Althouse: "Nearly every professional woman has had the experience of saying something in a meeting, receiving no response..."

September 28, 2011

"Nearly every professional woman has had the experience of saying something in a meeting, receiving no response..."

"... and then listening as a male colleague offers the same thought or suggestion minutes later to great acclaim. The first time it happens, she feels slightly foolish and is a little unsettled. Did I say that out loud or just in my head? Maybe he made the point better than I did. The second time it happens, she gets frustrated. The third time, she gets angry."

Amy Sullivan, beginning a piece speculating about Obama's woman problem, which, she says, has long been "obvious."

209 comments:

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AllenS said...: Let's look at how men are portrayed on the TV commercials. You are constantly watching men make damn fools out of themselves, expecially white men. I don't want to hear about how women aren't getting a fair shake.

Now, isn't that the smartest thing you've ever read?; 9/28/11, 4:35 PM
Anonymous said...: "Seriously? You are coming on to my cartoon character?!?"

It happens.; 9/28/11, 4:52 PM
Amartel said...: Obama's so-called "woman problem" is really progressivism's "woman problem." Progressives talk the talk about women's rights but they do not walk the walk. One, because they don't really believe what they're saying. It's a means to and end. Anyone who was paying the slightest attention during the Bubba years learned that. Two, because this perfect objective equality that progressives pretend to is simply not a realistic goal. Men and women are different. And there are vast differences between individual men as there are differences between individual women on top of that.

Obama has been soaking in progressivism all his life so he feels comfortable calling a female reporter "sweetie" (NB it's not because he's being Southern Cute) or taking a passive-aggressive swipe at Hillary during the debate. It's justified 'cause he's Obama, The Great Progressive Hope! We learned a lot in 2008 but one of the main lessons was that it's alarmingly easy to dismiss an inconvenient woman.

And amen to the comments about mens' rights/masculinists being just as nauseating as any rampaging feminist. It's painful to observe in either case and helpful to exactly no one.; 9/28/11, 5:10 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Tom Hayden and his relationship to Jane Fonda defines the left's woman problem. How different is Obama?

Bush's wife on the other hand was a librarian and wasn't left behind.; 9/28/11, 6:50 PM
Christy said...: David, were you responding to me? If so, I wish I'd known that in the early days. Took me a while to figure it out.; 9/28/11, 8:48 PM
Teri Lester said...: Christian said...
"And nearly every man has had the same experience. Communication is a tricky thing. Sometimes a thought makes perfect sense in your head and you express it in a way that is clear to you, but not to everyone else. And your expressed thought sets of a spark in someone else and then they do a better job communicating it."

Exactly. I am usually one of the smartest people in the room, and I have a significant ability to see a flow of consequences in my mind. When a new process or procedure is presented, I can see six or ten steps down the road. For instance, they updated an online budget form, and I say, “So you’re going to need to change the field on the related Access form since the code is changing from a 2 digit number to a 4-letter code?” And the budget trainers all looked at each other, and said, “Yeah, make sure you write that down, we will need to do that.” (And then it still took them five months to get around to it – reformatting 10 little fields.)

The problem is, as Christian says, I get the idea, I see it perfectly, but the way I express it leaves out some of the jumps that I assumed were obvious. I’m grateful when someone else can translate for me. I don’t go to these meetings to get the credit but to get the work done, and if my idea is so brilliant that someone else wants to take credit for it, well, I really don’t care. I know that the people who matter know where the idea comes from. I work in a huge medical institution and in six years there are three of the suggestions I’ve made that have been adopted institution-wide. I didn’t get credit for them but they made my work easier and more pleasant, and I take pride in the fact that they made hundreds, if not thousands, of peoples’ lives better. I wonder if people like Amy are unhappy because their good ideas are so few and far between that they are rare and precious commodities? I am an idea generator. I have to keep my brain working or I would die of boredom. “Steal all you want, I’ll make more.”

I am plain looking, middle-aged and overweight, so I am not going to get anywhere on my looks, no matter how much I spend on power suits and stilettos. I have also been the primary breadwinner for a family of five for the last twenty years, so I don’t have time or interest in playing games. I have to work and I will not work in a job I don’t enjoy, so I pretty much have to make it happen by a combination of picking a decent place to work and then doing my best to make it or keep it a pleasant environment.

I learned a long time ago that when there are obvious problems that most people are afraid to speak up. I have a tendency (and a reputation) for always talking in large meetings, because I essentially say what everyone else is afraid to say, and I don’t give a @#$% about what anybody thinks. I can’t stand a meeting where people won’t talk about the elephant in the room. (I’m always waiting for someone to say, “Teri, let someone else have a chance to talk but so far that hasn’t happened.)

I’ll never have a shot at the top job here – you have to be a doctor for that – but I can reasonably expect to move into top leadership in an administrative management role – which is my goal.

And by the way, I went to an all-girls school for five years (5th to 9th), and it was a very adventurous and liberating (pardon the pun) environment. Brains and accomplishments were highly valued, and you had to go to someone else’s school to get into the homecoming and accompanying nonsense.; 9/28/11, 10:00 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: AllenS ,

What bugs the hell out of me, is when I post a comment and you people don't tell me that it's the smartest thing you've ever read. What's wrong with you?

That happens to me all the time here, but Ann gets all the credit for allowing me to post.

I understand why Ann posted this - she's going to keep trying to push feminist bullshit - but who the hell is Amy Sullivan?; 9/28/11, 11:19 PM
Derve Swanson said...: "No one here named "Mary" though, too clumsy and too verbose."

I've seen your online pics of your "little girl", DADvocate.

She looks like she'll be a fiiine coffee fetcher for some fella one of these days soon, eh?

Not the clumsy or verbose type at all, lucky you! (or lucky boys/men, eh?) You done raised her right, I dare say...; 9/29/11, 9:22 AM
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