Have You Been Called Emotional or Aggressive At Work
[Music]
[Applause]
personally
i love getting called emotional
or aggressive i also like dramatic
pushy sensitive and direct
these negative words most commonly used
to describe women
are actually compliments yes you heard
me correctly
if you peel back the real meaning of
these words used to mean
women they are in fact compliments
but like most women when these words
or microaggressions were used against me
i took it as a hit years of put
and character assassinations made me
question my job
wonder if i was in the right profession
and even made me uncomfortable in my own
skin
so i started researching and i found
that the average person had never even
heard of the term
second generation gender bias let alone
be able to explain it
gender bias on the other hand was known
experienced it’s an obvious overt action
where women
are intentionally left out whereas
second generation gender bias
is much more clever it refers to the
language that on the surface
seems non-sexist but in reality
it’s leveraged to discriminate against
women for not
following preconceived gender norms it’s
so clever in fact
women even use this language to describe
other women
because it seems so normal
finding this term was hugely validating
for what i was experiencing but
unfortunately there were no real
solutions offered
but i refused to give up so the punches
kept on coming
and buried underneath all that
negativity
i couldn’t see that these words actually
presented the key
there was the opportunity to change the
landscape
for women men and organizational culture
you could say i was raised to go against
the grain to compete
my father saw no difference in gender
which is why when he didn’t have a son
he put me in t-ball at the age of six
for the next seven years i was in an
all-boys baseball league
not softball boys baseball i was one of
only two girls
in the entire league when the boys from
the opposing team
saw there was a girl on our team the
jokes and the snickers would start
it would usually end with them trying to
hit me with the ball while i was up to
bat
some of those balls would land but we
know there’s no crying in baseball
so i would smile walk to first
and then steal as many faces as i could
this fun after school activity
prepared me for my first job
at 22 i started my career in the male
dominated field
of tech sales selling hardware and
software to wall street executives
you could say this is basically me
i was once again surrounded in fact i
was hired
managed and trained by men my clients
were all men
and in 17 years of my career i had one
female boss
and she lasted less than a year and all
that time i had three standout male
bosses
they got the best of me but a bit about
that later
i did well on paper i would make or
exceed my quotas
but every performance review would be
served with a large side
of negativity every quarter i would
enter a conference room
take a seat and wait to get hit
with the following punches you’re too
emotional you’re too aggressive
or my favorite you’re just not a team
player
these microaggressions would be followed
up with helpful suggestions
like you should talk less and listen
more
or you should really follow your peers
these words were not only crushing but
also confusing to me
after all i was following their
instructions i was doing exactly as they
said
in fact not only was i doing what they
said but i was now dressing like them
too
their black pantsuit became my uniform
my hair would be tied back
i’d wear no makeup and i even
entertained
those hideous black loafers that should
have been left in the 90s
no one should have been wearing those
loafers not even the men
i wanted to fit in i wanted to feel
accepted and as far as the
recommendation on talking loss well
that was going to be a lot harder
let’s be real have you seen the wolf of
wall street because the quiet ones just
don’t make it
but being in my 20s there was no one to
point out
that while i needed to learn to be
successful like men
i couldn’t go about it the same way
backwards and in heels was the trick
but i wasn’t willing to change my stride
instead
i started looking at the language used
to describe women
to describe me and i started to
recognize it for what it was
second generation gender bias was i ever
going to get a positive performance
review
if this was the only language prescribed
for women like me
even as i outperformed while i was
searching for an answer
columbia was working on an answer of
their own their
heidi howard study took the resume of a
successful venture capitalist
heidi rosen they passed out her resume
to a group of students
but unknown to the students half the
resumes
had been doctored and heidi’s name was
replaced with the fictitious name
of howard students were then told to
rate how likely
they would be to hire or want to work
with the resume that they were given
the results were powerful although the
students
graded both resumes as equally competent
after all they were the same resume
howard was judged to be
