Still haven’t found what I’m looking for
I just got back from Joshua Tree. That place is otherworldly. It looks like a Dr. Seuss* fever dream.
In middle school I remember listening to the CASSETTE of U2’s The Joshua Tree in my friend’s room. Her very cool older sister let her borrow it. At the time I didn't know Joshua Tree was a place. If you haven’t listened to this album in a while (or ever) it’s super! It stands the test of time. If you are like, who is U2 I beg you to listen to this playlist curated by the band. To clarify, U2 is a band from Ireland. A band from the nineteen-hundred and seventies. They once put an album on your iPhone whether you wanted it or not. Their lead singer is Bono. He’s fine or whatever but my 90’s heart belonged to Larry Mullen Jr. the drummer. I saw them in 1992 in the imploded Three Rivers Stadium and lost my voice from screaming. Simpler times.
I went to Joshua Tree because I needed a change of scenery and Leo’s school is closed for the week. Part of why I needed a change of scenery is because I do not think I am doing sabbatical well and I needed to clear my head. I feel like history is repeating itself. On my first sabbatical I was pregnant (NO I AM NOT PREGNANT). I spent a great deal of time on the couch watching The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE if you know what’s up) and trying not to barf.** It wasn’t productive in an academic sense but I did make a person so that is something. On this sabbatical I remained department chair (for a variety of reasons) and this was a stupid and largely unavoidable choice. As a result, I (tell myself) that I can’t totally check out because I still want to make sure everyone in my department has what they need when they need it. But here’s the thing, if I take a few days off no one will die. No harm will come. I am not the head of a surgical team. I do not drop food supplies for the UN. I check email. I do other things but email eats up a CONSIDERABLE amount of my time. I am not saying that (some of) these emails aren’t important or that what I do isn’t valuable but not checking email for 3 days will not result in any harm. This I know for an actual fact because last year we went to Maui, I didn’t look at email for a week, and it took me less than 2 hours to deal with my inbox when I returned. Everyone was safe and sound.
I think that part of the reason I have such a hard time stepping away from work is that I often make things bigger and potentially more problematic than they are in my head. I think of all the things that could go wrong. Turns out that’s a thing. It’s called catastrophizing and it is when your brain tends to default to the worst case scenario. Guess where I learned about it? Therapy!! Assuming the worst with no proof or, in this case, actual proof that it isn’t a big deal is the result of my good friend, anxiety. I see that more clearly now and am trying to manage it with baby steps because I am in charge of my time and I don’t want email dictating my day. Here’s what I am doing at the moment:
No work email on my phone
No email notifications anywhere (no pop-ups, no sounds, no nothing)
Trying to answer emails and then close that tab in my browser so I don’t see if anything new comes in
Setting aside an allotted amount of time for email each day
Created a “later” folder to stop me from immediately responding to certain tasks so I can do them in batches when I am ready. The good people at HBR say this wastes time but they are not me.
There are many other suggestions of how to manage your email but none of them are foolproof. I still find myself in my inbox wondering how I got there but these changes are helping a bit. I am realizing that many issues solve themselves over the course of a few hours and that some people just really love to send emails. I am also trying to accept that I deserve a break. I don’t need to earn it; especially on sabbatical! With just a few weeks left and the semester winding down I am desperately trying to do a better job at being on sabbatical. I am enjoying novels, volunteering at Leo’s school, taking extra HPF classes, and reading anything that isn’t Dr. Seuss with Leo. I’m going to try and be more like @brianacalli.
I’m a ghost!
*If you aren’t up to date on your Dr. Seuss news, six of his books are no longer being published due to his racist imagery and he had a history of drawing racist propaganda cartoons.
**I didn’t for 99.9% of the time. The Tom Kha soup Leo demanded got me. It wasn’t pretty.
Oompa
Growing up in Pittsburgh I listened to a lot of polka music.* My grandparents were big fans. In fact, I was once on the evening news doing the polka with my Nanny (Grandma). True story. When I was four we drove from Pittsburgh to Alaska in a 24-foot Winnebago (yes, DROVE) and the only available music was polka and the Annie soundtrack.** The other day I was feeling nostalgic and went to listen to my childhood playlist which includes a lot of polka. The lyrics to these songs are WILD. There is an entire song about a stolen blood sausage and one detailing that you better drink all your beer on earth because there isn’t any in heaven. The real kicker is that a personal childhood favorite of mine was called the Too Fat Polka. You heard that right. I loved this song and can remember singing it at the top of my lungs with my family in my grandparent’s basement. I can see the carpet, I can picture the chair I sat on. These are core memories. But the actual lyrics? Prepare yourselves:
Here's a silly ditty,
You can sing it right away
Now, here is what you say
So sing it while you may
Here's a silly jingle,
You can sing it night or noon
Here's the words, that's all you need
'Cause I just sang the tune:
Oh, I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
I don't want her, you can have her,
She's too fat for me
She's too fat
She's too fat
She's too fat for me
I get dizzy
I get numbo
When I'm dancing
With my Jum-Jum-Jumbo
I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat
She's too fat
She's too fat for me
Can she prance up a hill?
No, no, no, no, no
Can she dance a quadrille?
No, no, no, no, no
Does she fit in your coupe?
By herself she's a group
Could she possibly
Sit upon your knee?
No, no, no
We don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
And she's too fat for me
But she's just right for me
We don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
Yeah, she's too fat,
Much too fat
But she's just right for me
She's so charming
And she's so winning
But it's alarming
When she goes in swimming
We don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
But she's just right for me
So I sure want her, you can't have her
She's just right for me
But she's too fat!
