What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know

4. Spotting Tightrope Patterns

59 4 Spotting Tightrope Patterns In the chat rooms around Silicon Valley, from the time I arrived and until long after I left HP, I was routinely referred to as a “bimbo” or a “bitch”—too soft or too hard, and presumptuous , besides. — carlY fiorina in 2008, as the presidential election approached, Saturday Night Live (SNL) featured a sketch in which Amy Poehler as hillary Clinton and tina Fey as Sarah Palin held a joint press conference to address the role sexism had played in their respective campaigns . the women opened with an introduction that segues into a riff on their respective political positions. “i believe global warming is caused by man,” Poehler says. “And i believe it’s just god hugging us closer,” Fey answers. “i don’t agree with the bush Doctrine.” “i don’t know what that is!” “but, Sarah, one thing we can agree on is that sexism can never be allowed to permeate an American election,” Poehler says. Fey nods at the camera. “So please stop Photoshopping my head on sexy bikini pictures.” “And stop saying i have cankles.” “Don’t refer to me as a MilF.” “And don’t refer to me as a FluRge. i googled what it stands for, and i do not like it.” “Reporters and commentators, stop using words that diminish us, like ‘pretty,’ ‘attractive,’ ‘beautiful’—” Fey says. “‘harpy,’ ‘shrew,’ ‘boner shrinker,’” Poehler cuts in.1 60 • Spotting Tightrope Patterns the sketch plays up the stereotypes that were repeated through the campaign coverage, which cast Palin as sexy, feminine, and unserious and Clinton as aggressive, masculine, and cold. given the context, it would be easy to dismiss as a joke. except these things actually happened. Palin’s head was Photoshopped onto a picture of a woman in an American-flag bikini.2 Fashion consultant tim gunn criticized Clinton’s “cankles” and general fashion sense on national television.3 both liberal bill Maher and conservative tucker Carlson have called Palin a MilF in public.4 FluRge is a made-up word, but commentator Andrew bacevich referred to Clinton as a harpy in the online magazine Salon.5 Regardless of your political leanings or your opinion of either woman, the sexism that emerged in the 2008 presidential campaign (and again in the lead-up to the 2012 election) was pretty shocking. the public reception of both Clinton and Palin illustrates the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” quality of femininity. So how do you win? if you’re criticized if you’re “too feminine” and you’re criticized if you’re “too masculine ,” then what’s the “right” way to be a woman? this is the tightrope women walk every day. nearly threefourths (73 percent) of the women we interviewed reported tightrope problems, with women of color 9 percentage points more likely to report them (77 percent) than white women (68 percent). nearly twice as many women interviewed reported “too feminine” problems as they did “too masculine” problems (66 percent versus 34 percent). (this is interesting, because “too masculine” problems have received far more attention.) Veer feminine, like Palin, and you’re dismissed as frivolous and lacking in substance. Veer masculine , like Clinton, and you’re a bitch who’s impossible to work with. Palin and Clinton are two extreme examples, but the tightrope affects almost all women at some point in their careers. As Shelley Correll, a sociologist at Stanford, said to Joan in an interview, “you have to be recognized for your competence. you have to have influence . you have to get other people to be able to go along with your ideas. you need to gain access to informal information or insider information. And you have to do all of this while avoiding being Spotting Tightrope Patterns • 61 threatening, not upsetting the hierarchy, and creating the sense that you fit in in the organization.” As a woman who works with the investment banking industry observed, if women “play a traditional female role, which is more consensus building and more gentle in terms of team dynamics and looking out for the team, they’re considered just too wimpy to have what it takes to succeed in this aggressive culture. on the other hand, when they jump in and they play that kind of investmentbanking aggressive, they are labeled as a bitch immediately.” “there’s different rules that women have to follow,” a professor agreed. “you...