Over the years, I have hired outstanding women – educated, intelligent and highly articulate. Yet, I am exhausted. I have become profoundly tired of being a therapist and a babysitter, of being drawn into passive-aggressive mental games and into constantly questioning my own worth as a manager. I have had several women who quit to stay home to “figure out what to do next”. No, not to stay home and care for children, but to mooch off a husband or a boyfriend while soul searching (aka: taking a language class or learning a new inapplicable skill that could be acquired after work). Incidentally, I have not had a single male employee quit with no plan in mind.Some women are excellent employees. Many women are useless, unproductive drama queens. The challenge is to learn to tell the difference between the two. And the problem is that there isn't much leeway in current employment law to dismiss someone for simply being a distraction and a pain-in-the-ass.
I have had women cry in team meetings, come to my office to ask me if I still like them and create melodrama over the side of the office their desk was being placed. I am simply incapable of verbalizing enough appreciation to female employees to satiate their need for it for at least a week’s worth of work. Here is one example to explain. My receptionist was resigning and, while in tears, she told me that although she was passionate about our brand and loved the job, she could not overcome the fact that I did not thank her for her work. It really made me stop in my tracks and so I asked for an example. “Remember when I bought the pictures with butterflies to hang in the front? And you just came and said ‘thank you’? That is a perfect example!” – “Wait”, I said, “So, I did thank you then?” – “Yes! But you did not elaborate on what exactly you liked about them! Why didn’t you?” She had bought them with the company credit card and I actually did not like them at all, but I digress.
I have developed a different approach for offering constructive criticism to male and female employees. When I have something to say to one of the men, I just say it! I don’t think it through – I simply spit it out, we have a brief discussion and we move on. They even frequently thank me for the feedback! Not so fast with my female staff. I plan, I prepare, I think, I run it through my business partner and then I think again. I start with a lot of positive feedback before I feel that I have cushioned my one small negative comment sufficiently, yet it is rarely enough. We talk forever, dissect every little piece of it, and then come back to the topic time and time again in the future.
But most of the difficulties here are caused by men who don't hold women accountable. If you are babying women and treating them any differently than your male employees, you are part of the problem.
41 comments:
One line in the article illustrates her whole problem:
"I get extremely angry when I come across articles that insist there are gender differences that extend beyond physiology."
There she sits, with abundant, excruciating, profit- and self-damaging evidence that there ARE "gender differences that extend beyond physiology," and she can still say that.
The Rationalisation Hamster is strong with this one...
From the paragraph preceding your quote;
"I get extremely angry when I come across articles that insist there are gender differences that extend beyond physiology."
Now I am guessing a little here, but I have previously read on Clarissa's site that she thinks that 'gender' differences begin and end at innies vs outies. She specifically rejected differences in the brain, at which point I stopped reading her blog.
The mysteries so baffling to Clarissa's guest blogger would soon be solved is she just educated herself about the realities of established differences in brain structure and composition and their consequences. Most male brains would accomplish this by just looking at the world and the people in it...just saying
I also agree with holding those claiming to be equal adults accountable as adults. That's why I regard myself as a feminist - I believe in giving all those seeking equal rights, the equal responsibilities that are required to go with them - good and hard.
It's worth noting that she's not saying these women aren't smart enough to do the work, or that they don't do good work. A lot of the girls-in-STEM and other rah-rah-go-girl stuff, and the arguments against it, focus on that -- can women do the work as well as men or not? But as she points out here, even when they can do the work as well as men, the personal drama they can't help but create is bound to sap the energy of others and bring down overall productivity.
A woman could graduate summa cum laude, could ace all your ability tests, could impress the heck out of you in her interview with her knowledge and professionalism -- and could still be a bad hire because of the effect her presence will have on the workplace.
Women employees are like Muslims. When there are very few of them, and they are under male supervision and heavily outnumbered, they do fine. No drama, no crying, just trying to impress all the men.
When their numbers increase, watch out.
old, linked to in the article, but good
Some women can repress or overcome their emotions. The comments are more revealing. The.top of the post "equality" bit is the hamster on overdrive, while the rest is the data she is attempting to deny. Not unlike climate alarmists finding a pole instead of the hockey stick.
women in STEM
The effect on the workplace.
