Yes, that’s what I heard from a senior leader of a small company I was consulting with who was discussing moral issues in his office. He went on to say that “men don’t have the same problems getting along and that’s what happens when you have an office full of women.”
wow! As an author on women’s empowerment issues, in addition to my many years of experience in human resources, I was shocked and saddened by this gross generalization and his assessment of the problems I was having in her office. I was shocked that her first response was to blame an entire “genre” for her company’s labor problems. Of course, I couldn’t resist digging deeper and asked him what specifically was contributing to these moral issues and really delved into what those reasons were. In other words, What were the actual behaviors being exhibited, how, and more importantly, WHY? “Well,” she began, “one of our managers was trying to address performance issues with her employee and he snapped at her and wanted to leave the job and now he wants to quit.” She went on to say, “This would never have happened if it were men involved as they are more reasonable.”
Wait now! Talk about a controversial statement! Maybe I should have answered, “well, if they were men, they would go home, grab a gun, and shoot the person who gave them the answer.” But that would be wrong. As wrong as the general statement about women, IMHO. But fighting derogatory comments with other derogatory comments is never the answer. The most logical approach was that I started peeling back the layers of this onion, and lo and behold, the manager in question was recently promoted to her position and had almost no experience giving her constructive feedback. Second, the person she was providing feedback to had only been with the company for less than 60 days and was struggling to learn the concepts of her new job. Long story short, they were both overwhelmed by their new responsibilities and this combination created a perfect storm that manifested as tension on both accounts. After evaluating the details behind “why” this happened, it became clear that, from an HR perspective, the root cause was due to a lack of training and proper onboarding of both employees in their respective roles. The conclusion was that the business failed to provide the manager with the tools and foundation to successfully provide feedback, and floundered trying to “figure it out” without proper guidance and support. In addition, the company also failed the employee by not conducting ongoing checks to determine his level of competence and comfort in his new role. They both felt like failures and this was showing outwardly which was creating low morale throughout the office. I would say that anyone, male or female, would have had some sort of reaction to this lack of support.
However, this situation really resonated with me because, as you now know, it ultimately had NOTHING to do with “women not getting along.” But sadly, this is bona fide sexism and it is something that is very real and is clearly still pervasive in the workforce in 2018. Interestingly, when I shared this scenario with some of my colleagues, some of them too, repeated the same thing. feeling like the main leader did. This was the most surprising observation to me, that women (even younger women) have bought into these gender stereotypes and believe that women are irrational, emotional, competitive, and can’t get along. I did my part that day to educate that senior leader and help him lay a foundation for new and newly promoted employees going forward. But I feel like that wasn’t enough.
The whole situation made me realize that sexism is an issue that needs to be discussed more widely and I feel a responsibility to raise awareness that this type of thinking still exists in workplaces everywhere. But awareness is not enough. It’s time to show that we are unwilling to tolerate these outdated pervasive statements and proactively address them when we hear them, both inside and outside the workplace. We all need to do our part both to educate men that this mentality is no longer acceptable and to empower women to stand up and become vocal advocates in their quest for equal rights. Only then will we be able to crush these outdated ways of thinking and move in the right direction.
