women, men and being a con artist

[rm]

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/01/a-rant-about-women/



I'm pretty good at the sort of stuff Shirky is talking about. Maybe that's because my dad was in advertising, but it's probably not. Maybe it's because I've never been or felt consistently female and therefore am not the sort of person (woman) Shirky is ranting about it, but that's sort of besides the point, as we'll get to below.

The fact is it's probably because my perception of my childhood was that it was frightening and unpredictable and I always had to be ready with a response that would keep me safe or loved. I wasn't hit. I wasn't abused. I wasn't not loved. But my father's temper was unpredictable and spooked me nearly all the time, and the things I could be guilted for by family, teachers and/or peers (getting a cold, not smelling right, playing the wrong type of pretend, not being "cool") had a lot of impact on me.

I'm an only child, so I can't really tell you what of that was a truly difficult environment and what of that is the fact that I've always been pretty sensitive (some of this, I now know, is probably celiac-related) to loud noises, to teasing, to social cues, etc., and like most kids, my main goal was to not cry. As I became a tween (a word we didn't even have then) that goal became, more accurately, to hate myself enough that I could force myself into the forms that would prevent other people from hating me even more.

And that's had a huge impact on me. It's made me ambitious, competitive and deeply insecure. It's made me a catastrophist and a self-aggrandizer.

And while people who tell stories well at parties, who are self-confident, who are even smug (and I am all those things), are sexy... this isn't sexy. It's unpleasant for you and for me. And it's stressful.

Now, is this because I'm female-socialized and do care (as opposed to men, according to what Shirky posits) about the consequences when I get caught? Or is it because I'm not as good at it as I think (again because I'm female-socialized)? Or is it because Skirky isn't acknowledging consciously in his piece how much all of us, regardless of gender, spend so much of our lives feeling like frauds (did this happen before mass media, I wonder -- before mass media the pool with which anyone competed with was smaller and so, arguably, were the stakes) and so live in fear, not just of failure, but of success? There's always a higher mountain to fall from.

I loathe how often I feel this way -- like I'm telling a story to make people like me when I should just shut up, or just that I'm some sort of fraud in general. I loathe many of the reasons I am successful. I loathe the impact what it takes to be even as slightly successful as I am has on others. I loathe the idea of any one else having to feel this way.

And I hear everything Shirky says, much of it while nodding my head (ETA: which doesn't mean I think it's good or that he gets the impact of what he's saying (some of which is victim blaming BS, you bet) but I think a lot of the observations are spot on, even if the conclusions are wonky).

But wow, as a veteran of friendships and relationships with alcoholics, and as a person whose life as been defined by the borders between truth and fiction (my father's career and several of my own have centered on this), it's hard for me to get on board with the idea that more lies are the answer.

That said, I've no idea what the answer is -- for women or anyone else -- and whether the path to it is up. Or down.

Comments

[kadairk.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that, and your response.

The bigger thing I come away with from Shirky's rant is a realization of "hey, I SHOULD speak up for myself more." Say I can do something, but only when I believe I actually can do it (which involves silencing my constant critic), instead of waiting for someone to realize just how competent I am. Really, it comes down to believing in myself AND sharing that belief with others.

Again, thank you. I think I needed this today. And I don't think the answer to the situation Shirky describes necessarily means lying. I think there is an ethical way to feel good about ourselves, and to point out to others that we have talents. I don't think gender needs to play a role in this, at all.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I agree there are ethical ways to promote ourselves, but Shirky spends a lot of time highlighting that the ones that are or border on unethical (or are at least linked to other behaviors that are unethical) are the key here, and that really disturbed me, because the price there is high and I think we're all paying it -- even the men he claims don't care about the consequences.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with this assessment - raising the bar of unethical behavior is itself a sad solution. Frankly the whole article is one of those I tend to avoid because it makes me irritated with humanity in general :(

I fully admit to being one of the women who doesn't sing her own praises enough, no doubt in part of socialization (which, no, you can't get out from under just by wanting to), but there are other things at work as well.

I appreciate your candor in mentioning your own history and ways of coping in a childhood situation that sounds chaotic.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The problem is that this rant is only half the issue (in large part, because IMHO Shirky is an idiot). The problem is that in our sexist society, on average both men and women respond differently to men who attempt to self-promote than they do to women who attempt to do the exact same thing.

The traditional explanation for the gender differences that Babcock found is that men are simply more aggressive than women, perhaps because of a combination of genetics and upbringing. The solution to gender disparities, this school of thought suggests, is to train women to be more assertive and to ask for more. However, a new set of experiments by Babcock and Hannah Riley Bowles, who studies the psychology of organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, offers an entirely different explanation.

Their study, which was coauthored by Carnegie Mellon researcher Lei Lai, found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".

"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not."

Also, this article.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to that, as depressing as the information is. It's useful to have as a source.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

You're welcome - I get very annoyed at the sort of "blame the victim" nonsense that the likes of Shirky and far too many others regularly declaim.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you just said.

I could get into the more personal reasons why, but it's been a long day...and I'll spare you. :-) But thanks for saying what I was going to say, first.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you and some of our ongoing discussions about the "squeaky wheel" as I read this. :* We should discuss more in person!