Don’t be a bitch
It is exceptionally easy to be labeled a bitch at work. All you need to do is be assertive or have your own ambitions and BOOM #uabitch. You may not care if people think you’re a bitch but unfortunately, once you get the label it’s much easier for colleagues to ostracize you and devalue your work. If you don’t want to be the office bitch the logical fix is to go in the other direction. Act really nice (even if you’re not) and then people will like and respect you. But guess what? That won’t work either because then you run the risk of being too nice. And when you are too nice, and do things to help everyone around you suddenly you are the office Mom, a particularly interesting trope. I think it’s safe to say that most of the people we work with had a Mom or some sort of Mother-figure at some point, yet it would seem they don’t respect her enough to want to work with (some version) of her.
What’s crazy to me is that this was first noted in 1977. Dr. Rosabeth Moss Cantor wrote that women are seen as the default housewives and mothers of the corporate world. Gross. But fast-forward to today and not much has changed. Women still do the majority of the office “housework. ” This includes any person-oriented task that isn’t directly related to your actual job. There are the more obvious things like buying presents on behalf of everyone else, picking up/making coffee, bringing in treats, or cleaning up the communal space. But there are other tasks like taking notes, scheduling meetings, filling out forms, or mentoring that aren’t a function of your job and happen to fall to you because you are “so organized” which is just code for “a woman.” One of the reasons this is especially frustrating is that many of us either don’t mind doing these things or take on the task because we want to make sure that box is checked. A lot of this is incredibly subtle and it’s really difficult to recognize as problematic particularly when we’ve learned to accept it in basically every arena of our lives. Additionally, women (generally speaking) have the instinct to “tend and befriend” and this plays out at work in a variety of ways. Much like fight or flight, tending and befriending is a response to stress.
Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. [The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend and befriend pattern appears to draw heavily on the attachment/caregiving system, and considerable neuroendocrine evidence from animal and human studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones and endogenous opioid peptide mechanisms, may be at its core].
When we spend our time doing these things we do not get credit for them because our altruistic behavior is (thought to be) just part of what women do. That makes it seem inconsequential, gets us nowhere and our male counterparts actually reap the benefits of our work. And speaking of the men, when they do these types of tasks they are rewarded and praised because office housework is clearly beyond their job descriptions. A smart lady might think to herself, “Noted, I will not be the Office Mom.” Turns out that is also problematic. When women don’t pitch in to help with tasks thought of as “office housework” we are seen to be violating those pesky gender roles. I believe that is called a lose/lose. We are literally wired to engage in these behaviors but when we follow these instincts we are punished and deemed to be “too helpful” to be taken seriously. YIKES!
So what the hell do we* do? The most obvious option is to just say no. Unfortunately, we all know that is easier said than done so it’s something we end up tightroping. There are small things we can try to start. Instead of agreeing to take the meeting notes, say that you would prefer to be active in the discussion (or something like that) and then (helpfully!) suggest someone else in your place. Don’t bring in treats or make the coffee or offer to get that condolence card. Basically, ask yourself: would [insert name of any guy from your office] do this? And if the answer is no: then move along, pretty lady! If you just absolutely can’t say no to these tasks for whatever reason, keep track of the time you spend doing them and include that in your annual review discussion. That way you have a record of all the time you spent doing shit that wasn’t your job!
Don’t be the office Mom, and don’t just be a bitch. Be the HBIC 👑
*I hate that we have to help solve this problem that we didn’t create