It's Just as Hard to be Ken as It Is to be Barbie and That's OK for Barbie
You’ve experienced gender blow back, right? You’ve been punished, in micro and macro ways when you opined too frequently or ardently, took a leading role in a business meeting, even (horrors!) interrupted a man in order to correct a misstatement or, as women tend to do more than men, to actually further his argument.
If you think you’re being paranoid, know that the social science backs you up.
When asked to evaluate a hypothetical CEO described either as offering opinions as much as possible or as withholding them, those women who frequently offered opinions frequently were judged by both male and female study participants as being less suited less to leadership than the CEOs who withheld their opinions.
But the study participants didn’t just judge women who acted outside their gender role. They judged the faux-CEO men as more competent and better suited to leadership if they spoke up often but less so if they didn't.
Members of Both Genders Are Limited By Their Cultural Roles
we are all judged by our gender roles
Women are expected to be kind, patient, tolerant, loving, giving and self-effacing. Men are expected to be judgmental, tough, self-seeking and self-promoting. We all suffer social sanctions - from harsh judgments to electoral defeats - when we step outside of society's expectations.
Those who would caution us to "act our role" or suffer the consequences, however, are missing the bigger picture, as are those who urge us to ape the style of the opposite gender. Let's take negotiation as our example.
Most women don’t negotiate compensation and by this late date we’re feeling pretty guilty, inadequate, when we hesitate. But we’re not cowardly and hardly idiots. We know that when we ask for something for ourselves, we often experience social sanctions in the form of back office gossip, withdrawn offers of employment, negative performance reviews, low raises and withdrawn promotional opportunities.
Not asking is a Pavlovian response to decades of this sort of blow back.
it’s a gift
You offer, propose, sell your bargaining partner what they want
A trained negotiator will always have a better strategic negotiation plan than someone who acts like the classic combative male leader who pounds on tables, storms out of rooms, and threatens adverse consequences.
Negotiation actually requires skills seen a “feminine.” Listening more than speaking, for instance, which encourages mutual problem solving.
Interest-based negotiation, well-known to deliver the optimal negotiation results for both parties, requires us to ask our bargaining partners a sufficient number of questions to ascertain their interests (preferences, priorities, fears, needs, desires, and attitudes toward the future); to learn the identity of absent stakeholders whose opinions will affect the final decision; and, to unearth the hidden constraints that might prevent a deal from being reached.
Interest-based negotiation is a natural for women who do not need to puff out our chests, brandish semi-automatics, rattle swords, take uncompromising positions, bully, bluster or fill the room with long rants about the rectitude of our positions and the stupidity of our opponent's. It's not, after all, style that makes a durable, creative, mutually beneficial and ultimately satisfying deal for both parties. It's substance that makes the difference, not the style.
Here's something you will never hear:
I'm sorry. It's true that Joan got me $4.5 million more than John was able to deliver in the last negotiation session. But I don't like her style.
Both men and women can be trained to accomplish these tasks. The fact that women tend to ask more questions, encourage more collaboration and refrain more often than men from "take it or leave it" demands, suggests that we will be more naturally adept at creating better deals if we get the training we need. We shouldn't, however, rule out the guys out just because they're not naturally suited to the best negotiation strategies and tactics. They can learn too. If they can be quiet long enough to hear what someone else is saying.