I’ve had this sort of conversation with people many times.
For whatever reason, men are far more likely to go to their supervisor and say, “You can’t treat me that way” or “I deserve a raise” or else just start a job hunt, telling themself “I deserve better”.
Women, for whatever reason, seem far less likely to do these things. They sit, and they suffer, and they just put up with bad situations.
And I’ve told women: “You want to know why men are at the top? Because they don’t put up with crap. And you shouldn’t either. Tell you boss you deserve that promotion. Tell that guy to knock off that thing he does that you don’t like. Don’t put up with that stuff.”
And every time — every time — the woman says to me: “You don’t understand.”
Oh, I understand. And your problem is your problem. It’s all on you honey.
Women have a number of traits, some of which help them in the workplace, others of which hurt them—sometimes quite a bit. Some of my personal observations are below (feel free to disagree):
- Woman are generally more passive & agreeable than men. As you pointed out, men are more likely to be assertive and less afraid to disagree or protest.
- As I pointed out, women will often seek men out to do the difficult, dangerous and dirty jobs (especially the ones that can get you killed).
- Women are very process oriented. If you give them a process, in many cases they are more likely to follow it to the letter than men. Sometimes this is a positive, but it can also be a negative, especially if the process is flawed or needs to be improved. And it is often a man who comes up with the process in the first place.
- Women’s IQ tend to cluster around 100 with a smaller standard deviation than men’s. This means that women are generally not as stupid as the stupidest man (and, let’s face it: some men are really stupid). On the flip side, there are far fewer genius level women than men.
— Men can get very obsessive and hyper-focused about a task they deem important or interesting. They will often give up sleep and showers to complete it (think computer geek types). In contrast, women tend to want to live a more balanced life (one of the few things they are vocal about).
— Women have a biological clock; men don’t. This means that career women who approach their mid 30s will be consumed a lot more with the desire to have children.
— When they are young, a lot of women learn to manipulate men to get what they want. This power starts to wain in their late 20s. Once they become sufficiently unattractive, it may go away completely, making them lost and bitter. This goes 5X for women who actively use SEX to get what they want (yeah, I’ve seen a fair amount of that).
— Women are smaller & less prone to violence than men. This means intimidation is generally not a tool in their toolbox. Depending on the job, this can be either good or bad. They can yell and nag, however.
— Lastly, women are more compassionate and forgiving than men. Sometimes this is good, but often it is not. They will turn a blind eye to & make excuses for bad performance. They will also be less likely to enforce standards than men. I have seen this over & over, even with smart women that should know better. In the short term, this improves workplace harmony; in the long term, it can ruin oganizational morale & performance.
I’m not like other women in that respect. I don’t take sh!t from people, least of all employers. I did when I was a teen, but not so anymore. Life is too damn short.
I’m not willing to put up with it. Period. A lot more women out there are like me than you think, but you don’t hear about them.
in my case, I’ve had women managers who were just idiots and
anti-men. One of the last time was when my company (whom I love working for) merged with another company (whom we in the same company hated) and their manager, became our department manager. Right from the get-go, all men were the enemy. I surmised she just couldnt get laid and that frustration carried to the workplace.
Women are more likely to select jobs that fit their schedule, have benefits other than pay. shorter commute times and the like.
In general, women will trade higher pay for these types of perks and men will trade these type of perks for higher pay.
My daughter has a college degree and could drive an hour or so each way to get higher pay than she currently makes at a grocery chain picking orders where she can drive 10 minutes, work hours of her choice and not have to hire a baby sitter.
Is the job ideal? Of course not. But it is a calculated choice that she makes.