up is for me to start my own business, which, honestly, I’ve wanted to do for at least ten years, now.
I’m trained as a software engineer, but my true dream is to start a more creative business. I have a load of debt, however, which makes it a significant risk to try to start any kind of business (or so conventional wisdom seems to be telling me). So, I’m left with a desire to own a retail spinning and knitting store, and/or do software freelancing.
There are merits to both, but while the debt/risk issue is leaving me feeling like I’m crazy, my heart is telling me that either is better than trying to get a long-term job that I probably won’t be happy at. I feel like I’m just not made of corporate/career material.
So I’m left feeling like I’m practically vibrating when I think about the issue. I can’t start a business of my own because it’s too risky, but that might be my only chance to actually start making money and be satisfied with what I’m doing.
brilliant thanks so much for opening up this topic. Biggification is a gender issue ! I’ve got so much to say but will rest at the moment with the thought that in Edinburgh in Scotland a Suffragette March of 1909 is being recreated on the 10th of October – its centenary and in many ways women have not moved forward as much as the women who were in that march would have hoped. http://www.gudecause.org.uk
.-= creativevoyage´s last blog ..the littlest suffragette =-.
Oh yes, so not meant to be talked about and so raises all sorts of mixed feelings.
A few observations from my ittybiz experience:
* A business mentor (male) told me that in his years working with entrepreneurs he noticed that the men tended to push on and grow independent businesses – businesses with employees, businesses they could sell and move on from – while the women tended to stay as one-person ventures. He didn’t have a definitive answer as to why this was.
* An acquaintance and accomplished small business person (male) was thinking about new product designed to appeal to up and coming entrepreneurs. He asked a group of us what we thought of the name and concept. I pointed out that it seemed quite ‘masculine’ and he might consider that a lot of women would also be interested in the concept. I found out later that his core project group was all male. I don’t think they even recognised that was the case or considered getting views from business women.
[On this – is it just me or does it seem much more likely that a woman will seek feedback from both men & women on business issues, whilst men tend to just talk to other men?]
* I go to a regular informal, networky lunch thing that’s for women only. It’s got a great vibe. The group recently voted that we definitely want to keep it women only. I’ve heard a few comments from guy friends who know about the lunch that if they did the same it would be considered sexist. I guess it would. I guess it is.
* There’s another informal, networky thing I attend that is mixed. But there is a male vibe to the whole thing. The organisers are all male. The speakers they get are all male. Again the organisers don’t seem to be very conscious of this – they don’t consider they are running something that is more for men than women. I know them and mentioned they might like to get a woman to speak every now and again. I don’t know if the lack is because there are fewer women available to speak, or they tend to go with people they know and relate to – who are men.
I think Mark’s suggestion of intentional inclusion is what’s missing.
As Havi said this is a hard, finely nuanced topic – because many of the men I’m thinking of would consider that they do not see things in terms of gender and they treat women equally. And there is still a quietly pervasive ‘male’ approach when it comes to anything business oriented.
There’s no clear-cut answers.
The passage of Title 9 in 1972 laid the foundation for equal access to after school athletics for girls.
The following year I was 23 and a jr hi math teacher. Our area was so far from the cafeteria that most of us got together with a sack lunch in one of the class rooms.
Most of the guys were middle aged and pretty conservative. I was the “hippie” and there was a clean cut guy a few years older than me who was very wise beneath his preppy surface.
At one point in a typical discussion one of the guys says something like “who wants to watch girls run the 100 yard dash when the fastest runner in the world is gonna be a guy anyway.”
Without missing a beat the preppy said: “Their fathers.”
Game. Set. Match.
“By accepting the universal neurosis, the individual is spared the task of forming a personal neurosis”. –Sigmund Freud
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.” — Buddha
The world we live in is evidence of our thinking over the last 5 or 6 years
One of the differences between men and women: my husband has FOR YEARS, apropos of nothing in particular, routinely announced, “You know babe, I am an awesome guitar player. I’m one of the best in town.”
What an ego, I say to myself knowing in a million years I would never have the chutzpah to say out loud, “I am the best blah blah blah,” even if I was the best. I might say it silently to myself, but oh boy, never out loud.
.-= Julie Stuart´s last blog ..Pam Slim World Tour meets Graphic Facilitation =-.
I dwell in this very female-oriented world online. And then in my real life I’ve worked in a very male-oriented world as an engineer. And all I can is this – there are definitely differences to how men and women operate in groups. As individuals we’re all multi-faceted and complicated, but those kind of level out in the aggregate and some kind of homogenizing occurs.
