You should start a support group in your lab. Or a mentoring program for the younger ones. But make it secret, like in School for Scoundrels or Old School. Yeah, that'd be awesome and you could be the matriarch.
Hope you have a nice, relaxing weekend...How did you meet Mr. S anyway?
I want to say about a million things about this. I watch and participate in poor interpersonal interactions everyday at work. Fortunately, the interactions with my boss are good. I definitely would support the idea that the women in my lab participate in more dysfunctional interactions than the men do with each other and I believe it all has its origins in what you describe.
Sounds all very familiar, unfortunately. After my own passive approach I swung wildly to the other extreme, true aggression. People gave me wide berth. It took a few years to find the middle ground, and I am still working on it.
Great post. As one of the people who never put up with nonsense, it's interesting for me to read about it from the perspective of someone who had to learn how to handle attacks. And I'm currently working with a tank of sharks, so I'm having to hone my natural tendency and sharpen my teeth.
The attitude you've cultivated is what it took for me to get through my dissertation defense. As soon as I got all pissy and rude with my committee, they loved me. They decided that I knew what I was talking about once I started treating them with disdain and shooting down every question they asked me and treating them like, "how could you be so dumb to ask that?" I lapsed into that hostility out of despair because I knew they wanted to flunk me. And amazingly, they took it as proof that I was okay. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but the phrase they used with my advisor was that I had shown I could "perform penetrating analysis". Hee.
I'm glad you are finding a way to survive and not get so beat down. It feels very unnatural at first but really, it is important to stand up for yourself. There is a middle ground between beating on other people and getting beat on yourself. Standing up for yourself is a good thing to do.
Ms. PhD, how did you manage to be someone who never put up with it? Natural talent, early training? I'm very curious.
Zuska, that's the best male-hegemony phrase I've heard in a long time. Sigh.
Nicole, I also struggle with not being too mean. Aggression: very tempting. It's very difficult some days to not break down into full-on rage. The Southernness helps.
Henry: Blog it! Tell us all about it! Unless it'll get you dooced, of course. Want to guest post it here?
NSLS, there's only one other woman in my lab. Some support group, no? I'm working on the mentoring program thing. In my free time and brain space. I've already got someone into my nefarious clutches!
How I met Mr. S: playing softball on an IM team. How I got there: head TA for a large class, followed by all the TAs going out, followed by one of them mentioning she was looking for players for her softball team. I suck at it, but I like sports. He apparently tried to get hold of me to ask me out a few times, but my utterly literal mind interpreted his subtle attempts literally ('Do you need a ride?' 'No.') At the end of the season he emailed me to get my phone number and I thought Who is this guy?. Actually had to look him up on the archive of our-program-face posters. And the rest, as they say, is history. We were married a year and a month later.
Wow! This post is perfect timing for me.... it just took me a couple of months to find it! Very soon, I will be starting school again to study Micro. Definitely, my weakness is not being assertive. My natural inclination is to avoid conflict, then I kick myself later thinking of all the things I *could* have said.
I really wish I could take a class or seminar to help me get over those habits. I think you're right, though. There is a fine line between being unnecessarily aggressive and assertive. Wish me luck!
LoudFem
LoudFem: Lots of luck! Seriously, talk to yourself going down the street. I swear I used to be a meek little doormat. It! Can! Be! Done!
I'm new to your blog, and I have to say thank you again for another great post! As a southern girl, I think I've struggled with this even more than some of my female colleagues from other regions of the country.
Other than being "hindered" by being a polite, respectful, unassuming, southern female, I also have real ethical issues with projecting *over* confidence, i.e. confidently making a statement when you really aren't sure. To me, it's lying for all practical purposes. But, it certainly does work when you want to make a good impression.
I'm still working on my professional persona, but one thing that helped me hugely was to realize a lot of the confident communication can be done non-verbally. For example, standing up straight, planting feet flat on the floor shoulder width apart, looking people in the eye, using a confident tone of voice. Then using your hands to communicate when you want to listen (hands together), vs when you want to speak (hands apart, even flat on the desk if a desk is available.) Using this body language has made a huge difference in how I'm treated and viewed, resulting in fewer doubting comments and fewer interruptions, which is nice, and none of that body language feels agressive.
Also huge for me is having pat responses for different situations, and your blog posts have given me lots of new ones!
Thanks again,
A
One more quick comment. I attended an amazing seminar related to these topics. It was on "Strategic performance" with some negotiating tactics mixed in. It was truly a professional-persona-changing experience for me. You can find it on the COACh website http://coach.uoregon.edu/.
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