She's not too fat!
She's just right for me!
She's a twosome,
She's a foursome
If she'd lose some
I would like her more some
I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
I don't want her you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat
Much too fat
She's too fat for me
Hey!
Part of it was sung in what I thought was Polish but could be Slovenian. I am not entirely sure, but the point is that this song is whack by today’s standards. It was originally released in 1947 but the version I grew up with was by Frankie Yankovic (no relation to Weird Al) and it was from 1968. I realize things were “different” back then but this song has a generally shitty message. As a little kid I can’t imagine I considered what the lyrics were actually saying. It was just a song to me. But as I got older the message was received: Fat = bad. It wasn’t just from this song. Although we didn’t have the hellscape of social media in the 80s, it was clear what the optimal look was as a middle school girl: not fat. That was unfortunate because right around fourth grade I became what would kindly have been referred to as “chunky.” I had to wear the clothes that came in ½ sizes from Sears. At the same time I had braces and headgear (two types!). It wasn’t a great time for self-esteem but it sure did provide lots for the bullies at school to work with. I made it through and now, according to my therapist, use humor as a coping mechanism in stressful situations. She is not wrong.
School bullies will always exist because children are monsters to each other. There are many reasons why kids bully but what about adults? It’s not just little jerk kids that bully people. Bullying in the workplace has become increasingly common.
Bullying and harassment are often used interchangeably but they are not the same at work. The Equal Employment Opportunity Council (Est. 1965) was created to ensure that employees are protected from discrimination and bullying becomes harassment when it is directed at a protected class of individuals. These categories are race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or over), disability, and genetic information (including family medical history). Unfortunately, the EEOC only (sort of) works when people go through the (lengthy) process of reporting a complaint. If you look at their data, complaints filed have decreased in all categories over the last several years. That seems great but all that shows us is that reporting is down. These declining cases may be due to the process and not an improvement in how we treat each other at work since it’s estimated that over 60 million people are impacted by workplace bullying. That’s unacceptable. So what do we do? There are suggestions for the person being bullied like attempting to manage your reactions and making eye contact. There are also suggestions for how others can intervene, but none of this deals with the actual bully! These are just ways to help the victim while the bullying is occurring. We need to go to the source and make changes there and there have to be consequences for workplace bullying. Unfortunately that is where the disconnect usually happens. Organizations and their leaders are not always willing to make the cultural changes or create the necessary policies to support the victims; thus empowering the bullies.
When thinking about solutions I realized the options I think will work to address bullying are the same ones I think we need to end tightroping. This quote is from my article about Luisa from Encanto and it works here too:
No more excusing ridiculous and unprofessional behavior. When someone makes a comment to a woman about what she is wearing, cracks a sexist joke, takes credit for her work, or talks over her it needs to be addressed immediately and in public. No more justifying bad behavior by saying, “Oh, that’s just how he is!” giving excuses, or having discussions behind closed doors about problematic behavior. Leaders need to create an environment where these things are publicly addressed. It’s not easy and it can definitely be awkward. But if nothing is done the message to us is loud and clear: keep on tightroping. Because the real you won’t be protected.
It’s not easy to shift cultures and implement new rules but the alternative is lawsuits and employees who don’t feel supported. While organizations are trying to figure out how best to do this we can continue to intervene. One successful intervention strategy that is often mentioned is to change the focus of the conversation or to do something that is distracting. And you know what’s distracting? The polka! Looks like those skills continue to come in handy.
*Polka originated in Bohemia which is actually where my Great-Grandma was from (it says it on her birth certificate and everything). You have likely heard of Bohemia because somehow this central European country turned into a whole aesthetic.
**I am willing to bet I still know every word of that soundtrack. I dressed as Annie for at least two Halloweens in a row. Also, I don't think I really understood the concept of orphan.
Please don’t
Everyone, I have a question for you. Who goes on Netflix and picks the “surprise me/play something” option? I need to know. I want to meet these people and ask them a lot of questions because I don’t understand how they live their lives. When I sit down to watch Netflix I have an idea of what I am in the mood to watch. I don’t go in there all willy-nilly. I have some sort of direction for goodness sake!! Perhaps I need to soothe my soul with British Baking or I want to laugh or watch trash. But, according to the existence of this button, some people just roll the dice and watch whatever Netflix gives them. Absolute mayhem. It’s possible that I can’t comprehend this because being surprised isn’t really my thing. In THEORY it totally is. A surprise? What fun! In reality? No thank you (unless it’s unannounced visits from a very specific group of people/my husband proposing). When I say surprise I’m not talking about a little treat or note or something. Show up for no reason with an iced coffee or a little snacky? Yes, please! But plan something big that takes time to do? Nope.
I find it odd that Netflix is the reason I am doing some serious introspection about this but here we are. I think there is one very large reason why I don’t like surprises: anxiety. In an earlier blog I mentioned how beneficial it is that we are having a more open dialogue about mental health both in and out of the workplace. Because of this, I think many people are starting to understand themselves a little better, me included. In the past I not understand anxiety or how it showed up in my life and other people didn't either. This meant that the only explanation for why I operated the way I did was because I was a “control freak.” The description isn’t incorrect. I like things a certain way (mine). I am not a neat freak who follows everyone around with a Swiffer. That’s my husband and it’s with the Roomba. He will gladly attest to the fact that I can be messy, though I contend that mess is mostly contained to the laundry chair. My need for control comes out in specific ways (usually planning related) because when I am not in control of what is happening I am uncomfortable. It turns out this is a hallmark of anxiety and fairly common. I never realized it was actually discomfort because it always felt like annoyance. Likely because emotions are complicated and intertwined. I distinctly remember writing that we “never have just one emotion” in my dissertation and it’s true. Are we ever just mad? No. We are disappointed, and sad, and angry, and maybe hungry. We also have problems naming our feelings and we don’t want to think about what is underlying them because that may be icky. Basically, we are bad at emotions. Maybe not everyone but definitely me.
