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.

Uninspiring Pile of Old Socks

I am realizing that when I do not take time to do writing, I feel like a pile of dirty old socks that don't know the meaning of a laundry basket. I am worn, tired and at times...a little sweaty. I need to write.

Sure, going running unleashes my excess energy that is oft just nervous energy. There's so much to be nervous about: new neighborhood, pending college graduation, exams, job searching and adjusting to all of my sibling and siblings-in-law moving in to other times zones. 

Absolutely, yoga can be incredibly restorative and get my stressed muscles relaxed and my mind refocused on the things that are most important. There are a lot of distractions, all the little details on my homework that I could agonize over in to eternity until I lost whatever semblance of sanity I pretended to have. The endless calculating "what ifs" about job prospects and potential cumulative GPA. 

However, it is writing that wakes me up, makes me excited and energized. When my life is college classes, running and yoga...all I am is just a relaxed, calm but depressed lump of socks. 

What's that saying? A bad day of writing is better than a good day of college? Yes. That sounds right. 

It's a little hard being patient to work on the writing projects I'm so excited about. I'll be starting up my website and a new blog (yes, a new blog...better yet a blog with a purpose! Unlike this one...) on Wordpress! I'm REALLY excited about this project, and I think you'll really like it. Besides, I know I will even if you don't!

I want to do it all TODAY but I have to do homework. I have to make sure this semester is my last semester of college. It would be silly to be this close and shirk off managerial economics. So I wait...

However, I need to keep doing a little writing here and there where I can in between quizzes and class projects. It keeps me feeling motivated and happy. Hmm, inspired. That's the word. Inspired. After days and days and days of mathematics and charts and numbers, it tends to leave one feeling a bit uninspired.

Now that's just sad looking isn't it?

So, as a message to my never ending pile of homework and exams: you can wait. You can wait for 30 minutes, maybe an hour, or since I'm feeling crazy...two hours! I'm spending time elsewhere. I have a novel to write, a blog to start, a website for my writing to create...you can wait.

Dear Mankind (from All the Attractive Women of the World)

I just found this gem of a blog post I wrote when I was 19. (March 2010) It deserved a re-publish.

This blog entry is written for you (cough…cough…men) who seem to not understand how to cope with our (seriously hot mama’s) attractiveness. Here is our outline of requests.

1.       Just because we are attractive…does not mean “Please, touch me!” Quite frankly at our level of awesomeness…it means “Touch me and I will personally see to your demise.”  I think I speak for all women when I say this. People, you need to understand women very much so are like cats. We are very adorable, but please don’t look so shocked if the claws come out. We as attractive women, are not whores and we don’t want you getting all grabby!

2.       We insist upon intelligent conversation. If that cannot be provided the exit is just that-a-way.

3.       To the men who think they leave a seriously attractive woman and think we’re going to just “take them back” or expect us to miss you enough to care. Grow up. It’s not happening, sweetheart.

4.       We’re very attractive. It means we expect some effort on your part. Aka…the shower and some hair gel.

5.       Don’t expect us to change our minds about our standards.

6.       No seriously, we’re not changing.

7.       We are not jealous. We just don’t share, because we deserve the best.

8.       We don’t look like convenience shops. We are not convenience shops.

9.       We really don’t care that our attractiveness is overwhelming to you, if you want to argue with a seriously attractive woman you’d better have the guts to do it in person. Never via text message or IM.

10.   Just because that one time, that one girl was okay with something, or acted more like this or whatever it was that she was like…does not mean we’re the same way. Every woman is different. If you don’t appreciate us as the individuals we are you don’t deserve us.