This brings back so many, many memories from the time when I directed the regional office of a very large and very well-known international NGO. I had a dozen workers, all female, the older was in her mid 30s. Our office coordinated over half a dozen local offices. And the office above us in the organization chart had a nearly identical ratio, and their +90% ladies were also in their 20s and 30s. I could written an encyclopedia on lady employees. Red pill overdose doesn’t begin to describe it. Don’t get me started… Don’t get me started… Don’t get me started…
There are so many things that this woman is apparently not noticing. To mention just one: Women hate being led by other women (even if the leader is one of those very few women with the will and skills to lead).
OK, just one more thing (if I don’t bite my tongue I’ll go on for weeks…). Somebody said “Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.” It’s not just friendship, it also applies to work environments.
All that brainpower and time focused on whatever except actually programming. Focused on a moving target that will never be realized, like Tantalus in Hades.
Women employees are like Muslims. When there are very few of them, and they are under male supervision and heavily outnumbered, they do fine. No drama, no crying, just trying to impress all the men.
When their numbers increase, watch out.
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Exactly.
In a former job, I hired staff including several women. I worked with others including two feminists. One in her 30s and crazy. The other fresh out of college…and crazy. Both were graduates of liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. Over the next year, I watched the coordinated machinations of fumbled power plays. It was so obvious a bit of game had to be played to keep the days interesting. The other women (some of whom I had hired) worked and kept themselves and our company going quite well with minimal drama unless they had problems with the other two. The older feminist constantly tried to get her friends (re:allies hired) to no avail. She was put on isolate and dis-empower.
I eventually left. After tons of drama, the younger feminist finally took another job. The other got fired by her now female boss and female HR director. She promptly threw a crazed fit to the degree the police were called to escort her off the premises. But this, I learned later, was my fault because I had previously written her up for gossip and verbal hostility to another employee at a meeting. And so it damn well goes...
The best work environment I experienced with women was in an analyzer tech shop. We had several men, including a male boss, and two women. One was a tough as nails West Texas woman in her fifties, and the other was a Pakistani girl. Both behaved very well, even under the weight of our constant teasing.
The front office was a different story. The big boss was a woman, and she hired her daughter, her gay best friend from High School and her daughter's baby daddy. The front office was a mess. Obama shirts on Inauguration Day, the spectre of Sensitivity classes (quickly quashed), drama, gossip, etc. I left to take an outside sales job, and wrote a scathing 7 page exit interview that simply reported the facts. That little junta was broken up soon after I left by the head office in England, and the big boss who was encouraged to leave hunted me down at a shrimp boil in front of three customers (Shell, Valero and Cameron) and yelled at me for destroying her family. I thanked her and she left.
FUN FUN FUN
OT:
The West seems to get crazier every day:
"French schoolboys enrolled in 27 high schools in Nantes, northwest France, will wear skirts this Friday. Don't panic! The move is part of a student-driven campaign in a stand against sexism and inequality.
Those less daring have the option of wearing a sticker that reads, "I am fighting against sexism, are you?"
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_05_15/French-schoolboys-have-new-uniform-skirts-1461/
I don't know what it's like at the career level for myself, having only worked lowest tier jobs (where female workers basically had the same competence as the men except some injection of drama [the same competence fell precipitously once a job involved physical activity]), but my wife has worked in a career field dominated by women and she was always bringing home stories of the drama-bitch-fest that place was. She also noted that having even one guy who is remotely redpill in a group of women will make a major difference in the way they behave.
I can understand one or two women like this in an organisation. but when you consistently get women like these, you must be hiring the wrong people or treating them in a way that makes them express their 'emotional' nature. As a woman, I have worked in a male dominated industry and have come across some women (who if especially attractive or particularly manipulative) who behave a bit like she described.
she does not know how to hire or how to be an effective boss. she has these preconceptions in her head that women are emotional and i must deal with them using kid gloves. if she had sternly reprimanded the women for behaving 'emotionally', when the very first time she came across it and not given it undue attention, they would have not pulled that stunt again. instead she tried to be kind and they got more 'emotional' .
Exactly, Vox. Let's not let the men off the hook. In the office men will often go out of their way to play favorites and appease certain women in the hope of reciprocation (sex). Sometimes the girls put out, sometimes not. But the rumors (accurate or not) that result from these relationships often have a disruptive and demoralizing effect on other employees. In any case, I've seen so many ethics violations, HR investigations, client complaints, and broken marriages resulting from office trysts that I think it's best to avoid banging your colleagues if you can.
Meerkat is correct, working for women can be a nightmare. Like this female entrepreneur, who takes no responsibility for herself, her hiring practices, or her leadership. Those kind of women, the kind who complain the loudest about female employee drama, are often completely unaware of how they promote, indeed, even demand it of their employees. I suspect it has something to do with sexual rivalry, as if, look at all these drama queens, I am the only sane one here. Also, I am a victim of my employees, so feel sorry for me.
