Women in Leadership: You and Female Bosses

Good news! The gender gap is decreasing. Bad news...a lot of people still look at women in leadership and think it's a bad deal.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/13/living/identity-gallup-male-boss-female-boss/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11

At the commencement of my college career and the beginning of my career, surveys like this make me feel nervous in regards to my career, but not surprised. In leadership roles I've held in through college I know first hand about the kind of disrespect and negative opinions people have held against me because I am a woman. I was in charge of a meeting and as I began to move the group through the agenda one man turned to another and said, "Oh, look how cute. She's trying to be in charge." 

I still feel sick about this comment and incredibly hurt by the laughter that followed from all the other men in the room. Before that, I hadn't noticed that I was standing in front of an all-male group. Then I was keenly aware, and saw fully how little regard they had for my expertise, planning and preparation despite being confident and assertive in my demeanor.

I don't know if that hurt nearly as bad as when I've shared my story and shock at how objectified I was made to be to others and was met with such comments as "It's okay that they think you're cute, you should be flattered" or "You're overreacting". If you also do not see the problem with my situation, I dare you in your next meeting to call your male boss cute and mock their attempts to direct your team. Do it and see how excited they are to give you a raise or promotion...ever.

I'm writing this blog post to call everyone's attention to this issue and to call for you to recognize this issue as an actual issue. It does matter. It's wrong to judge a person's leadership skills based on gender, and it's wrong to discount someones qualifications and work based on gender. Don't wrongly call assertiveness bossiness just because the subject in question is female!

It scares me as I enter the workforce formally that I may have yet another hurdle to jump over in addition to becoming more qualified and working hard. After all that, I have to figure out how to negate these stereotypes that came in to play because who knows who got together and decided, "Hey, let's pretend women aren't real people and get offended when they get to be the boss of us."

I just wish people could just hate their boss and have it be about the person and not the person's gender. One boss who wasn't very good who happened to be female doesn't mean you won't love me as your boss.