Girl Thing

[This was originally posted at my blog, Halley's Comment.]

Yesterday, after a few months of working with a number of eye doctors to get cataract surgery and all the follow-up appointments that required, I had a final appointment with a new doctor I hadn't seen before. All the doctors I'd seen at EyeBoston were men and I assumed WRONGLY this one would be too. But instead this doctor was a pretty redheaded woman who seemed a little standoffish at first. I'm one of five kids -- four girls and a boy -- so I spent most of my life before 21 (including attending an all women's college for 4 years) mobbed by girls, women, moms, aunts ... in short, FEMALES. I spent almost all my summers from age 10 to 18 in a summer beach town -- Orient, Long Island -- with three other families full of girls. My pre-age 21 life was all about estrogen. I was Harriet The Spy, Anne of Green Gables, Pippi Longstocking, B is for Betsy and every other spunky girl character you can imagine.

After college, taking a fateful step into a software firm in downtown Boston a week or so after graduation, changed everything. Once I started working there as a secretary and got cozy with a PDP-11 and began learning all about programming in assembly language (something I have no talent for, but did give me a window into all things computer-related), I seem to have spent the second half of my life mobbed by boys, men, male geeks, alpha male businessmen, salarymen, male professors ... in short, those of the testicular trade. I find the whole thing strange. It's as if I've gotten a chance to balance one side of my girl life out with a big dose of boy life -- including having a son instead of a daughter.

The woman doctor and I were both rather cordial and professional at first, but then ... I'm not sure what it was ... but some subject got the two of us GOING and we went into that thing that women seem so good at ... instant sorority-type blood sister BONDING. Within a few minutes we were telling all our stories, secrets, you name it. We were instantly talking about very intimate personal stuff.

Later, I walked back to the car with the male friend who took me to the eye appointment. (I can't drive myself since my eyes get all diliated and weird). We've become friends because he's been through eye surgery too and for a million other good reasons.

I was telling him something about a radio producer on public radio who had interviewed me the week before. It was about women bonding and women's networking ability and in particular this blog and what I thought about how women will participate in, lead and innovate all forms of social software. He reasoned that we are naturals when it comes to connecting and communicating and networking.

My friend who was driving me home from the eye doctor is married with three kids, two daughters, one son, so he's had good experience with women's communication styles to test my theories.

I had told the radio guy and I told my friend that when it came to business, I found women were NOT that good at networking.

I honestly feel we are not ... and we were puzzling over this as we drove out of downtown Boston, past Mass General, over Longfellow Bridge, onto Memorial Drive, past MIT, past Harvard, watching the Charles River lose its hard crunchy ice. Also, he's an entrepreneur in high-tech, so that helped the discussion as we were both coming from the same place.

I told him about the doctor and our instant rapport. I told him it was NOT always that way in business with other women. In fact, it was often the opposite.

"But maybe there's nothing to compete over with the woman doctor," he said, "maybe like any underrepresented group -- say like African Americans in high-tech -- maybe women in high-tech know they are where they are, because they fill a "token" slot for a women in a given organization. If they help other women into their sphere, they run the risk of losing their position. Maybe it's not a good idea to encourage your competitors."

He had a good point. Maybe that IS part of the game. I hate to acknowledge it.

I mentioned speaking at conferences. "You're right. If there are 3 women on the program and 17 men and I suggest to the organizer that there's a great woman speaker they should consider, I run the risk of putting one of the three of us out of a speaking gig, not going to a 4 to 16 ratio."

And then I thought of that notion when it came to jobs, professorships, corporate board appointments. If I were one of three women on a ten-person corporate board and I recommended a great woman to join the board, I still believe she would be considered for a "woman board member slot" not for one of the ten slots and in some ways, women are still being treated like tokens -- a bit like pretty wallpaper to brighten up the boardroom. I'd be crazy to champion the person who could push me right off the board.

I've seen older women who have operated under this premise throughout my working life. They seem to betray their gender on an ongoing basis and are often very tightly aligned with the male power players in their area of expertise. It's a frustrating reality. They do not share their access to privilege. They are queens at court who only hire ugly, inept ladies-in-waiting, if at all. And those ladies will wait and wait and wait, never to be promoted and are dead meat if they're ever found messing around with the king.

I've been accused of doing this. This is actually NOT the way I operate. I'm trying hard to promte women in a number of public and not-so-public ways.

We talked about another angle. I volunteered this -- not him. I mentioned how men in groups often keep the conversation less PERSONAL than women do. In a work ssituation, men might challenge you, yell you down, battle a point with you, but there is often a feeling when the meetings over, there are no grudges held, it's on to the next thing. Again, maybe I'm wrong, but you can cross a woman and it can become a mess of hurt feelings and a very PERSONAL wrong. Hell really may have no fury like a woman scorned. Some have written about this and that men growing up in a sporting culture, being on teams at an early age and learning that one day you win, one day you lose, get better training in not taking everything personally. I know women reading this will absolutely crucify me for saying so, but I do think we take things so personally sometimes. More personally than business merits. It's just work, it's not the end of the world.

I told him I think it's much easier to deal with men in groups than women at times. Power is weilded overtly by men, women learn that being powerful is not attractive and we are often taught to be powerful in very passive aggressive ways. Maybe it's what we learn in families -- I don't know -- but there are dynamics afoot there. I know it's something we have to really examine as women get into more and more powerful positions in the world. Still, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't use our power openly. There's still a culture of powerful men looking decisive and powerful women looking like pushy bitches. I guess the issue is to figure out WHO is defining this? I hope lots of people disagree with me and tell me I'm OH SO WRONG about all of this and that we see powerful women in the same way we see powerful men.