3 ms·

Why Women Should Flirt at Work

23 points by tswicegood 16y ago

mortice 16y ago
I'm not too impressed with this article. If we replaced women in this article with any other underrepresented group in the software business and asked that group to conform to a stereotype to get ahead, it would be considered offensive and rightly so. Dave Thomas's keynote from Rubyconf comes to mind. http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote
- Jun8 16y ago
  Did you not like the post or the research in the article it's linking? The article is a link-bait with a title that tries to grab attention. This is typical, even The Economist does it. However, I find the basic idea that "women may be perceived as competent but unlikable or as likable but incompetent" in the workplace to be completely true. This idea does not carry over to other underrepresented groups, I think. For example, would you say there is a similar double whammy for black people?
  - mortice 16y ago
    I'm objecting to the article rather than the research, and I agree that the 'double-bind' described does ring true. What I'm objecting to is the conclusion that women should conform to a stereotype in order to be accepted in the workplace. I'm not saying that the situation is the same for every underrepresented group; I'm saying that if the article were to advise any other underrepresented group in a similar way it would be denounced as discriminatory. EDIT: I have no idea why parent is being downvoted. He/she raises valid questions.
    - Jun8 16y ago
      I'm OK with comment up/downvoting to reflect agreement. What I find immature is to downvote without raising a counterpoint. Look at the first comment for this post, it just labels the post as "shitty" without telling why. Same hasty approach.
  - tiffani 16y ago
    As a black person (and a woman, ha!), I can say there is a similar double whammy for us. In addition to the competence double whammy, there's the one about being too assertive (for women)--the infamous "angry black woman."
    - Jun8 16y ago
      I agree about the "angry black woman" prototype, it was leveled against Michelle Obama, too, among others. My point was that I think the issues with women in technical workplace are somewhat different from those relating to minorities. You, of course are getting hit by both!
Eldila2 16y ago
This article contains little information. Five minutes I will never get back.
sp4rki 16y ago
I don't think that this should be about women flirting or not. It's more about women not behaving like feminine behavior is something to frown upon and the fact that men are generally cautious around 'prudish' women because they tend to attract harassment lawsuits like bees to pollen. Let's be real, men will always congregate around the water cooler to talk about life, work, vices, and women. The woman that can integrate into the "workplace community" is generally of the more liberal type and come's of as friendly toward the male population. What the feminist girl-power types don't get is that a smile, a high five, and jokes of the 'horse walks into a jewish bar' kind get you a lot farther down the road of being likable by your male peers. This also has the effect of toning down our male tendency of vile language when referring to women, which is off course a plus.
mooism2 16y ago
How about people make an effort not to judge other people according to stereotypes?
- symkat 16y ago
  That would assume people are aware of their predispositions on a general basis. Some of those are simple, "stop being X to Y people because you think they are Z" is much easier to notice a pattern of than the sub-conscious effects of "for some reason I don't like people who act in these ways."
sudont 16y ago
Anybody who isn't making meaningful contributions in favor of being self-serving is an asshole, regardless of gender. I expect collaboration from the people I work with, something that this article would consider "feminine." Fuck that. And the most competent person I work with is a chick, but she's a freak of nature for her talent level.
- studer 16y ago
  Freak of nature in absolute terms, or for being a talented chick? From the article: "... evaluators tend to make negative judgments about women who behave in masculine ways to fulfill the needs of their jobs." (Oh, instant downmod for asking a question related to gender issues. Silly me, forgot what site I was on.)
  - sudont 16y ago
    She's an order of magnitude faster in developing HTML+CSS than anyone else I've met, and I've worked with some extremely talented people. It's not a gender issue, just happens that a lot of talented developers I've met have been women.
    - Tycho 16y ago
      Does she have a tech blog or portfolio site?
tgraydar 16y ago
It's a secret story! Not about showing leg at the office! I get it!
edw519 16y ago
Articles like this make me so glad to be in the software business... Replace <anyBullshit> with "Does she ship?"
- Jun8 16y ago
  If you have a valid point against the article please put it forward in more coherent terms.
- AndrewDucker 16y ago
  You're assuming that the software business is immune to this kind of thing. It really isn't.
acconrad 16y ago
Given how short and pointless this article is, all it can do is make FastCompany look like a bunch of chauvinists.
Tycho 16y ago
This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode where the first officer goes in a 'personnel exchange' to a Klingon ship and the female Klingons try to flirt with him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrNVimz-F4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrNVimz-F4 skip the first 3 minutes. bring your cringe goggles
wonderzombie 16y ago
This article drives me up a wall. "The choices then are these--work within the stereotypes or be careful in situations to not activate gender stereotypes." Really? Those are the only choices? Wow. Forget about changing attitudes or anything like that, I guess. It's like the Y-chromosome-exclusive version of "publish or perish." And notice how it's incumbent on women to figure out what to do. Men shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about it. It's just too much to ask for men to maybe examine their biases, conscious or unconscious.
tiffani 16y ago
If anybody's interested, a paywall-free link to the paper is at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1397699 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1397699. And FWIW, I'm not exactly a fan of the article's conclusion ("work within stereotypes") that I should be flirting at work. In a work environment where you're one of two single women in a mostly married male environment, it's just not good form.
DjDarkman 16y ago
Let's upgrade this concept: women should have sex at work. Sounds ridiculous/offensive/immoral etc.? If the above doesn't sound good than women should just be competitive. It's equal opportunity. These articles take problems out of context.

