Women, self-confidence - A discussion
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.
While I strongly support any and all efforts to get women to speak with confidence about what they do and who they are, assimilation won't get us to be where we should be. Far too many academic women tried this, a practice that I always thought of as out-manning the men. It was a survival mechanism for them but dear god it's terrifying. We don't want that in other industries too. What we want is diversity.
Diversity is one of those sticky terms that people seem to boil down to creating a Benetton ad. Diversity isn't about some magical collection of five differently colored skin tones. It's about bringing different perspectives and backgrounds to the table and creating an environment that values what can be gained from different voices who've taken different paths. Skin color (or gender performance) is often interpreted as a reasonable substitute for this and, for many reasons, it has been historically. But bringing in a woman whose attitude and approach is just as masculine as the men isn't going to help your team break outside of its current mindset. They key is to bring people who think differently than you. Of course, that's darn tricky. Because you need need similarity AND diversity to be successful. But this is a rant for another post.
And clearly, if aggressive self-promotion and pompous self-aggrandizement is what gets people ahead in the world, then at the individual level, it's better to perform in that kind of way than it is to sit passively and watch yourself get passed over by more clumsy, venal, smug, aggressive, macho idiots.
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