more likable a good colleague
and someone they’d like to work for
whereas heidi
well she was deemed to be selfish
and not a team player
amazing how a simple name change on a
resume
can lead to not being a team player or
worse
not getting picked for the team i
remember
vividly and on multiple occasions my
boss saying to me
if it were up to me i never would have
chosen you for my team
we’ll call him newman newman was the
type of guy that for kicks
would call me into his office and talk
at me for hours
literally standing over me
just to tell me how wrong i was for the
job
how i didn’t fit into what he wanted or
what he needed
his whole goal was to break me get me to
leave
or make me cry thanks for baseball dad
paid off when i wouldn’t
he would look at me and he’d say
something to the effect of
wow you’re one tough [ __ ]
why he didn’t like me i don’t know maybe
he thought i had more testosterone than
he did
either way it didn’t work for him
my other boss you can call him sergeant
ellis
he only expected excellent insane work
ethic
and he made sure you knew there was very
little room for error
between the two you’d have thought i was
completely miserable
but in fact i loved working for sergeant
ellis
he rewarded hard work he let me have a
voice
and he knew what true leadership meant
he was the reason i was a top performer
in spite of my other boss because even
with his imperfections
he didn’t try to turn me into something
i wasn’t a subordinate
or a woman who questioned her value
he knew how to leverage me to his
advantage i know that great leaders
and great managers know how to get the
best
from their teams regardless of if they
fit within their preconceived gender
norms
my other two standout bosses gave me the
confidence
to close one of the largest software
deals in the americas at one of the
largest software companies
when i was only 27 and the other
taught me that men could be allies and
how to set boundaries with those who
couldn’t
but they weren’t just stand out to me
they also happened to be the most
successful people i ever worked for
you think they got there because they
had issues with preconceived gender
norms swedish researchers
actually recorded conversations of
venture capitalists speaking about
entrepreneurs who would pitch them
for investment when objectivity turns to
subjectivity
the opinions of the investors shifted
when there was a change in
gender overall male entrepreneurs were
seen as
ambitious risk takers who took action to
try out their ideas
or female entrepreneurs they were
generally seen as
cautious risk adverse and reluctant to
take the next step
the same attribute that was deemed
positive for a male entrepreneur
would be relabeled as negative for a
female entrepreneur
for example if the entrepreneurs were
young
well the mail was perceived as promising
whereas the female was relabeled as
inexperienced and if the entrepreneurs
had experience
well the male was clearly knowledgeable
whereas the females would be worried
you get the idea my favorite
was if the deemed the entrepreneurs
attractive
the women would be graded as more
careless with money
i’m not sure of the correlation between
being attractive and being careless with
money
but if i had to guess this spoke more to
the investors
choices and partners than the women who
actually pitched them for investment
when i read this i wondered how our
standards had fallen
so low and why second generation gender
bias
had spread so toxically unchecked
my company at the time participated in
one of the largest it conferences in the
world
we’d spent thousands of dollars on one
of these over-the-top display booths
it went well the booth was impressive
and everybody kept commenting
on the 90-inch tv the tv might have been
our showpiece that week
but it also turned into our nightmare
the van to transport the tv off site
wasn’t big enough if we didn’t move it
within the hour
our company would be fined thousands of
dollars in storage fees
glancing over three lanes of
bumper-to-bumper traffic in san
francisco
i took off running unfortunately i
wasn’t wearing those loafers
i had graduated from dressing like men
and i was now in heels but i ran towards
a span
and in the distance i got there knocked
on the window and said
hi i’m amy is there any way you can help
me transport a 90-inch tv about 10 miles
away he had a confused look on his face
i pulled money out of my pocket and said
i’ll pay you
now my friend joe was listening i ran
back to the team to announce
we have a van we then loaded the tv
and our vp of technology nicholas
just for collateral insurance in case
joe decided he wanted to acquire
a new big screen in the end we got the
tv transported and saved thousands of
dollars
and still made our flights back to new
york in time however
that story spread like wildfire back in
the office
there were several versions the truth
and everything else i was known as
the crazy woman who played frogger in
san francisco during rush hour traffic
or the aggressive woman who grabbed some
random guy and a stalker van
