7 myths about ambitious women in which it is time to stop believing
Text: Anastasia Maximova
women making a career are surrounded by a mysterious, almost infernal flair. Even behind the seemingly innocuous phrase “female team,” there is such a trail of associations that it takes on horror. Again, we will act as the destroyers of myths and tell you how the actual situation of working women is.
All careerists waiting for the fate of the "old girls"
If you are about thirty, and you still have no husband and children, but your career is going uphill, know that the society has already laid out a yellow brick road for you - straight to the house with thirteen cats. Every morning you look into the mirror, looking for the first signs of Lyudmila Prokofievna there.
In fact, according to research conducted by the US Census Bureau in 2010, no longer 40-year-old women are ever afraid to put on a white dress - the age limit has shifted to 53-63-year-olds. However, only 7% of the polled fears were justified. Although, frankly, the prospect of living out your life in the company of cats no longer seems so frightening. Especially if you have to do it in your own villa on the Mediterranean coast, on which you have earned - yourself.
Women are not ambitious
Often, the bosses are counting on this: once they find an employee, they assume that they have closed the question for several years ahead. Then something goes wrong, and she suddenly claims to be promoted, and even reinforces her arguments with some figures, results. In general, Houston, we have problems.
Statistics will come to the rescue. Boston Consulting Group recently conducted a survey among more than 200 thousand respondents. The results were surprising even for them. First, women proved to be more ambitious than men at the start of a career. That is, women begin to work with the same or higher level of expectation than their male colleagues.
In general, the level of ambition is not affected by gender - only corporate culture. The more open and friendly it is, the less ambitious gap is felt in it - the ambition gap - between the sexes. Age also affects ambitiousness: the older a person is, the less his career expectations, a turning point, as a rule, happens between 30 and 40 years.
Women with children are certainly not ambitious.
It is also a myth, though quite tenacious. It is believed that if an ambitious loner and may have some requests to this world, then the "real mother" and so everything is fine. As they say in the old joke, "you have to think about the house." Can she seriously plan to enter the board of directors of the company if she already has children?
And here it can: according to the same research by the Boston Consulting Group, the level of ambitions of women with children and women without children is about the same. When they were asked to assess how important the opportunity for them to occupy a top position in the company, in all age groups the answers of women with children and women without them ranged from 1%, that is, they actually coincided.
Women are more emotional
Yes, just that, they run to cry in the toilet, start screaming, throwing away with staplers, and in general it is absolutely impossible to do business with them. In fact, no scientific evidence confirms the particular hysteria of women.
The expression of emotions depends far not only on the structure of the brain, but on education and personal characteristics. A study conducted in 2014 by neuroscientists from Mindlab showed that men are much more emotional than they want to show. Scientists decided not to trust the questionnaires, but to evaluate those indicators that are impossible to deceive.
So, they showed 30 volunteers - men and women - a set of "touching, funny and cute" videos and measured the degree of skin electrical conductivity and sweat glands reaction - in fact, that is an indicator of a person’s emotional response. Not without surprise, neuroscientists found that men showed more physiological responses in response to the proposed stimuli. Especially they were affected by touching videos.
But the men did not hurry to admit their emotionality: in the survey, after watching the video, the men deliberately “underestimated” the sensitivity of their reactions. Dr. David Lewis comments like this: “Gender stereotypes that men are more severe and women more emotional, are strengthened day by day through media and social interactions. We tend to simplify and exaggerate the existing difference between women and men and concentrate only on those when our expectations are met. This study showed that men experience the same emotions as women, sometimes even more, but do not want to show them because of society’s expectations. "
This is confirmed by another poll, in which two thousand men took part, 67% of whom confirmed that they are much more emotional than they show. 40% of men aged 18–24 admitted that they cried last week, and 64% did not deny that they were amazed how emotionally they reacted to the birth of a child.
It should not be forgotten that the word “emotional” should not be an insult to either women or men. Fortunately, large companies are increasingly talking about the need to develop emotional intelligence.
Women don't like to compete
Therefore, they are often not taken seriously by their male colleagues - “a girl, stand aside while the big uncles talk”. One of the theories, which is cited as confirmation of this myth, is blamed on the lack of competitive spirit of the "female" hormones estrogen and oxytocin. But testosterone, so necessary for a real career race, women lack.
In fact, if our behavior was determined solely by hormones, life would be much more primitive. In the Stockholm School of Economics, they decided to conduct an experiment in order to confirm or refute the popular claim that men are more likely to compete "for a place in the sun" than women.
The experiment was attended by children of eleven lower grades from 7 to 10 years. Scientists did not mention with children that they conduct a gender experiment, all tasks were carried out in physical education classes. Researchers conditionally divided the activity into "traditionally female" and "traditionally male" in order to check whether the degree of gambling will differ in boys and girls depending on the type of task. Children had to compete in sprint, modern dance and jumping rope. Tests have shown that, regardless of the type of activity, girls and boys show exactly the same degree of competitiveness and involvement.
It is significant that the experiment was conducted in Sweden - a country that ranks fourth in the struggle for gender equality in the world.
Women can't stand other women
What usually say about women's teams? The most gentle thing to hear is the "snake's nest." Yes, men wake up in a cold sweat at the mere thought that, in punishment for their bad behavior, they will be left to work in a purely female team, where the poison drips from the fangs of the employees directly onto the keyboard.
The idea of the so-called bee's syndrome (Queen Bee syndrome), the researchers first voiced in the 1970s. Its essence is that women often speak disdainfully about the character traits that are commonly considered feminine. For example: "Oh, women are so hysterical!" - and, on the contrary, they note in themselves “typically male” traits: “I have always played with boys,” “it's easier for me in male teams.” The bottom line is that women themselves discredit other women, diminish their dignity and often support male employees, distinguishing them from their female counterparts.
Nowadays, circumstances are changing. A study conducted by Catalyst shows that 65% of women develop new skills in the workplace, and 73% of them are beginning to patronize and support other women, helping them to grow professionally.
There is another side: sometimes people think that women's conflicts are more serious than men's conflicts. One study showed that if there is a conflict between two women at work, their colleagues expect prolonged negative consequences. For example, that one of the parties to the conflict will want revenge. But if two men or a man and a woman get involved in a squabble, most of the witnesses are convinced that the quarrel will not last long and will have no consequences.
Women Gossips
Everyone knows "Helen from the accounting", which can not be trusted with any secret. In fact, this is an awkward case when “Lenochka” turns out to be “Pyotr Afanasyevich,” which always blurs the secrets of colleagues.
The UK Social Research and Development Center helped find the truth, interviewing thousands of mobile phone users about the role that discussion of other people's lives plays in their communication. Of course, the first thing that men did was to deny that they had ever been involved in such an activity. But scientists did not believe it. Research results showed the following: 33% of men gossip daily, but among women only 26% of them. However, usually men are more inclined to discuss other people's achievements than women: salary level, success at work or a new car.