Using Female Advantages in Business? – Give me a break!
Whenever I see a headline like this one “Top 10 Ways to Use Your Female Advantage in Business” I roll my eyes. They way I see it, if you want to be taken serious as a women in business stop emphasizing you are a woman and start acting like a person in business. I don’t want to be treated any differently than my male co-workers so why should I “use my female advantage” in business and what exactly does this mean anyway? Should I be dressing sexier so that my male bosses like me more? Should I cry to get my way? This isn’t exactly what this article promotes, but it seems close.
Articles like these are full of stereotypes – here is an example direct from the article:
“Be likeable Women’s gifts for relationships, compassion, connection and empathy make them the more likeable gender. And let’s face it, the workplace is a personality contest too, so likeability is a key factor in success.”
What? How insulting is that to all those likable men out there. And let’s be honest, I’ve worked with some very successful women who were great at what they did but weren’t at all likeable as a person. In fact in some cases they were actually mean! So how can anyone take an article seriously that says be likeable. I’ve stated in past posts that I don’t think you need to be rude to get ahead or to be successful, but the statement that women should be “likable” reeks of an era when women were told not to rock the boat. “don’t say anything if someone treats your poorly, you want to be likeable not thought of as a trouble maker.” It was Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: who said “Well behaved women rarely make history” and I 100% agree with this. Again you don’t need to be a jerk to get ahead, but attempting to be more likeable will get your friends, not necessarily career advancement.
How about this gem?:
Create an appealing package
Studies show that attractive people not only make more money, they are viewed as smarter, more productive, and even kinder than others. Women have an advantage because we have more “visual packaging tools.”
How to package yourself: Don’t mimic the male model — that’s so 20th century. Use the French women’s model: Dress like a woman and accentuate your best features. If you don’t have the body of a fashion model, do something wonderful with your hair and clothing. Develop a distinctive look with a signature color, accessories and so on. Work on your posture and how you move.
Ok I did write a post that described how to present yourself, but I never told anyone to “accentuate your best features”. What I was saying was, dress like a professional not like you are going out to a club. In dressing like a professional you will look “nice” so in a way I agree that you need to create an appealing package – just not in the way this article suggests. What this article suggests is that if you have large breasts you should be wearing low cut shirts, or if you have nice legs, where skirts. How about we all dress professionally and we are judged off of our merits? I’m sure all us smart, not so attractive girls (and guys) will appreciate it. Again, I’m not saying you can be a slob, I’m saying dress like you have respect for yourself as a professional, not as a model.
I suppose the issue I have with these types of articles is that they often try to say that women all act a certain way and we should act more feminine to get ahead. Perhaps they mean we should use our talents to get ahead, but as a feminist I look at these suggestions as a way of implying that women need to act “lady-like” and differently than men. Maybe I am naive, but I feel the only way for women to be treated as equals in the work place is to act like equals – and act like the smart, confident, capable women we are. This might mean that for a while women suffer because they aren’t “lady-like” enough, but eventually, with some sacrifice women will get where they need to be. Just remember, many women who wanted careers in the 50s. 60s, 70s and even 80s suffered sexist indignities so that as time went on women would be more accepted in the work place. These women didn’t back down, or purposely act differently to get ahead. They knew it would take time to change attitudes and they did so by suffering sexist remarks and put downs, and even unfair treatment so that we could move forward. Maybe the next generation (or current generation) of women professionals should take on a little ‘suffering’ by not conforming to these stereotypes so that future women don’t have to.
I could go on and on about these ‘tips’ but I would rather hear what other people have to say. Am I being too sensitive about this issue – (I tend to take feminist issue very seriously)? Do any of the other suggestions grate on you, or do you think this is the type of article we should be sending to young women in business to help them get ahead?
August 5th, 2009 at 2:37 PM
Interesting article. One I can understand very well.
I think we should all accentuate what we want others to value. I do appreciate a punctual, efficient, assertive, intelligent colleague. I appreciate a well mannered colleague – someone that goes out of his/her way to make me feel better (without trying to make me feel attracted). I also appreciate a clean, well dressed colleague: someone who creates a professional workplace with his/her way of presenting him/herself.
However, I prefer working with normal or tomboyish women rather than with the sexy-looking/lovely-character ones. Whenever I see a woman at work that accentuates herself as a woman I tend to take a mentally defensive posture: I do feel concerned about someone who has to use physical or personality features to gain my trust at work. That probably slows down her ability to gain my trust overall — something that is not good for either of us.
Now, I must confess — if a woman is great at computer software programming I find that extremely sexy, but don’t tell anyone. If she can disassemble her computer and put it back the way it was… that’s it… difficult to control myself.
August 5th, 2009 at 2:46 PM
Great post! I completely agree – confidence, advocating for yourself and actual ability to get the job done well are the true keys to success in the workplace.
I recently attended an MBA panel sponsored by my company, where a female panel member stated loudly that all women in the room should get an MBA. “It is a must for being taken seriously at work and getting the credibility you deserve.” This concerned me on several levels – 1) the idea that women HAVE to pay over $100K for a degree to get the same place as men seems like an antiquated and deeply flawed notion. 2) This idea is a self-fulling prophecy – act like you’re not good enough without additional credentials and pretty soon everyone will agree with you.
I wish articles on how to present and advocate for yourself were given more weight than these silly gender oriented guidelines. Just my two cents.
August 5th, 2009 at 3:44 PM
@Stephanie – Thanks for the support. The first post I wrote for this blog gave the exact type of tips you want to see more of – http://youngandemployed.com/2009/06/24/the-five-%e2%80%9cas%e2%80%9d-of-gaining-the-respect-of-your-co-workers/
Now that I have validation that this is valuable informaiton, I’ll write more posts like this.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:18 PM
I agree with you 100%. I have to accept that with extremely good-looking girls in the workplace its harder for me to trust them in a profesional level. I may be a victim of a society that associates beauty with stupidity. Models, Cheerleaders and such have made us believe that there is no such thing as a hot smart woman (which is false, and I’ve been proven wrong), but most of us have to fight the urge to fall for the stereotype.
Girls, use your beauty on the weekends, your sweet bum or your extra large breasts on display will only give you a bad name at work.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:25 AM
When I used to work in corporate hell I would often have female coworkers who tried to use their feminine charms to get preferential treatment. I could tell that it usually worked for them but it had the opposite effect on me.
Maybe I’m just wired differently.
“Catherine Kaputa is a brand strategist” I think this says a lot right here. While I do believe it’s important for a product to have an identifiable “brand”, I think people should still be viewed as…well, people and not brands.
I think it was Chuck Klosterman who said that since MTV’s the Real World he can classify people into one of seven different personality types and how sad that is for us as a culture.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:57 PM
Jess, I have to agree with you on this. Everyone should be their own person – confident in what you do AND how you do it. It shouldn’t matter if you are male, female, black, white or green. All should be judged by the content of their actions and deeds.
How is this blog going, I saw a clip on TV this AM about “females for hire”. It was about the woman who started it and how successful she has become. All after she was very rudely dismissed from her “dream”job.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:02 AM
Being one of the women who struggled through the 60’s and 70’s trying to break into a non-female type job (and not succeeding), it’s been a wonderful confirmation to see today’s women getting those jobs and succeeding in their career choices without having to play the feminine wiles game.
Back in the day pretty females (not necessarily very bright ones at that) had a job advantage – executives wanted a good looking secretary sitting outside their office. Let’s face it, if you were a female and wanted to work in the business world you needed to either be a bookkeeper or a secretary – not much else was available to you. I celebrate that now some of those executives are women.