Part 6 (2/2)

Men can get away with tears because it's unexpected. Men believe powerful people don't cry. If they do, they must have an excellent reason.

Women are expected to cry. And when we do, men think it's because we're giving in to a natural instinct or worse, they think we're using tears as a game prop, a tool to manipulate them into feeling guilt.

Many years ago I knew a man who was fired from a rival media company. He marched into his boss's office and burst into tears, telling the boss that he could never disclose to his wife what had happened because she looked up to him, that he could no longer afford to keep his kids in private school, that he'd have to drop out of his private club.

The boss's reaction? He felt terrible-not because the guy didn't need to be fired (the move was long overdue), but because the boss could see himself in the same situation. ”Here's a breadwinner just like me,” he thought. ”What would happen if I were in his shoes? Would I fall apart like this?”

The boss called Human Resources and gave the man six additional months of severance.

A month later, that same boss fired a woman. When she cried in the office, he was so uncomfortable that the moment she left, he walked out and told a colleague, ”We were right to let her go. Can you believe she broke down right in my office? I don't want people working for us who can't control their emotions.”

2

They Can Have s.e.x. You Can't.

A woman at a major accounting firm once confided in me, ”One of the major reasons I've succeeded is that there are so few s.e.xy men here. I was never tempted.”

Not a small point. I always recommend that unless they're outright husband hunting, job seekers look for positions in places where they find the men generally unattractive.

Some companies are fraught with s.e.xual tension, whether the employees are attractive or not. You feel it from the moment you walk in the door for your first interview. You see it in the way people look at each other. You hear it in the suggestive comments.

Avoid these places. They're the ones where you're likely to get caught up in a s.e.xual liaison. And when you do, you lose.

Men are more likely to get away with s.e.x in the office. The reason? After the romance is gone and the fighting starts, the more powerful person plots to oust the subordinate from the picture. Since a man is generally the one with the clout, the woman usually ends up getting fired, transferred, or pushed aside. Little if anything happens to him.

Even if a woman ends her affair without a demotion, she's still tarred. People will always see her differently; they'll say her success is due to her s.e.xual skills. And without her team's respect, she's not a desirable player.

For a man, the worst-case scenario (apart from dismissal) is a s.e.xual hara.s.sment suit. But to win her case a woman has to prove that s.e.x wasn't consensual, and that might be hard to do after a two-year fling.

GAME STUDY: Not long ago one of the top-ranking women at a large manufacturing conglomerate left her job for a smaller company on the opposite coast. The official reason: She had the long-term potential of making serious money. The real reason: She had been having an affair with a married vice president and got caught. The two had been equals within the hierarchy, which is one reason the woman felt she was safe when the romance started. She knew it wouldn't last forever, and when it ended, she figured they would both return to the life they knew before.

What she hadn't counted on was office gossip. At her level, there were three other women and 25 men. She had told only one of the women, but somehow all the men seemed to know. Her former lover denied he'd told a soul, and it didn't really matter whether he was telling the truth or not. The damage was done. If the subject of extramarital s.e.x arose, every man in the room would look directly at her. Any time anyone made a s.e.xual joke, any time s.e.xual innuendo pervaded the air, she always felt it referred to her. At company social events many of the men began to come on to her as if she were s.e.xually available.

Perhaps she was oversensitive, or perhaps the men really were making her life miserable. Regardless, she knew she felt too uncomfortable to achieve the results she wanted, so she left.

3

They Can Fidget. You Can't.

A close friend who works at a huge software concern told me this story: While he was sitting in a meeting with one woman and seven other men, the woman, a rising star, occasionally tapped her fingernails on her watch, making a sharp clicking sound. Every time she did this, at least one man shot her a look. These looks weren't kind. And they meant that for that one moment he wasn't paying attention to the meeting, but to her.

About an hour into the meeting one of the men, another star, began drumming his fingers on the table. Since everyone in the room had seen this behavior before, they knew what it meant: The man was becoming bored. Because he was well regarded, his impatience infected the rest of the room, and the meeting quickly broke up.

Women fidget. Tapping our fingers, twirling our hair, smoothing our dress usually represents an old habit from childhood, and usually indicates insecurity.

