Rant on Women by Clay Shirky
We discussed why women don't win their fair share of awards and we discussed Natural Obsessions. Someone suggested these issues reminded her of the Rant on Women. I looked up the blog post by Clay Shirky from Jan 17, 2010. You can click on the color-highlighted section and read it for yourself. Shirky isn't in science. He teaches in the Interactive Telecommunications program at NYU and is a noted comentator on popular culture. But what he said resonates with what we've been discussing.
So, he notes that his women students don't put themelves forward for opportunities like the men do. He says, for example, "Part of this sorting out of careers is sexism, but part of it is that men are just better at being arrogant and less concerned about people thinking we're stupid (often correctly, it should be noted) for trying things we're not qualified for." He believes that the talented women that he teaches are bad at aggressive self-promotion even when they need to do it to achieve their goals. He says, "THey aren't just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can't say they are under represented among people who have changed the world." He's right. women have no desire to be jerks or to act stupid, and see no reason why the world should expect them to behave in that way.
But throwing out the baby with the bath water, women also throw out the idea that it's okay to explain how good they are when they're interested in a position, to ask to be considered for positions or awards, to be assertive. Not jerky, not aggressive, not obsessive, but assertive. That's where we need to go, in my opinion. I'm enjoying being involved with Nature Edcation, but no one nominated me, I asked to be considered. I'm enjoying being on the editorial board of Cell Biology Education, and I asked someone to nominate me. I thought I had something valuable to offer. We can do this. No need to be jerks about it.
Shirky's last section says this, with which I agree: "It would be good it more women got in the habit of raising their hands and saying, "I can do that Sign me up. My work is awesome," no matter how many people that behavoir upsets." Amen.
What do you think?
A Women should go ahead and be jerks if that's what it takes to succeed in science.
B Women should forget trying to be the same as men and just be themselves
C Assertiveness is the right plan for being recognized and chosen as a woman.
Where are the B's? I know there are a lot of women who don't want to rock the boat out there; I see them often and I'd love to hear some of their success stories too.
cheers,
Laura
Okay, I talked about my students. About me, that's harder. I try to toot my own horn in writing rather than in person if possible, because I can make sure I don't put other people down, at least not overtly. I edit carefully.
Here's why I do it. Men don't always notice the good things women do, or the times when we take on hard tasks and succeed. If you don't summarize what you've done for them, why bother to do it? It gets lost in the noise. Worth doing, worth putting on the record. At least in my experience, that's what works.
FBP
Good point, Laura! I haven't found a nice way to say how good I am without implying that someone else is "not so good". And it's uncomfortable, and yes, we have to do it sometimes or we won't get anywhere in our careers.
I'm glad there are women ahead of us who sometimes did the "itch" work but know it results in slap-downs. We can't totally be warned off it though. We must be that jerk at times, when someone else is getting hurt and we can help, for example.
Most of the time, I do think there is a way to say "I"m good, look what I can do!" that bypasses, the jerky tag, "And by the way, you suck."
Ahh...If only it were as easy as being a self-promotion machine. As a previous poster said, we all know that a more common word for a woman who pushes herself forward is not "jerk". But I like Shriky's point at the end of his rant that one option is to just not care. Easier said than done when fighting a deeply ingrained sense of wanting to be liked by all, but very true just the same. What if we really just didn't care what other people thought and just did what it took to get ahead? Would we lose our sense of pride, honor, respect?
I had a discussion just last week with another woman who is my boss's boss. I asked her what it would take to get to the next level (I just got promoted recently so this was for my "development" this year). She rattled off the list, and on it was how much this next level would be determined by my ability to influence people across our organization, get recognized for my achievements and oh yes, because I was a woman also manage to get people to like me in the process. Why because I'm a woman is that required I asked? "Because no one likes to reward a *itch" was her response. :) I just had to laugh because it's such a high task to do both and men simply aren't expected to do so to get ahead.
I am up for the challenge though. I will keep trying to put myself forward and smile while doing it, and hope above hope that the majority of men I'm chatting with see me as someone "worthy" of joining the arrogant jerks club that they all belong to:)
A. How about it be assertiveness rather than aggressiveness. I think women are afraid of being seen as aggressive in the workplace. We can all do it our own way without acting like men. And, as we all know, "jerk" isn't the most commonly used word for assertive women.
As I always say, anyone who believes we live in a meritocracy is a white male. I agree that women need to be more assertive about their capabilities and their accomplishments, but I also think we need to de-value and stop rewarding "self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards" just because they make more noise. Surely we can be more perceptive and discerning than that.
Yes, one of the hardest things I try to teach female students is to have some confidence in themselves. I had one student recently who had repeated an experiment six times with the same convincing results but on her PowerPoint slide, the results were entitled "Tentative Gene Comparison," I was shocked, but it fits so many other things that have happened that I shouldn't have been. Young women especially seem to need much more encouragement than I recall my generation needing and expecting.