23 points by tswicegood 16y ago

I'm not too impressed with this article. If we replaced women in this article with any other underrepresented group in the software business and asked that group to conform to a stereotype to get ahead, it would be considered offensive and rightly so. Dave Thomas's keynote from Rubyconf comes to mind. http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote

Jun8 16y ago
Did you not like the post or the research in the article it's linking? The article is a link-bait with a title that tries to grab attention. This is typical, even The Economist does it. However, I find the basic idea that "women may be perceived as competent but unlikable or as likable but incompetent" in the workplace to be completely true. This idea does not carry over to other underrepresented groups, I think. For example, would you say there is a similar double whammy for black people?
- mortice 16y ago
  I'm objecting to the article rather than the research, and I agree that the 'double-bind' described does ring true. What I'm objecting to is the conclusion that women should conform to a stereotype in order to be accepted in the workplace. I'm not saying that the situation is the same for every underrepresented group; I'm saying that if the article were to advise any other underrepresented group in a similar way it would be denounced as discriminatory. EDIT: I have no idea why parent is being downvoted. He/she raises valid questions.
  - Jun8 16y ago
    I'm OK with comment up/downvoting to reflect agreement. What I find immature is to downvote without raising a counterpoint. Look at the first comment for this post, it just labels the post as "shitty" without telling why. Same hasty approach.
- tiffani 16y ago
  As a black person (and a woman, ha!), I can say there is a similar double whammy for us. In addition to the competence double whammy, there's the one about being too assertive (for women)--the infamous "angry black woman."
  - Jun8 16y ago
    I agree about the "angry black woman" prototype, it was leveled against Michelle Obama, too, among others. My point was that I think the issues with women in technical workplace are somewhat different from those relating to minorities. You, of course are getting hit by both!

Eldila2 16y ago

This article contains little information. Five minutes I will never get back.

sp4rki 16y ago

I don't think that this should be about women flirting or not. It's more about women not behaving like feminine behavior is something to frown upon and the fact that men are generally cautious around 'prudish' women because they tend to attract harassment lawsuits like bees to pollen. Let's be real, men will always congregate around the water cooler to talk about life, work, vices, and women. The woman that can integrate into the "workplace community" is generally of the more liberal type and come's of as friendly toward the male population. What the feminist girl-power types don't get is that a smile, a high five, and jokes of the 'horse walks into a jewish bar' kind get you a lot farther down the road of being likable by your male peers. This also has the effect of toning down our male tendency of vile language when referring to women, which is off course a plus.

mooism2 16y ago

How about people make an effort not to judge other people according to stereotypes?

symkat 16y ago
That would assume people are aware of their predispositions on a general basis. Some of those are simple, "stop being X to Y people because you think they are Z" is much easier to notice a pattern of than the sub-conscious effects of "for some reason I don't like people who act in these ways."

sudont 16y ago

Anybody who isn't making meaningful contributions in favor of being self-serving is an asshole, regardless of gender. I expect collaboration from the people I work with, something that this article would consider "feminine." Fuck that. And the most competent person I work with is a chick, but she's a freak of nature for her talent level.

studer 16y ago
Freak of nature in absolute terms, or for being a talented chick? From the article: "... evaluators tend to make negative judgments about women who behave in masculine ways to fulfill the needs of their jobs." (Oh, instant downmod for asking a question related to gender issues. Silly me, forgot what site I was on.)
- sudont 16y ago
  She's an order of magnitude faster in developing HTML+CSS than anyone else I've met, and I've worked with some extremely talented people. It's not a gender issue, just happens that a lot of talented developers I've met have been women.
  - Tycho 16y ago
    Does she have a tech blog or portfolio site?

tgraydar 16y ago

It's a secret story! Not about showing leg at the office! I get it!

edw519 16y ago

Articles like this make me so glad to be in the software business... Replace <anyBullshit> with "Does she ship?"

Jun8 16y ago
If you have a valid point against the article please put it forward in more coherent terms.
AndrewDucker 16y ago
You're assuming that the software business is immune to this kind of thing. It really isn't.

acconrad 16y ago

Given how short and pointless this article is, all it can do is make FastCompany look like a bunch of chauvinists.

Tycho 16y ago

This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode where the first officer goes in a 'personnel exchange' to a Klingon ship and the female Klingons try to flirt with him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrNVimz-F4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrNVimz-F4 skip the first 3 minutes. bring your cringe goggles

wonderzombie 16y ago

This article drives me up a wall. "The choices then are these--work within the stereotypes or be careful in situations to not activate gender stereotypes." Really? Those are the only choices? Wow. Forget about changing attitudes or anything like that, I guess. It's like the Y-chromosome-exclusive version of "publish or perish." And notice how it's incumbent on women to figure out what to do. Men shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about it. It's just too much to ask for men to maybe examine their biases, conscious or unconscious.

tiffani 16y ago

If anybody's interested, a paywall-free link to the paper is at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1397699 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1397699. And FWIW, I'm not exactly a fan of the article's conclusion ("work within stereotypes") that I should be flirting at work. In a work environment where you're one of two single women in a mostly married male environment, it's just not good form.

DjDarkman 16y ago

Let's upgrade this concept: women should have sex at work. Sounds ridiculous/offensive/immoral etc.? If the above doesn't sound good than women should just be competitive. It's equal opportunity. These articles take problems out of context.