When I entrust someone else with a task I assume they will complete it like I would (they aren’t me so it’s not possible) but the final result is out of my hands and that’s what drives the discomfort. I constantly worry: What if it isn’t as good? What if they don’t finish it on time? What if their work reflects poorly on me? This means that I often do things myself, don’t ask for help, and add more to my plate than necessary. I make lists, check everything off, and never drop the ball. It’s fucking exhausting. I want to be chill and spontaneous but it’s not easy. I get why now and I am trying to do better. Yay therapy!
Here’s a little flip side to all of this that I really need to examine: I LOVE to surprise other people!* There is nothing I love more than seeing the look of surprise on the face of someone I care about. No, I am not constantly planning surprise parties (though I have thrown several very fun ones!). It’s more about knowing what I did will make them happy. If you are familiar with the idea that people can have one of five different Love Languages, I am all about the Acts of Service/Gift Giving. I show people I care by surprising them because, to me, that shows that I know them and listen to what they talk about. I truly appreciate when people do that for me so I try to give that back. What’s crazy is that I’ve surprised people with trips out of town and nights out to undisclosed locations. Yet if the tables were turned I would hate that so much! Holy moly! Have I inflicted surprises on people that they hated? Is it because of my need for control?! This is spiraling so I will just have to hope that my surprises are all good enough to not make people upset.
One place where I do know surprises make people upset is at work. Employees in traditional organizations want consistency and transparency.** But surprises happen all the time. That’s why corporate culture is so important. Corporate culture creates the vibe of the company. Good corporate cultures create environments where employees feel heard, informed, and are treated well; they help organizations weather surprises. But what makes a corporate culture good?
Turns out to answer that all we have to do is think about what makes one bad. Sadly, we probably all have examples from places we have worked (hopefully are not still working) with terrible cultures. Take a second and think about previous jobs. What made you leave them? I bet at least part of your reason stemmed from a problematic corporate culture. Cultures will change organically over time. With new leadership, employee generations, and technology the organization shifts. It has to. Good corporate culture is dynamic and adaptable and sometimes that change doesn’t happen as quickly as leaders would like because culture shift is a process. Leaders can’t just decide to change the culture. They can have ideas of the directions they want to go but it takes months and sometimes years to create discernible cultural change. Unless you go in and fire pretty much everyone and start all over. That speeds it up but is not the recommended approach. If you are lucky enough to be in a position to create and drive culture change in your organization you have an amazing opportunity. The pandemic was terrible but it has made companies think more about taking care of their employees, which is one of the (many) components of a good corporate culture. There is more of a discussion about what employees actually need and want and how companies can provide it. Small culture shifts can create really big changes for an organization. I’m working on my own personal culture shifts. I’m stepping back, letting others do what they say they will (that doesn’t always play out well), and trying to relax more. Sometimes that involves Netflix, but it will never involve that button.
Do the people who use this option also click the “I’m feeling lucky” button on Google?
*Please note I initially wrote: There is nothing I love more than PLANNING A SURPRISE. Yikes.
** If you’re in a startup this does not apply. Surprises are your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Burgled
A while ago I took a fabulous woman trip (not a girls trip) to the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. My friend Kym and I were doing 2 nights in this kitschy wonderland and staying in the Paris Violets room. It was everything we wanted. Ridiculous decor, no kids, a pool, libations, and good food. The trip started off magnificently. We had a lovely dinner on Friday. Saturday morning I checked off an item that has been on my bucket list for a long time: GOAT YOGA. I downward dogged while tiny baby goats ran under me. Dreams do come true. Then we laid by the pool drinking grown-ass lady drinks and fell asleep as grown-ass ladies do. We got up and got ready for dinner because we had early reservations for Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House. It’s so amazing I needed to actually use the picture here so you don’t miss out. I was afraid you might not click the link.
Take it all in. Especially the carpet. They make a robe out of the same pattern. I bought one. Worth every penny.
This place was amazing! There was an actual band playing music that people (octogenarians) were dancing to on an actual wooden dance floor and we were seated at a lovely table for two right next to it. We were so relaxed, had just opened a bottle of Chardonnay and had not even taken a sip when I got a text. It was a text from my bank asking if I was trying to use my credit card to make a large purchase at a Target in San Luis Obispo. I was not. It took a second to register and then I grabbed for my purse on the back of my chair and it was there. Whew! But then I opened it. My (brand new) wallet was gone along with my driver’s license, $200 in cash (which I NEVER carry), and all of my credit cards. If you have had this happen you know it is an utterly shitty feeling. Once I canceled all my cards and let my bank know I sat back down with Kym and had my first sip of wine. We told the waiter what happened and he called over the manager who very kindly went through security footage. A few minutes later he came back and told us, “Yeah we saw him.” Saw who?! Turns out that while we were happily chatting, a man sat in a chair at the table next to ours, sidled up to the back of my chair with a jacket over his arm so my purse was out of view, and grabbed my wallet.
