women as abrasive

alafairnadia · December 2007

my soon-to-be-ex-boss/current boss needs some help. he does not comprehend the "aggressive man = good, aggressive woman = abrasive" issue. specifically, he believes the word abrasive to be completely gender neutral. I don't know how to term these searches in google since I don't have the proper social/gender vocabulary (I'm no academic). but I'd like to find something academic or legit media that says that the use of the word abrasive is NOT gender neutral. any help? thanks.

livetotravel · December 2007

- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/fashion/01WORK.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

- outspoken men and abrasive women
http://www.unh.edu/womens-commission/nonsexist.htm

IMHO women who succeed are always categorized as hostile, abrasive, pushy and manipulative

You could search under gender studies, gender equity, gender discrimination

And don't let your boss see this Guardian (UK) article on the new Harvard pres the historian Drew Gilpin Faust, who "...succeeds the abrasive Larry Summers..."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2011381,00.html

doctorj · December 2007

leet · December 2007

Yeah, I agree that abrasive is a gender neutral term, although if a woman's behavior is interpreted as abrasive when the same behavior by a man is seen as decisive, forceful, whatever, that's the problem.

This is a great book on the subject:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=5581

alafairnadia · December 2007

thanks everyone. my research skills are absurdly out of date and I appreciate this. thanks.

lilbangladesh · December 2007

I know I've been shouted down by male bosses (in front of everyone! grr!) for openly expressing an opinion that had I been male, no one would have had a problem. "It's the WAY you're saying it," he would say, but there really was no qualitative difference between the way I was saying anything and the way my male colleagues were saying it.

I eventually figured out that I was being punished for not prefacing everything I said with, "This may be dumb but..."

And I'd rather shoot myself in the head rather than say that. Career advancement (like that would be possible if I ever said that) is not worth the consequent loss of dignity.

sprite · December 2007

There's a lot of truth to this, but I have to say, I work in a female-dominated field, and I've had a couple of female colleagues that really were abrasive. Once a woman snapped at me in a meeting, and when I snapped back, she said, "Why are you getting angry?" Some people honestly have no idea how combative they sound.

Incidentally, I had a male colleague like this, and there was a noticeable difference between his confrontation style and that of other men in my office. I often used the word "abrasive" to describe him.

sweet tea · December 2007

^^ the trouble isn't in calling a spade a spade, it's in calling it a spade if a woman is holding it and specialized waste relocation device if a man is.

tortured metaphors aside, what i mean is that certainly women can be abrasive, as can men. but sometimes the same behavior is "abrasive" in a woman and "aggressive" in a man.

sprite · December 2007

I don't deny the double standard. Even "aggressive," which is neutral when applied to a man, is often seen as a pejorative when applied to a woman, especially in the workplace.

alafairnadia · December 2007

yeah. I usually know when I'm getting snippy. if I actually make the smartass/snippy comment, I will usually apologize to the person - sometimes I talk faster than I filter.

but for the most part I'm pretty sure that the use of the word abrasive to describe me in a work setting is very gender based. the only people who have said that to me are men (three in particular) and their backgrounds definitely make me think that the use of the word is gender based (two latino men with stay at home mom wives, one russian kid who still lives at home in brighton beach).

my ex-boss, soon to be boss again, describes my work personality more as straight forward and "spicy". not sure what she means by that, but, honestly, I don't care. she values these things about me. and the partnership at the new firm likes this, too, since she already informed them that I'd have no qualms about telling them they were doing something wrong and they thought I would be a great addition.

another aspect, apparently, according to my current boss, of my abrasiveness is my lack of patience for stupidity. this comes through with just two people (names are changed to protect the dumb):

marvin is a socially retarded freakshow. he constantly interrupts, can't hear, doesn't take notes, and is frequently shaking with nervousness. (really, if you ask him why he's trembling he'll tell you "I'm nervous") in efforts to calm marvin down I've asked him, before I describe a project, to sit down and take notes. what will ultimately happen is that I will tell him exactly what to write down. he will inevitably still fuck everything up. then I'll say something like "doesn't step 3 say to come check with me to make sure you did steps 1 and 2 correctly? why didn't you do that?" and ... then I'm supposedly impatient.

numbnuts (the russian) is not very bright, though slightly further along than marvin. if I describe a project to him, he will say that he understands. so then I'll ask him to repeat the project back to me. he usually can't because he doesn't understand certain steps. he calls this "talking down to him". I call it covering my ass since he just lied to me about understanding the project. why? because projects past he'd say he understood and then, when he realized he didn't, he'd go to my boss instead of me to ask for direction. since he didn't understand the project, something would get lost in translation and I'd end up with garbage. my current solution is to send him, via email, each step of a project separately so I can check it as I go. then when the complicated stuff happens, I just take over since he's incapable of learning how to do it and/or will only do it the way my boss wants it done.

sprite - I have definitely met plenty of abrasive women. I try to avoid using the word, though, since I kinda think in corporate settings it's a bit loaded.

MOD · December 2007

alafairnadia wrote:
another aspect, apparently, according to my current boss, of my abrasiveness is my lack of patience for stupidity.

Aww jeeze. I have the same problem. No patience for the stupid. It sometimes comes out without my helping it. It's the reason I didn't become a professor.
Congrats on the new job toots!!

carnivore · December 2007

I think abrasive is pretty gender-neutral. Now if he had said shrill... :idea:

lilbangladesh · December 2007

God, I hate incompetence with a PASSION. While I can be quite patient for anyone just learning a job, I have no patience at ALL for people who greet you with a blank look just because you expect them to learn and/or know something. I dunno how I could handle working with people like that without the ability to fire them.

Alfy, I think your boss is stupid for calling you abrasive. Being able to retain any form of decorum around these numbnuts is workplace heroics, imo.

women as abrasive

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