off the street one of the executives i
worked for carl
finally said to me where were the guys
why didn’t they just handle the tv
i joked well actually nicholas came in
handy for collateral insurance
he wasn’t laughing the message was
i should have left it to the guys moving
big stuff is not women’s work
your resourcefulness and your creativity
made the rest of the
male team look bad
experiencing these situations on a daily
or weekly basis i knew i was probably
never
going to be able to climb the corporate
ladder as high as i wanted
or break the glass ceiling without
conforming or
playing a role it’s not that there
weren’t
other women like me who got it are men
that didn’t appreciate what i brought to
the table
they were just the rare exception
instead of the rule
i knew i would have to start my own
company and go against the grain
once more but what separates
entrepreneurs who make it
and those who don’t we’ve known for a
long time emotional intelligence is the
number one reason
as to why one succeeds in the workplace
furthermore we found that
those with a high level of eq get paid
29
000 more a year on average i think
everyone here can agree
getting paid more is never a bad thing
especially
if you’re a woman but what if you’re a
founder and you’re not in the
traditional workplace
gallup’s five-year study on
entrepreneurs found determination was
number one
while the office of education technology
sets its tenacity
if we look at the definition of tenacity
we find
tenacity is a quality effect of being
very determined
determination and i want you to pay
special attention
to oxford’s example used here you have
to admire
a tenacity of these two guys
we’ll come back to this angela duckworth
a professor at the university of
pennsylvania calls it grit
and she’s even called created a grit
scale in which she measures
how much an individual displays on her
grit scale she in fact found
that females were significantly grittier
than males students aged 31 and older
were likely to score higher and students
with postgraduate studies
scored higher still so theoretically
if you’re a female older than the age of
31 and have completed your postgraduate
degree
congratulations you’re one of the most
tenacious or gritty out there
but let’s go back to that example from
oxford
the tenacity of these two guys i think
someone needs to inform oxford not only
are they promoting
a gender stereotype but it’s time for
them to update their example
looking back at all this research we
have to start asking ourselves as women
if you can’t be emotional then how can
you exercise your emotional intelligence
and if you can’t be aggressive then how
are you supposed to be tenacious or show
grit
how are we supposed to be successful if
the very things that make us successful
are those that become negative when
they’re tied to a woman
let’s go back to the start
i love getting called emotional
or aggressive i also like
dramatic pushy sensitive
and direct instead of the negative
and demeaning rhetoric these words now
translate
to their actual meaning and i hear
compliments instead
emotional now means emotionally
intelligent
and aggressive now means tenacious are
one who has grit
because in reality if these
microaggressions were tied to a man
they wouldn’t be microaggressions at all
they would be viewed
felt and be seen as compliments
it wouldn’t tear them down or make them
question their capabilities
but it would do exactly the opposite
giving them the confidence they need to
climb the corporate ladder
to ask for more money and to start their
own business
furthermore i want this to change the
game for how women see themselves
in the workplace and to make people
question how women are actually
perceived
when they don’t fit in with the cultural
norm
this was the type of solution i was
looking for years ago
and i want you to try it the next time
you hear another woman
being called emotional or aggressive
or even if you’re called it yourself i
want you to change the game
and i want you to flip the script let me
show you what i mean
let me take you back to that conference
room in my 20s
if someone were to say to me amy
you’re being too aggressive my response
is now
understood so do you think i should be
less tenacious
it will stop the person across from you
and make them think
who is going to come back to you and say
yes be less tenacious
or tenacity is bad because it isn’t
i’ll give you another example amy
you’re being too emotional
my response is now yes
i am emotional about my work thank you
so much for recognizing my passion
it means a lot to me if you take this
negativity and turn it into a compliment
you’ve reassigned this negative
perception into something more positive
not just for you but for the other women
and men
around you as well so the next time
someone tells you
you’re a bit too emotional or aggressive
take it as a compliment and say thank
you i am passionate about how i spend my
time
and tenacious about how i run my
business
thanks so much
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