A few things here. The purse had a very strong snap that closed it so I don’t know how he got it open without me realizing. Kym and I were totally sober. If it were late in the evening and we had a few martinis in our systems I could have understood not noticing but that wasn’t the case.
The cameras caught him burgling me, tracked him to his car, and less than ten minutes later he made a $400 purchase at Target and tried to buy several hundred dollars worth of gift cards at another store. The employees told us he was clearly a professional but that didn’t make us feel better. Kym and I spent the rest of dinner feeling absolutely insane for not noticing. How did we not see him? Are we idiots?* How did I not clock someone that close to me? Even the waiter was perplexed because he didn’t see him either. I just kept thinking, if a man can be inches away from me and take something, what else can happen?! Turns out that is a fairly normal reaction.
Psychologists have looked into the emotional, behavioral, and psychological impacts of being robbed. The most common reactions are shock, disbelief, fear, anxiety, guilt, and unease. Unease was definitely a great description of how I felt and it just sort of stuck around for a while. I was fortunate that it eventually went away, but for some people the experience of being robbed is so traumatic that they suffer from PTSD. Most women operate with a low-level of unease at all times because it’s scary out there. Those of us with anxiety crank that unease up a few levels as our baseline. We worry about our physical safety, if someone is following us, if our drink is safe. In fact, there is a famous list of all the things women do to stay safe while out in public. It’s long. I usually opt for the keys through my fingers like Wolverine when walking to my car alone but it tuns out that won’t actually help me. Interestingly, when men were asked what they do to stay safe the overwhelming response was: Nothing, I don’t think about it. Sounds delightful.
For me this unease coupled with feeling creeped out, violated, and generally pissed off morphed into some good old-fashioned self doubt. Self doubt is all about not feeling sure of yourself. Self doubt tries to convince you that you are incompetent. Self doubt caused me to take a situation that had absolutely nothing to do with my intelligence or abilities and turned it into something that. Self doubt is a real jackass and it underlies imposter syndrome; something many women face at work.
In graduate school my friends and I used to joke about the “smoke and mirrors” we were using to succeed. The idea was that we had accidentally been admitted to the doctoral program due to some sort of computer glitch and that we were succeeding due to insane amounts of luck (not the endless cycle of reading, writing, over preparing, and crying). This luck then allowed us to continue to trick everyone around us into thinking that we knew what we were doing but one day we would be found out. Just like the Wizard of Oz, the curtain would be pulled back and we would be revealed for what we truly were: idiots. That’s imposter syndrome in a nutshell.
Imposter syndrome makes us think we are a fraud and every smart, accomplished, poised, confident woman I know has felt it at one time or another. I used to feel like a complete charlatan teaching Business Ethics classes even though I have a PhD in Business Ethics! It doesn’t have to make sense to make an impact. Initially called Imposter Phenomenon, the first paper written about it was by two female psychologists. That’s no coincidence. They studied high-achieving women and found that certain types of family dynamics combined with societal stereotypes about women contribute to an, “internal experience of intellectual phoniness.” This propensity to underestimate our abilities happens so frequently we may not even realize we do it. We are prone to perfectionist tendencies, experience greater levels of self-doubt, and tend to have lower self-esteem. You don’t say…This lack of confidence in our abilities has consequences as we move through life. Women are less likely to apply for jobs unless they have 100% of the listed qualifications compared to their male counterparts. When things go wrong we take the blame (because it must have been our fault!) and when things go well we credit everyone else (because how could silly little me have accomplished this?!). Unfortunately, since the initial study on imposter syndrome took place in what we can call less enlightened times (1979), the women studied weren’t a diverse group as highlighted by Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey in their awesome Harvard Business Review article:
The impact of systemic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases was categorically absent when the concept of imposter syndrome was developed.
The complete picture of what drives our feelings of imposter syndrome weren’t fully explored but now we are starting to get it. It’s not us, it’s the frameworks in which we have to operate so we need to stop talking about fixing women at work and start thinking about fixing the places where women work.
You know what we also need to fix? The purse situation at restaurants!** Since that clearly has not been addressed I ended my trip with no credit cards, no I.D., and no money (but Kym spotted me some $$ because she's the best). I flew to San Luis Obispo. On a plane. Which requires I.D. to board. I had to make several calls to the local police department who told me to call TSA at the airport who told me they would “try” to help. Very comforting. I arrived at the airport three hours early and the TSA guy was ready for me. He said he would have to call a “central clearing house” run by Homeland Security and that they would ask me several questions. If I answered them correctly I was good to go and if not (insert actual shoulder shrug by TSA agent here). Luckily I aced the questions and made it home without further incident. I still think you should go to the Madonna Inn and drink out of one of their goblets. It’s not their fault some people do bad things. I also think you should be kind to yourself. We are all working in and against systems that are problematic and make us doubt ourselves every once in a while. It’s normal but it sucks. Just like having your wallet stolen.
*We are not.
**When we go to Oaxaca we get a cute little stand for all of our stuff and it is in full view right next to the table. Genius. Can we make that happen here please?
Tina
The summer of my freshman year of college I went to France and I bought a poster.* There was just something about it that I loved. It “spoke to me” as the people say. It hung in dorm rooms and apartments and somewhere along the way it disappeared (perhaps into the void that is my Mother’s basement?). I totally forgot it existed until I was going through some old pictures (below). Seeing that poster made me think, “Yep. That checks out.”
