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Christy Schutz

Advertising Director

As Director at a niche, advertising, marketing, communications and specialty services firm, I develop customized, innovative strategies for my clients that help them stay ahead of the pack. I've held a couple of other gigs over the past 16+ years too... in settings like corporate internal marke...

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Changing Half-Baked Assumptions in the Workplace

Christy

Most career women are familiar with the advancement-inhibiting assumptions men make about them in the workplace. These stereotypes result in a multitude of stories about capable women who were passed up for promotions or clearly underpaid while delivering equal, if not better, work performance than their male counterparts.

I recently attended a “Women In Leadership Symposium,” put on by the Florida Diversity Council. The event featured a panel of accomplished, professional women representing a wide array of industries. Some of the usual workplace issues were discussed, like work/life balance, mentoring, generational differences in the workplace, “gender unconsciousness,” and more.

One very bright, articulate woman on the panel (a Lawyer whose accolades were a mile long and whose title deservedly read “Partner”) shared a frustration that I hear all too often. This woman, who is out winning cases, consulting with client’s, obviously a top performer, soon found herself fending off the “women’s work” in the office. Seems as if her fellow attorneys figured, hey, since she is a female, baking cookies for birthdays, coordinating the office parties, and other stereotypically administrative, “female” tasks would be a “piece of cake” (pardon the pun) for her.

The fact is gender stereotypes can leave many senior-level women begrudgingly making arrangements for the office’s catered luncheons, taking the meeting minutes, cleaning up the conference room after lunch, or planning the holiday gift exchange. We figure the best thing to do is get it done, quickly and quietly, so we can get back to our “real jobs.”

What if our actions are actually perpetuating the gender stereotypes in the office? What if we are up on that ladder with a bottle of Windex and a wad of paper towels, and we are actually shining the same “glass ceiling” we are supposedly trying to break through?

A study entitled “Women ‘Take Care,’ Men ‘Take Charge,’”released by Catalyst, a non-profit research organization focused on raising awareness of working women’s issues, confirmed that most people—both men AND women—subconsciously believe that a good leader possesses stereotypically male traits. Even more discouraging was that the participants polled also believed that women were inherently inferior executive leaders because of our tendency to display “feminine” behaviors. The interesting thing is, after Catalyst analyzed nearly 40 different studies, they found that there was LITTLE TO NO DIFFERENCE between the leadership skills of successful executive men and women.

It is the whole “perception is reality” dilemma.

So, what small steps can you take to start to break down these destructive stereotypes?

Well, one piece of advice I truly enjoyed came from the book “skirt! Rules for the workplace: An irreverent guide to advancing your career” by skirt! senior editor, Kelly Love Johnson. I am truly not here trying to shamelessly plug her book…I just happened to stumble across something in it that almost made me gleeful.*

She suggests you never, ever, EVER cook, bake, or otherwise prepare food for the folks in the office.On those occasions where EVERYONE is being asked to supply the grub, say a holiday party, or a potluck luncheon, heck, even your best girlfriends birthday, do not come to the table with something you personally whipped up in the kitchen. Instead, stop by a bakery, the local grocery store, even a fast food joint to pick up your contribution to the affair.

Now I know a lot of you Martha Stewart types out there are frowning right now. But trust me, there are other men that you can impress with your fresh baked peanut butter cookies or your Tuscan Pasta Bolognese…they are called Dad, husband, boyfriend, brother, Pastor, mailman, etc. We are trying to help our managers erase the whole “Donna Reed” image of women, so, coming in with fresh baked anything on that beautiful crystal serving platter your grandmother handed down to you is NOT a good idea.

Another suggestion I would offer is to quietly pull your manager aside and talk about it. If you know that the tasks you are being asked to perform are not at all related to your role, and you know that there are other, less tenured people who could handle it just fine, then it is time you point these facts out to your boss. Some examples include:

“I had conference room clean up duty during the last office luncheon. In all fairness, I really think that is a task we should rotate to everyone on the team.”

“I cannot help you put the FedEx packages together today. I have an important deadline I must meet that is vitally important to the business operation.”

“Since my talents are best leveraged by [describe your role here], I am going to pass this along to an administrative member of the team.”

As you can see, none of those examples even talked about gender or the injustice of gender stereotypes.

What additional scenarios or suggestions can you share to help change the way women’s roles are perceived in the work place?

 * “Gleeful?” you might ask. Well, on a completely unrelated note, imagine how happy I was to finally have a professional-sounding reason for picking up take-out for the office functions. When I say I am doing my part to “defeat unfair stereotypes against women in the workplace” it sounds SOOOO much better than my usual “because I cannot cook” or “my recipes just might poison and kill you.”