What still bugs me, though, is that I think the male ‘type’ remains the preferred type. I don’t see any good reason for that. And I think it’s why the glass ceiling still exists. I think that in an ideal world we wouldn’t have a preferred type at all.
.-= Amber´s last blog ..The Pitfalls of Behaving =-.
@Nathalie, been thinking about that. For me, it’s been that in the corporate world, I got sexist bullshit from men. Now that I’m on my own, I give sexist bullshit to myself. Different issues.
I found Naomi’s post really powerful and thought-provoking.
.-= Sonia Simone´s last blog ..What Makes Marketing Hard? =-.
Recently I was with a (male) playwright who told an entire room of people that his project couldn’t move forward unless I directed his play. But in the schmooze session later he mentioned, while introducing me to a big producer, that a jerk we both worked with years ago made me cry. (I don’t remember that, and am not even sure if its true.) ‘It’ is really there. As much as that man likes and respects me, something in him is deeply threatened. Just ignoring it won’t work. Sometimes being better, smarter, and more Wile E. doesn’t work either. It does help, though. Sovereignty and confidence are necessary too. So is raising awareness. So yay! Thanks to Havi and Naomi for broaching this.
.-= Kate T.W.´s last blog ..Rilke, Limbo, & Snakeskin Leggins or: How Do I Make a Living Doing What I Love? =-.
p.s. Just checked out Heather Freeman’s blog and awesome art and tend to agree with her i.e. undoing brainwashing. Though when I see other women being very unsure/coy/self-deprecating in business it does tend to make me want to shake them. I would do well to ‘Byron Katie’ that impulse.
.-= Kate T.W.´s last blog ..Rilke, Limbo, & Snakeskin Leggins or: How Do I Make a Living Doing What I Love? =-.
@Sonia – ohmygod. You are so right. I could have not written the post and really just said that: “Now that I’m on my own, I give sexist bullshit to myself”.
Thank you!
LOVE this post, as well as Naomi’s original.
I come at it from a bit of a different angle. I’m in the technology field, which usually means I’m the only woman in the room. (Last job? Total sausage-fest. 75 guys, and one woman – me.) In order to get by, I acted like one of the guys. Once, a coworker – trying to compliment me – told me that I have “the spirit of a man.”
There are some things I value and have taken from the men I worked (and work) with: a tendency to think of “how” instead of “whether” to do things, responding to concrete facts instead of opinion, etc.
What leaves me wondering, though, is why these qualities should be a “man” thing, and not a “human” thing.
It must be something in the way we’re raised – little girls responding more to emotional manipulation and wondering if they’re “good enough” to please people, and little boys responding to… what? What about the way little boys are raised instills qualities of independence? (Along with, in some cases, qualities of aggression, etc.)
Like you, Havi, I don’t want to be a “woman in business.” I actually don’t want “women in business” to be celebrated – because the base assumption behind that is still that women in business are something that should be regarded as unusual.
I’d like to be a “human in business.”
.-= Charlotte´s last blog ..Brother-in-Law Syndrome: or, Why Your Technology Sucks =-.
Whew, sorry to be late to the convo!
What great stuff.
All I can say is “yes.”
Much smart stuff has been said by your insightful readers.
I see the glass ceiling stuff all the time. And I wonder as Sonia put it so well, how much I am doing to myself.
At the same time my book was published, a couple of my buddies, Michael Port and Ramit Sethi, published books as well. They are smart and work hard. Their books got to the NYT bestseller list. I am smart and work hard. My book didn’t. But I know that mine didn’t because *I did not employ the tactics that would land it on the list.* That whole process didn’t feel organic and in line with the spirit of my book and blog. I am not about huge surges of marketing and selling.
But there are days when I think that could be an excuse for not wanting to push myself harder for fear of getting some of the yucky wrath that comes with playing bigger. Right now, I love my clients. I love my readers. I don’t get asshole comments. So what I think about is:
-WHY do I want to biggify?
-HOW do I want to biggify?
I am working on the answers.
And as for my bro Jonathan, (whom I love dearly and who I know is extremely supportive of women), as he was putting the guide together, he asked me for other female examples. I had a hard time coming up with women who have used the kinds of methods he described in his manifesto to promote successful books (Amazon slam campaigns didn’t count). That bothered me that I could not think of more. Is it because they are not there? Is it because they are not written about so I don’t hear about them? Am I somehow filtering out powerful women?