Personally, I had a habit of pus.h.i.+ng my cuticles back with my fingers. I kept my hands in my lap as I did it, so I figured no one could see me. But years ago a male executive asked me brusquely why an executive would do something so silly. I immediately stopped. I was startled that anyone had ever seen me do it.

Guys consider a woman's annoying little habits exactly that-annoying little habits. To them, she's broadcasting to the world that she is uncomfortable, insecure, fl.u.s.tered.

When a man is tapping, however, it usually means he's impatient. Thus it tends to be a power play, a nonverbal cue that says, ”I'm bored, I've heard enough of this, let's get it over with.”

If you want to play the game the way men play, don't do anything that makes them think less of you. If you do, you are letting your power erode.

GAME HINT: As you go up the corporate ladder, you'll have more of an opportunity to sit in those huge, overstuffed chairs in presidents' offices and boardrooms. They're so large they'll make you feel like a kid again. I've seen important women sit in one of those chairs and suddenly start fidgeting like a twelve-year-old.

Sadly, office furniture is built for men. The manufacturers have no choice but to make those chairs male-sized, which means they are usually uncomfortable for us. Instead of being fully present, with our hands in front of us and our back erect, the chair seems too low, the table too high; when you try to fidget your way to comfort, the table seems too low, the chair too high. It's hard to feel powerful when your feet barely touch the ground.

Learn how to sit in a man's world. It's his equipment, his furniture. To look as though you're in command of the s.p.a.ce you inhabit, try some simple tricks. Don't let the s.p.a.ce command you. Lean forward, sit on the edge of the chair, be present. When you find a place of comfort, stay there. I have to admit it took me years to figure out how to inhabit my executive desk chair.

Someday we may have the power to design our own furniture. It's hard to imagine, but try to picture the moment when office furniture is tailored for women's bodies, and it's the men who are fidgeting to find comfort.

4

They Can Yell. You Can't.

Recently two executives, a man and a woman, engaged in a public fight in the corridors of CNN. Within the s.p.a.ce of ten minutes, the story came back to me through several different people, which meant it was moving rapidly around the building. I know that the woman became very angry and finally called the man a p.r.i.c.k. I know that he called her something equally bad.

I don't know exactly what else he said, or he did, because all the reports of the story concerned her. This woman had yelled just as loudly and as furiously as the man. People were astounded.

No one is surprised to hear a man raise his voice, see him show his anger publicly, watch him turn red and fume. Men are expected to shout. They spend their lives roaring at each other. When they play games, they yell at their opponents, they yell at their teammates, they yell at the spectators. They yell at themselves, too.

Women, however, are taught to control our anger. When we feel upset, wronged, hurt, we learn to internalize it. Guys turn it outward; they blame whatever it was that made them angry, not themselves. Current statistics show that self-mutilation among American women is on the rise, and if you combine that with the figures on anorexia and bulimia, you see how much we direct our anger inwards.

When a woman does display anger, people are often uneasy, frightened; they perceive her as difficult, unladylike. They act as though she has no right to yell. After all, the woman's role is to work out issues in relations.h.i.+ps, to mediate, to compromise.

Because men perceive a show of anger as something out of character for a woman, they judge it as a loss of control. It's almost always perceived negatively.

However, as I've acc.u.mulated more power, I've realized that there are times when a careful dose of yelling is appropriate. You can't keep inspiring people when they make mistakes or when they don't reach their goals if you don't occasionally vent your disappointment loudly and clearly. There's a point where people actually expect to be chastised, and a point where they'll stop trying hard unless external force is applied. That force is often a boss's wrath.

But I'm very cautious when I engage my anger. If a woman becomes angry too often, she will be seen as (what other word is there?) a b.i.t.c.h. For us, anger is at best used as a secret weapon, one that should be used sparingly and strategically.

You have a perfect right to get mad at someone. But when you do, take a deep breath, consider what you want to say, and say it in a controlled manner. This way you will display your self-possessed power rather than your lack of control.

GAME HINT: If you show some well-thought-out, justified anger, don't let your natural instinct for peace drive you to apologize later. When we get angry and punish our children, we rarely apologize if we felt we were right. The same goes for work. If the anger is genuine, express it, get over it quickly, and move on. Don't place yourself in a one-down position by expressing regrets.

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