The poster is a photograph taken by a French photographer named Bernard Matussière in either 1984 or 1990 and from what I can tell the photo is titled, TINA. I don’t know Tina, and I don’t know why her name is in all capitals, but I love her. That complete and utter “fuck you” that she is giving that shadowy guy. Fantastic.
How great is that shirt? I no longer have it and looked it up online. Want to know how it was described? VINTAGE. Devastating. Please enjoy the cordless phone in the background sitting on my 6-disk CD player.
It checks out because even 26 years ago (how is that possible?!) I had a particular attitude that Tina embodied. She seemed completely no nonsense and willing to tell people to “fuck right off.” Additionally, she is rocking the hell out of a pencil skirt and that is a look I love. So Tina is my attitudinal muse. In the last blog post I was talking about how you can change your behavior which got me thinking about the parts of us that don’t change and it turns out attitudes (usually) fall into that category. Theoretically I think we all know what an attitude is but if we are going to get all social psychology up in here the official definition according to the American Psychological Association is that an attitude is:
A relatively enduring and general evaluation of an object, person, group, issue, or concept on a dimension ranging from negative to positive. Attitudes provide summary evaluations of target objects and are often assumed to be derived from specific beliefs, emotions, and past behaviors associated with those objects.
My attitude about how life should work and how I should be treated has not drastically changed since then. Fundamentally I am the same. Psychologists wanted to understand why attitudes don’t really change and they came up with the Tripartite Classification of Attitudes. They found that attitudes actually have three components and other researchers started describing this as the ABC Model. It explains that attitudes are created by a combination of these three components (in any order) directed at a certain “target.” The target can be a person, idea, place, object; we can form an attitude about anything. Once the attitude is formed our behavior aligns with it.
A = AFFECTIVE (feelings/emotions): I love sourdough bread. It makes me feel happy.
B = BEHAVIOR (actions): I eat sourdough bread any time the opportunity arises.
C = COGNITIVE (thoughts/knowledge): I like sourdough bread because it is delicious and doesn’t make my tummy hurt.
This relationship between attitude and behavior can be stronger in some cases than others, but generally speaking there is a great deal of consistency between our attitudes and what we do. When I was looking around for some examples that related to work one really struck me. The U.S. Department of Labor had an article about how attitudes impact the ability for people with disabilities to obtain jobs.** They discussed that attitudes from three groups (job seekers with disabilities, employers/co-workers, service providers) need to change in order to increase the job opportunities for people with disabilities. But how? If attitudes are fairly consistent this seems really challenging. The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) approached this by creating informational campaigns. You might be thinking: WTF is that going to do? Well, if attitudes are based partially on our cognition, starting there makes sense. Perhaps people have negative attitudes about employing people with disabilities because they have the wrong information. The ODEP is combating that with useful information and facts to change cognition. They also created a video series. This gets at the feelings part of the equation. It’s possible that many people with these negative attitudes simply have not interacted with someone who has a disability. Seeing individuals tell their stories is likely to impact their feelings. Combine those two things and changing the behavior should follow. It’s not guaranteed but their approach is great and something I think companies could consider. An informational campaign to combat current (incorrect) cognitions may kick-start affective change. Worth a try!
If you have an attitude you want to change there is a specific thing you can do. You can change your behavior! Our brains like consistency. When you are doing something that is no longer in line with what you want to be doing you experience cognitive dissonance and that’s no fun. For example, your (original) attitude is that eating healthy is a waste of time but you realize that you haven’t been feeling great lately. You decide to start buying healthy snacks and stocking your fridge with fresh fruits and vegetables consistently (behavior). After a few weeks, you start to feel better. Your skin is glowing, you aren’t tired and the only change you made was the kind of food you were eating. You read some articles about the impacts of healthy diet changes (cognition). You eventually decide that eating healthy might not be a waste of time after all (new attitude). Added bonus: you feel happy (affect). I realize this is a simplistic example but it makes the point. If you can get yourself to change the behavior the attitude will likely follow. In no way am I saying this is an easy process but I think it is worthwhile. There are definitely attitudes I am working on changing at the moment but my Tina-ness is not one of them. In fact, to remind me of this I have a small framed copy of her next to my desk at home and at work. I’m glad she came back into my life. If you ever see the poster please buy it for me! I will Venmo, Zelle, or Paypal you!
*I did more than buy a poster. I went to Manchester and Paris and met friends and then spent several days in London alone. It was when I discovered just how awesome alone time can be. If Leo tried to fly to Europe alone at 18 I would lose my mind.
**Please note the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990 and this is still an issue. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. We need to do better.
Middle Ages
Every once in a while I read a story that gets me FIRED UP. This happened recently when the fantastic Dr. Kristine Ehrich texted me this: Stereotypes of middle-aged women as less ‘nice’ can hold them back at work. This article is based on research by UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business professor, Dr. Jennifer Chatman. Like a lot of great research, this project was inspired by something Jennifer was experiencing in her own life. Since hitting her 40s, she saw a decline in her teaching evaluations (and so have I). This seemed weird to her because her knowledge of the field, comfort in front of a class, and all the other things (theoretically) necessary for great evaluations were better than they had ever been. What the hell? Turns out that the problem was that she was a woman over 40 who wasn’t matching up to her students’ expectations of how she “should” behave towards them. You see, there are descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes regarding gender. The descriptives are about what men/women “typically” do while the prescriptives are about what we SHOULD do; this is where issues arise in the classroom and at work. The prescriptives are not based on how women ACTUALLY act and that disconnect is where women get dinged in their teaching evaluations, performance reviews, and ability to advance in their careers. The general expectation (stereotype) is that we should be warm (definition = enthusiastic, affectionate, kind) and caring so when we do not act in accordance with that, people don’t like it and we are punished. When women enter their 40’s we start getting hit with gendered ageism; the super cool combination of being discriminated against for being both “old” and a woman. In society we disappear from TV (yes, there are exceptions but they are few and far between), movies show us as the grandmothers, and advertisers ignore us. Once you hit your 40s the world has very few acceptable options of what you can do with your life because, OMG you guys, that is so old!! Since being 45 makes me an expert in this topic I have made you a list of your options ladies:
Settle in under a pile of cozy blankets you knitted, never show your (wrinkled) face in public, and wait for the sweet relief of death.