It gives me a headache to figure it all out sometimes. So then my solution gets local. I support the fab women online I love so much like you, Naomi, Colleen and Sonia. And I look for more, every day, in the spirit of “intentional inclusion.” Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project book is coming out and January and I am going to really put my back into promoting it, since it is a great book and she is a great person.
Keep on keeping on!
-P
.-= Pamela Slim´s last blog ..Working motherhood: a love letter =-.
i am once again reminded to note my ongoing appreciation to share the interwebbings with those-who-practice-outloud …
HUGE loves and HUGER thank-you’s …
— joyce
Thank you so much for this post, Havi. Oh, and @creativevoyage, I agree with you: biggification is very much a gender issue! In my experience, little girls are far more likely to be told, “You’re getting too big for your britches!” than little boys. Too big for your britches — what does that even *mean*?!
This is such a hugely important topic of conversation, Havi. (And, Naomi). And, it is pervasive. Something I’ve been mulling over myself for many, many years — both in the corporate world and the health professions.
The place where I always seem to get stuck is — why is it that in our search for “equality” do we keep directly comparing ourselves to men?
If it boils down to “men ask how and we ask whether” I’m left asking myself … what if “whether” is an important question that needs to be asked?
What if our emotions don’t make us weak but help us bring real, important issues to the table?
We do get labeled as hysterical a lot … and it does seem like we have some misdirected, long squelched emotions under the surface … which makes sense considering HOW LONG women have been told that we are less than for having these most basic emotions and instincts.
Why is it that we seem to become “complete” or “equal” by acting like men? I saw this so much in the corporate world.
Why is it that the very thing that makes us feminine is the thing that we are still trying to move away from?
Male energy seems to be a lot about growth and expansion. Which is great and awesome and inspiring … but unchecked has caused serious damage to our world in many more ways than one.
Maybe, as women, we’re *supposed* to be the ones asking whether or not we should be doing all this grown and expansion.
Maybe we’re the ones that supply the depth.
What if we could hold on to our sovereignty while asking the important questions like whether this growth and expansion is good for us and the whole?
And maybe the answer lies somewhere in perfect partnership between male and female energy.
I really have no idea. But I LOVE this conversation.
It’s obviously a super complicated, multi-faceted, extremely layered issue that really goes deep into all of the different cultures of our world and a conversation that needs to be kept open for a very long time to come.
.-= Danielle´s last blog ..There is no place for guilt in wellness. =-.
It’s interesting because the two things I hear in this discussion – here, and at Naomi’s are:
1) a healthy concern about breathing more life into this “thing” by talking about it some MORE (“stop whining and move on already”); and,
2) a desire to fathom a real mystery – who are we and why do we behave the way we do?
I can’t help feeling that a part of the mystery is context. It is easy to forget that our grandmothers and great grandmothers did not have the luxury of addressing these issues and might have thought the conversation unbecoming and frivolous.
They didn’t have the right to vote, and they often did not have property rights – which would include starting and owning a business.
In fact a woman’s right to vote in America is not yet 100 years old! My mom’s 82 & my uncle is 94. How far removed are we really from that reality and mind set that women are among the minorities who’s right to vote is debatable?
All of us, men and women, are still working out the details of our new agreements with society and each other. And if we weren’t born into a well-defined life (church, community, family expectations) we are likely a bit adrift anyway.
On the other hand, for my taste, it is the rare group of all men, or group of all women that I’d want to be stuck in a work environment with. In my experience those environments devolve into a “grown up” version of the competitive cliques of junior high school and all of the mind numbing drama being played out in both circles.
A last thought – no one flourishes in every environment or realationship. No amount of self reflection trumps the fact that this just ain’t working out!
I think it’s great that you are talking about this issue and doing so in a very rational, nuanced way. That’s important, because there are nuances.
But I am surprised that you don’t feel this is talked about. I talk about this all the time. Maybe because I grew up during the “Women’s Liberation” era when that was a very hot topic.
I do sense from younger women that there has been a kind of “that issue is settled” sentiment. There was a period of time when children were being raised in a gender neutral manner and maybe it feels taboo to mention that the differences between men and women.
I don’t know, but certainly, talk! Why not? Let’s do whatever it takes to be our best selves, regardless of our sex. Having seen what I’ve seen over the years, we are fortunate to live in a time and place where many of the barriers to success lie within ourselves.