followed by some heartwarming story of a friend or family member who had success with in vitro fertilization or my favorite, “When they stopped trying so hard, it just happened!”
The first time that happened, I was stunned. Really. Stunned into silence. It was one of the first times in my life I didn’t have a retort. How do you respond to that? My “I loved playing with Legos” line didn’t work. The voice running through my head told me that it wasn’t appropriate to say, “I have no desire to have children.”
No one seemed to ask my male counterparts that question.
Then there was the year that I was told I was the highest-rated and best performer, but that my bonus wasn’t going to be as big as I thought it would be because my boss needed to ensure that the bonus dollars were spread around – because my male peers had families.
I got stronger.
Mansplaining
If I had a dollar for every time I was interrupted, I’d be retired by now. Then add to that “mansplaining,” and I’d be retired and supporting all my friends and family. My friends and I have had this conversation for years. And it still happens. Every. Single. Day.
According to Merriam-Webster: “Mansplaining is, at its core, a very specific thing. It’s what occurs when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he’s talking to does.”
One of my favorite mansplaining stories is from a panel I was on. (We could talk for days about the underrepresentation of women on panels and as speakers at conferences, but I digress..) I was on this panel, the only woman, representing a topic that I’m an expert on. I was there as the expert, and the other panelists were all experts, too – albeit in other topics.
I was asked a question by the moderator, which I answered. I tried to be brief, as I always try to ensure that all panelists get their respective air time. One of my fellow panelists, however, decided that he needed to add on to my comments.
I’ll reiterate: although an expert in his field, he is not an expert in my field.
In an exceptionally condescending tone, he corrected my comments about the “right” way to approach a problem, droning on using phrases like “I’m sure Ingrid meant to say.” and “In my vast experience, I’ve approached this problem this way..”
That strong person inside of me just couldn’t let it go. I allowed him to finish and then proceeded to challenge and correct every statement he had made, using facts, not opinions. When I finished, the audience burst into spontaneous applause. At our next break, I was surrounded by both men and women, congratulating me on stopping the mansplaining from someone who clearly wasn’t an expert but clearly did like to hear himself speak.
Physical Size and My Love of Shoes
I’m short. I’ll admit it. I have a posse of friends who love to remind me that at 5′6″, I’m actually pretty tall for a woman, but at the tables I’m usually at, I’m definitely the shortest. I always wished that I was taller. I wanted to be one of those women who could look eye to eye with someone in a conversation. The average height of women in America is 5′4″, and the average height of men is 5′9.5″. Yup – they even get the extra .5 inch.2
I’ll tell you from my experience (validated by Malcolm Gladwell3) that executives are taller than that. The average male CEO is just a hair under six feet.
The thing about size is that it gets used as a weapon of intimidation. I was having a conversation with a man who was junior to me in rank but taller than I by at least eight inches. I was telling this gentleman that although I understood his needs, my team wouldn’t be supporting his request. I explained why he wasn’t entitled to this specific set of perks, partially because of rank (I know, so old school), and he was becoming more and more frustrated.
As his frustration rose, so did he. Until he was towering over me (I was still seated), using his physical stature to physically intimidate me into doing what he wanted. I remained seated during this entire exchange, and after a few minutes of being spoken down to, I told him to “sit the f*ck down.”
Now, no, this was not my most tactful response, but it was one that was merited in that moment. Luckily, he did sit down. I told him we could continue the conversation when he was calmer, but we never did.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time I’ve experienced this. Knowingly or not, size is used as an intimidation method, so my strength was built up as to how to verbally respond. I learned to be very pointed in those moments because they happened so often.
My other counter to this size issue was to amass an outstanding shoe collection. I learned pretty early how to walk in four-inch heels. I lived in them for years. It made it much easier to at least get closer to eye level. I’ll pay for it for years (in bills to my podiatrist), but the ability to not have to look up at a male peer, or be “looked down on” by one, was worth it.
Reviews
I have every single performance review document I’ve received since my first “corporate” role. Twenty of them. There are two consistent themes as I look back on all of them.
Those themes are: “Highest Performer” (or some version of that) and “Strong.” What is interesting about those two is that in most of the reviews, it is acknowledged that the performance was accomplished because of the strength.
Despite this, I’ve received feedback that’s as confusing as it is conflicting. Almost without fail, from both female and male leaders, this feedback followed a series of advice that included a level of “please tone down the strength.” Some examples:
“Develop more caring relationships.”
“Have more empathy.”
“Show others that she cares about them.”
What I find disturbing about these comments is that, over the years, I’ve also been told repeatedly to stop being so soft, to be stronger, to toughen up. What I find fascinating is that every time I’ve had to complete some version of executive profiling, I’ve always come out points and points ahead of “where I’m supposed to land” in empathy.
Years ago, for example, I was going through the hiring process for a very senior change agent role at a new firm. The firm had a required executive assessment that its candidates went through. It was a two-day, in-person, exceptionally intensive interview process with a series of psychologists, PhDs, and behaviorists. After the two days, a robust report was produced, and as a result of that report, you were deemed either fit or unfit for the role.
One of the tools in this packet was the CPI, the California Psychological Inventory–Executives. The layman’s description of this tool is that it takes the participant and ranks him or her against the “norms” for executive personality types across multiple behavioral traits. I matched pretty much data point for data point, with the exception of empathy. My empathy was 10 points higher than the norm. Yet, it was listed as a possible derailer.
When I saw this result, I asked myself: Is it a derailer because you view my empathy as weakness, or is it an asset that I don’t exhibit enough of? The fine line that women are expected to walk between being strong and empathetic is exhausting.
Strength