I've never met a male manager like that. Perhaps they exist, but all the ones I've known would hold themselves responsible for workplace drama and do something to stamp it out. Actually, I know several men who prefer female employees, simply because they're easier to manage once they know what the expectations are.
The comments are priceless. That Clarissa girl immediately starts insults and name calling when someone posts something she doesn't like. "Gender is a social construct..." hahahahahha.....
"When I have something to say to one of the men, I just say it! I don’t think it through – I simply spit it out, we have a brief discussion and we move on. They even frequently thank me for the feedback! "
Give her credit, she gets that half right instead of subtle hints, P-A, indirection.
@: " Give her credit, she gets that half right instead of subtle hints, P-A, indirection."
_____
True. It is increasingly rare for a woman to compliment men without backpedaling and attributing it to some negative trait.
Like men who pick up tabs or too well are trying to be big shots and score waitresses, where as women who spend 30 minutes making sure they don't pay one penny more than necessary are fiscally responsible.
Back when I worked in an office (for the state, no less), women outnumbered the men on every floor, except for administration. It was constant drama, especially when baby boomer hags were in charge of a department.
One particularly evil woman shared a mutual hatred with one of my colleagues. But, when we threw my colleague a birthday party, she called up the director to complain about not being invited. She did this, even knowing that it was just a departmental party and not the entire building. The director's assistant had to take that message and listen to get tirade, at which point, she claimed that everyone was targeting her because they think she's the director's mistress. We were all baffled, because literally no one who worked there thought that or had even heard it as a rumor.
Yes, she was trying to start rumors about herself. Unfortunately, since it was the state, you have to be certifiably insane to get fired. She made everyone miserable and morale was always low. Not that all women in the workplace are like that, but it's amazing the effect even ONE woman can have on an entire building of people.
A new woman in my office forced me into a corner where I had to quit (it was a frikkin' Lifetime Original Movie type of situation, new girl, single owner, sexts and blowjobs, blah blah). I have a new job and my boss will be a woman. I'm not sure how that will work out at all. I have another opportunity which will open soon and it is working for all men. I will be the only woman and they're all former military men. I am so damn excited for THAT one because the guy who offered me that one (waiting on some contracts to come through) calls me a BLUF girl. Bottom line up front. I just get to the damn point and move on. And that is exactly why he offered me this opportunity. I'm only biding my time until they have enough contracts closed out for me to move into the slot where I don't have to dance around girlie feelings. I can be kind, compassionate, and supportive, but that shit ain't for the workplace. Do your job, do it well, leave the crying hankies in your car for the drive home.
Actually, I know several men who prefer female employees, simply because they're easier to manage once they know what the expectations are
Ah, yes, these would be the betas, deltas, gammas, and omegas who can't stomach the competition from other dudes, especially the alpha and sigmas males.
I found it quite ironic that so many of the comments, especially from women, were questioning her management style, her prejudice against women, etc. Anything except the possibility that her claims might have some veracity. The hamsters were spinning big time. I do hope the entrepreneur remains anonymous, otherwise she may find her business the target of an IRS audit.
i can't keep reading the comments. the white knights who still refuse to see the evidence in front of them, the way that guest blogger refuses to take responsibility for her terrible management style & clarissa with her tired old feminist insults.
The behavioral and psychological differences between the sexes are obvious enough for a small child to spot; it takes a very expensive education to unlearn this knowledge.
She never *quite* makes the connection, does she?
The comments are priceless. That Clarissa girl immediately starts insults and name calling when someone posts something she doesn't like. "Gender is a social construct..." hahahahahha.....
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You see the update to the post?
"WARNING: People in the past 2 hours I have had to Spam 63 comments from losers who tried to inform me that “men and women are psychologically / emotionally, etc. different.” Once again, anybody who embarrasses him or herself by chirping idiotically “yes, men and women are different” will be banned outright. This will be my small investment into sparing these losers further public embarrassment. Stop wasting your time, such comments are not going through on my blog.
Please read this (http://clarissasblog.com/2011/08/25/how-media-pervert-science-to-reinforce-gender-stereotypes/) and this (http://clarissasblog.com/2009/04/01/our-brain-and-the-mystique-of-hard-wiring/) to inform yourselves already."
Women should not be bosses. Women don't like working for women. Women prefer working for men. The more women, the more childish behavior. This is why I work for myself, and have for years.