Sweetly and earnestly encourage the hopes and dreams of everyone around you (because yours are dead you hag!) and then use all the time you have no longer trying to achieve anything to bake cookies for everyone around you. You are now basically Mrs. Claus but without that weird bonnet. Unless you are into bonnets-those are actually ok if you are over 40 because no one is looking at you.
Retire, move to someplace warm that isn’t Florida with your besties, wear caftans, have afternoon cocktails on the lanai, do puzzles, die.*
Spend the majority of your time ensuring that everyone around you is comfortable. This is most easily done by taking care of all the pesky things no one actually wants to do. You can clean up after everyone, make tasty/healthy meals, run errands, maybe mow the lawn. Definitely make sure that nothing you do brings you any joy or fulfillment. You are too old for that, you selfish monster.
Start a coven. Cast spells. Wreak havoc.
Become invisible and literally just disappear because your thoughts, feelings, and ideas no longer matter.
Men and women are seen as more effective and capable as they get older. Makes sense. But only women are seen to be less warm as they age. So, when talking about teaching evaluations the perceived lack of warmth translates into complaints about their female professor’s personality which turns into lower teaching evaluations. This is something because I have met some male faculty with truly terrible personalities who maintain great teaching evaluations. Put simply: it’s not fair. Women are judged more harshly than their male counterparts based on these stereotypes. According to the research, the peak (or rock bottom) of our lack of warmth/inability in the classroom comes at age 47. Can’t wait!
Student evaluations are flawed in so many ways. They are biased against women and minority faculty and when you add in pregnancy it gets worse. Additionally, the people evaluating our teaching (students) don’t actually know the subject matter so evaluating our ability to teach it to them seems problematic. What this means is that teaching evaluations are often more of a likability measure. Research has shown that the most important characteristics of a professor include getting to know students, being seen as a life-long learner, and being a role model. Additionally, most students prefer the teachers who are not strict with their classroom rules and who are pretty generous when scoring student work. Cool so the “measure” of whether I am good at teaching has absolutely nothing to do with my teaching and is more about learning their names and being an easy grader. A logical response would be to either try and fix them or get rid of them all together but this is academia so neither is going to happen! The big issue here (aside from the overt discrimination) is that these evaluations are used to evaluate faculty performance. Every year our teaching evaluation scores, research productivity, and service activities are taken into consideration as the basis for our pay increases.**
I have a theory of why all of this is happening. It’s because, by the time we reach our 40s we, as women in academia and beyond, are simply sick of your shit.
Truly. Fed up. Over it. No longer willing to entertain it. This feeling of not engaging with ridiculousness is what started the idea of tightroping in the first place. We don’t want to change the behavior that (finally!) feels right to us. Personally, I started feeling my “warmth” fade after I had Leo and went back to work. There I was (age 38) trying desperately to be all the things to all the people. I was juggling my career and being a Mom and not dropping any balls ever yet I had students (very earnestly) telling me that they couldn’t get their assignments done on time because they had a formal to attend. I’m managing all of my responsibilities and keeping a human alive and you would like an extension on an assignment that has been on the syllabus for months? No. My willingness to excuse unprofessional behavior and engage in general nonsense had simply vanished by that point and this is where I believe the concept of warmth gets twisted and used against us. To students, warmth is doing whatever they need in the name of “caring.” Warmth is moving deadlines, spoon feeding, hand-holding, and generally bending over backwards. To me, warmth is caring about them and their ability to succeed. Letting them blow off deadlines because they didn’t manage their time properly isn’t helping them and it’s certainly not setting them up for success. Unfortunately, as soon as our versions of warmth don’t match up and we stop conforming to sexist standards things get dicey for women in and out of the classroom.
None of this is ok. Everyone’s work should be evaluated by performance, not their ability to conform to stereotypes. Though I don’t have a surefire solution to these issues, I do think that women refusing to tightrope can help us start making a shift. We don’t have to be “warm” to be good at our jobs. We don’t have to smile. We don’t even really have to be nice (how many male jerks have you worked with?). What we have to be is competent, prepared, and ready to execute the tasks our job requires. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now that I think about it, maybe pay equity and gender parity might help warm up our our old, cold lady hearts!
*My preferred scenario
**Tee hee. What is a pay increase?
Trolling
There are a variety of trolls out there. The cartoon kind that sings and dances, the very cool kind you find under a bridge in Seattle, the kind from Frozen, and the ones from the 70s that are truly terrifying.* Each of those types of trolls has their merits, but guess who doesn't? Internet trolls. I can’t say I have spent a lot of time thinking about internet trolls. The one troll story that sticks in my head was told by Lindy West. She had a troll that, in addition to spewing hateful comments about her, her body, and her beliefs, stole her deceased father’s identity (you read that right) to abuse her online. You can’t make this shit up. Unfortunately, I was reminded of the existence of internet trolls while writing an article about She-Hulk for Fast Company. The Disney+ series premiered in August and my delightful friend and colleague Dr. Alison Sanchez texted after the first episode to say, “She-Hulk is tightroping!” And boy was she right. She-Hulk (aka Jennifer Walters) was dealing with a bit of a situation. She was in a car accident with her cousin Bruce (you know, the Hulk), got infected with his blood and you can pretty much guess what happened from there. Normally when we find ourselves tightroping it doesn't involve trying to hide the fact that we just became a massive, green, giant who exploded out of her clothes. It’s a bit more nuanced. Throughout the season, the show offered so many great examples that mirrored the lives of us regular, non She-Hulk, women.
