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

9. Spotting Tug of War Patterns

179 9 Spotting Tug of War Patterns I’m not a girl at Google. I’m a geek at Google.1 — marissa maYer once a year or so, a study or trend piece comes out about why women are bad to work for, about nasty female co-workers, about watercooler Queen bees and Mean girls at the office. And then there’s popular culture: from Working Girl to The Devil Wears Prada, the evil female boss is almost as tired a trope as the prostitute with a heart of gold. For all the trendy new names, it’s just a rehashing of the same old story. “Female rivalry in the workplace may sometimes be as important as sexism in holding women back in their careers,” opined an article in london’s Sunday Times.2 but female rivalry, in fact, is often the result of sexism. two 2011 studies found that a common strategy for women experiencing gender discrimination in the course of their careers was to stereotype, distance themselves from, and criticize other women.3 Joan sometimes calls this the “Why would i hang out with losers?” strategy of coping with gender bias. An important proviso: by discussing the gender dynamics that set women against each other, we are not saying that women never support each other. often they do. nor are we saying that women should support each other every single millisecond: to say that would be to enforce the prescriptive stereotype that women ought 180 • Spotting Tug of War Patterns to be endlessly selfless and communal. Men don’t always support each other, and when they don’t, we don’t often suggest they have personality problems. instead our contention is this: that women’s workplace fights over gender play a much larger role in complicating office politics for women than do men’s fights over gender with men. the reasons for this are complex, and it’s the bottom line that’s important —gender bias against women often fuels conflict among women. Passing in 1766, the young botanist Jean baret boarded the Étoile, a vessel captained by louis Antoine de bougainville and headed west from France to explore the new World. baret worked hard onboard the ship and, when it landed in South America, proved to be a diligent and skilled explorer who, according to some sources, discovered the bougainvillea, which was subsequently named after the ship’s captain . exploring was a romantic career with extraordinary cachet, and baret’s adventure would have been enough to make him quite a successful young man. except that Jean was a woman. her real name was Jeanne baret. Although she had been a talented botanist at home in France, she would never have been able to participate in the Étoile’s voyage had she not bound her chest and passed as a man.4 it’s probably safe to say that this phenomenon is relatively rare. What is considerably more common is what law professors Devon Carbado and Mitu gulati call strategic or partial passing, which is when an outsider takes pains to assure insiders that he or she is just like them.5 Pretending to like sports, joining in or laughing at a session of dirty jokes, or blowing off a significant other to work late are some strategies used by women to gain the acceptance of men. For some women, passing may mean acting like “one of the boys”; for others, it could mean simply not challenging masculine behaviors. in either case, it serves to defuse any potential threat Spotting Tug of War Patterns • 181 to masculinity that a female might present, by reassuring men that increasing gender diversity won’t require them to change their behavior or rethink their assumptions. one new girl said she was recently at a law firm where several of the partners went to a strip club, including one woman, Sue. “if only everyone could be like Sue!” the guys said. “‘Sue’s so cool, Sue’s so this, she’s so pretty, she’s so smart, she’s so athletic.’ in other words, she’s good because we don’t need to make any adjustments for her,” the new girl said. “the women were very ambivalent about her. on the one hand, they were like, ‘how can we be Passing throUghoUt history Up until not too long ago, women who wanted to do jobs traditionally reserved for men actually had...