"But most of the difficulties here are caused by men who don't hold women accountable. If you are babying women and treating them any differently than your male employees, you are part of the problem."
That goes for fathers, grandfathers, brothers, boyrfriends, husbands, male church elders, and on and on. If they come to believe they can get away with highly mercurial emotional bullshit and hyper-sensitive whiny antics in the home, in the church, in the neighborhood, in the classroom, then she will think she's justified in doing the same in the workplace.
Do the world a favor, discipline the little girl.
The best part is that she has refused comments on her blog that have anything to do with the inherent physical differences between men and women. I wonder what it is like to live life so confused all the time
The henhouse has no place where production, cash in n' out are the main driving forces of the day.
White knights haven't done the accounting yet or they are stll praying that if they are good little doormats she'll date them. Money talks the drama can walk. Or will it? Nope, the workplace will suffer b/c its filled with some women who don't belong b/c they demonstrate a complete inability to complete their jobs
"most of the difficulties here are caused by men who don't hold women accountable. If you are babying women and treating them any differently than your male employees, you are part of the problem."
This exactly describes the situation at my first job.
The manager and senior guys were 40- and 50-something white knights who hired a bunch of 20-something men and women, then let the women get away with shit they would NEVER have tolerated from the young men. All the women had to do to get out of doing something they didn't like was go and cry (literally!) to the boss, and he'd hand it off to the nearest young man.
Then there was the hot chick who did NO work because she made her pathetic beta orbiter do it all for her.
Oh and of course the other hot chick who wound up banging the boss. Everyone knew it, and it did wonders for morale.
Especially for the boss, I'll bet.
http://www.chicagonow.com/nails-on-a-chalkboard/2014/05/5-reasons-to-teach-feminism-in-high-school/
The comments are even worse
" teach at an alternative school in Eau Claire, WI. I also try, try, try to weave feminism into my classes. Just last week we talked about how frustrating it is to be told "You're cute when you're mad" and how my female students have resorted to physical assaults when not taken seriously. I'm 56 years old and I see so many things getting worse for our girls AND boys. We cannot let them down because despite what society tells them, they still just want peaceful, happy lives."
Makes me slightly scared for the future. Putting this sort of shit into schools and indoctrinating youngers is as bad as teaching religious extremist bollocks. How they can think it's completely ok to focus on one gender is beyond me.
But of course we must always ensure not to "let down" those young girls who resort to physical assaults, just because "they're not taken seriously"...
From a great post by Bryce Laliberte...
Progress is the state religion. So much as it conflicts with reality will reality be outlawed, and those who point out that the new heliocentric model of the universe has fewer epicycles will be cast as psychologically ill.
http://anarchopapist.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/nobody-expects-the-harvardian-inquisition/
How much longer before noticing the fact that men and women are different is a hate crime?
While I was in college, my summer job was coaching a club swim team. I quickly learned that teenage girls would not perform their best when I treated them like the boys. The girls performed best with positive coaching techniques. On the other hand, to get the best out of the male swimmers, I had to ride them hard.
"While I was in college, my summer job was coaching a club swim team. I quickly learned that teenage girls would not perform their best when I treated them like the boys. The girls performed best with positive coaching techniques. On the other hand, to get the best out of the male swimmers, I had to ride them hard."
Unfortunately that's the philosophy a lot of wives take to their marriages...their fallacy not being which technique raises male performance, but the idea that the wife's job is to pimp her husband for performance in the first place.
One of the best pieces of leadership/coaching advice I got was the coaching aphorism "figure out who needs a kick in the pants and who needs a pat on the back."
In particular, the "fat kid" usually needed the pat on the back; with his being ostracized, mocked and inadequate in kid-society, the coach applying warmth and care produced a reciprocal loyalty and effort. Meanwhile you could always tell that the class-clown and hot-shot types were shit-testing the coach to see if coach would really come down on them.
I find 'Armristar Escort Service' post to be.... strangely apropos.
Clarissa
MAY 16, 2014 @ 1:43 PM
"'I am in medical school , to post this I had to give you my email and you can contact me and I will give you my real name and irrefutable proof that I am currently studying for Step 1 of the USMLE. Men and women have different brains , different methods of processing information, different hormones, and are biologically programmed to behave in different ways. '
- You are an idiot and an embarrassment to your school. Ban."
Fucking lol. That post really blew up in her face.
She's so brave... sniff... sniff... brings a tear to my eye, it does.
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