In addition to presenting the frustrating parts of being a woman at work in a way that was entertaining, the writers of the show also took the opportunity to really troll the trolls. You see, after the August premiere, there was a ridiculous amount of vitriol spewed at the show by trolls.
My favorite part of all of this is that She-Hulk IS NOT REAL. The Marvel Cinematic Universe IS NOT REAL. NONE OF THIS IS REAL LIFE.
The show got what is apparently called “review bombed” which means that thousands of people took time out of their lives to give it the lowest rating possible on sites like IMDB so that they skewed the ratings in hopes of others not watching it, thus making it less likely to be renewed for a second season. Their list of grievances against the show was long and I ventured into some dark corners of the internet to see what they had to say.** Here are a few general comments:
Women can’t be Hulks
Too “woke”
Feminist bullshit
Jennifer Walters is a narcissistic bitch
The CGI isn’t believable
In response to all of this, the writers included a plot mocking a men’s rights group named the Intelligencia. The season finale highlights just how upset all of these men were about the existence of a female Hulk. Spectacular. I will totally admit that I am not as passionate about anything as some people are about their superhero franchises. I have gone to Comicon strictly to people watch, I do not know who is a member of the MCU and who is not, and the only one of these types of movies I have ever purposely watched was Deadpool and that was last week and only because my husband swore it was funny. It was.
I can’t think of anything that would make me so upset that I would take to my keyboard to insult, intimidate, or threaten a stranger. Since I don’t do this it’s hard for me to understand but social science is here to help! Researchers have been thinking about this for a while and they offer a bunch of different reasons that may explain why people troll. In addition to doing this for attention or just to be mean I think they also do it because of the amount of “space” they have between them and their target. What I mean is that it would take a lot of work to figure out who and where they are so they just lob hate grenades and go on with their lives. But how do they sleep at night? That is the part I really can’t comprehend and the one thing that popped into my head to explain it is Moral Disengagement. This is the idea that we are able to justify certain behaviors by sort of tricking ourselves into thinking they are ok by using one of the following mechanisms (aka mental gymnastics).
This handy chart is taken from one of the first papers on the topic and the book by an OG of Social Psychology, Dr. Albert Bandura. He thought that moral disengagement was one of the only ways we could explain atrocities like the My Lai massacre. I think we all morally disengage from time to time, it’s human nature, but not to the point of murder or a willingness to destroy someone online. While I was researching this, I came across an article that links moral disengagement to adolescents engaging in cyberbullying. One of the conclusions from the author is that we need to reduce the use of the moral disengagement process but HOW? I found some articles with suggestions. Unfortunately they focus on interventions in the classroom by trying to catch kids while they are a captive audience in school. They also encourage individuals to set aside their self-interest (unlikely!) and for organizations to talk about ethics so employees know it’s important to the company. I don’t think any of this is going to work but I also have no idea what will. Can we send them our extra Catholic guilt and see if that makes a difference?
This whole thing reminds me of teaching evaluations. I can go an entire semester with a class that is mostly delightful to interact with and then I read their evaluations and, surprise, some of them really hated me. They hid their real feelings until they were given the anonymity of the evaluations (space) and then they really go for it. Some highlights over the years include being called a “communist” (false), a student noting that I have a “smart mouth” (true), and that I am a “feminist who loves talking about wage gaps” (also true).
I wish I had some useful, breakthrough solution to eliminating internet trolls but they have been around forever. They used to write anonymous pamphlets, the internet just made this kind trash easier! I think ignoring them is probably the best option because they thrive on engagement. I know ignoring them isn’t what we want to do. We want to yell and tell them how terrible they are but there’s no point. It’s like angrily hanging up a call on your cell phone. Without that old school slam it’s just not satisfying (I am dating myself) and neither is going on a tirade to address their tirade. I think the other thing we can do is attempt to counterbalance their hate. I’m going to do that by trying to raise a kind kid, be as nice as I can when I can, and encourage empathy towards myself and others. The internet is where we go to look up how old the actors are in the show we are watching, to Wordle, and to buy shoes. Maybe take a break from yelling at people in their happy place trolls and go watch a show. If She-Hulk wasn’t your thing maybe give the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale a try. Dystopian future stuff; you will totally love it. 😉
*There are likely more types of trolls but I am not a troll expert so this is as far as my troll-based knowledge extends.
**Did you know there is a Reddit MensRights section? I refuse to link to it.
Seven
Leo turned seven last week. Seven. People always say “the time goes so fast!” And it does, usually. I love this kid and his snarky attitude (I have no idea where he gets that), his joke delivery, sick burns, and big sweet heart. Instead of prattling on about him I thought I would dig up a story I told for the There’s More podcast at USD. The theme I was given was “BANG.” That was the only prompt I had and I had no idea what to talk about. So, I started thinking about the word “bang” and all of its connotations. After eliminating a variety of inappropriate avenues, I settled on the actual sound and what it makes me think of. When you hear a bang it usually goes along with something that’s startling or something blowing up so that’s what I decided to talk about: blowing up my life in ways I never imagined.
Many moons ago I started online dating, went on some dates, and met some interesting characters.* In April 2014, I met a guy for coffee. Full disclosure, I met him at the coffee shop literally across the street from my house in case he turned out to be a creepy murderer. He wasn’t. I honestly didn’t have high expectations-it was just coffee (and according to him it was an “interview” not a date 🤨). Luckily he was nice and funny and smart. We had a lot in common and he thought my being a professor was interesting and not scary (something someone actually to me). We texted after coffee, hiked Torrey Pines, ate pupusas, and after our fourth date I knew I had found my person. I called my Mom and told her she should plan to attend our wedding the next year. She thought I was joking. I wasn’t. After six weeks of dating I invited him to Europe with me while I taught abroad. Two weeks after that he moved in to my condo. We were engaged by December and got married 11 months to the day of meeting for coffee. BANG.
Then we blew up our lives in a way I never imagined: We decided to have a kid. And you may be thinking. Right, big deal. You had a kid-people have kids all the time. But you need to understand something. I did not like kids. I was NOT GOING TO HAVE KIDS. EVER. Under ANY circumstances. Kids interrupt your naps, they cramp your vacation plans, and they are often sticky. These are not things I like. But my husband Jairo really wanted kids and is patient and kind and a variety of things I am not so I thought: what the heck! We can do this. This will be easy peasy. I was very wrong. Turns out when you are pregnant in your (ahem) later thirties (what the doctors like to call “advanced maternal age”) things can get a little crazy. I had to teach sitting down, my fingers turned into hot dogs, my knuckles and ankles disappeared, and the only shoes that fit were Birkenstocks a size too big. I was not the glowing pregnant woman. I was a walking poster for high blood pressure and the fact that pregnancy is a young woman’s game. At one point I was getting dizzy spells and couldn’t drive so Jairo would take me to work. One afternoon my blood pressure was really high and my doctor wanted me to get checked. I had to call an Uber and the look on the guy’s face when sweaty pregnant woman got in his mini van and said, “To the hospital!” was priceless. I promised him I would not birth a child in his van. I kept that promise. But just a few days later, six weeks before my due date (on the night of my baby shower) and in the middle of a semester my water broke and it was go time. We were not prepared. I had no hospital bag packed (because I still had at least several weeks!) so I threw some stuff together and we headed out so Leonidas could make his (very early) debut in the world. When we got to the hospital they hooked me up to a butt-load of machines and a relentless blood pressure cuff that squeezed my arm with a ferocity I had never experienced before or since. Once we were settled and the Pitocin started drippin’ my husband looked into the bag I packed and realized I had brought my laptop. When he held it up with a “what the hell” look on his face I explained that I thought I would get some grading done while I was in labor. This is a great indication of just how unprepared for what was about to happen I actually was...Leo was born the next morning and I did not get any grading done. I did however take some time to order a carseat and text my amazing colleague who would need to step into my classes a wee bit earlier than planned. We came very close to an emergency c-section because Leo’s heart rate kept dropping luckily he stabilized and was born weighing in at 4 pounds 11 ounces. A massive team was waiting to take him to the NICU as soon as he was born. It was one of the scariest things I have ever experienced. And so I found myself, type-A, hyper organized planner and list-maker thrust into a situation in which I had absolutely no control.** BANG. My world really did explode. For nine days we took shifts at the NICU while Leo put on weight, and then lost it, got treated for some serious jaundice that made him look like a little yellow highlighter, got a feeding tube, ripped the feeding tube out, had tons of wires attached to him and needed to be in a plastic incubator for the majority of time to stay warm. And then he was fine. One day they just said here you go and sent us home as a party of three with absolutely no instructions. BANG. He will be four next month and we are exceedingly fortunate that he is a totally healthy, happy and smart little kid. Along the way we have weathered a variety of blow ups: literal diaper explosions, teething, walking, growth spurts, talking, starting daycare, night terrors. Super fun stuff! Our lives now blow up in new and different ways on an almost weekly basis and I’m still trying to learn how to appreciate the insanity and unpredictability of it all. I have had to put aside the idea that things need to happen at a certain time or in a certain way because, guess what? I am really not in charge anymore and I never actually was. Life is crazy and messy and fantastic and sometimes it needs to completely blow up in your face to put you on the right track. So I don’t want you to be afraid of those big bangs in your life. Wait for the smoke to clear and look for the new possibilities you have thanks to that explosion.
That was written three years ago and since then we have survived quarantine, Zoom school, Kindergarten, lost teeth, the death of two pets (in the same summer!), and mean kids. There are still days where I feel like I have no idea what I am doing as a parent and that is ok. What is important (I think) is remembering that he is a complete person unto himself. He has his own interests (dragons, Pokemon, drawing, unicorns, snacks, dancing, building stuff) and it’s my job to support him as he grows into whoever he is going to be. Happy #7 to my one and only, never lonely, macaroni. 🌈
Cartoons + A Kiwi Crate = this face
*If anyone ever needs material on the topic of “you’re not the person from your online picture” I have a lot to work with-hit me up!
**This has probably been my biggest parenting challenge. Control (or thinking I need to be in control) is driven by my anxiety. It’s like a terrible merry-go-round. When I don’t know what comes next I freak out (usually internally and sometimes externally) and there is no way to even guess what comes next with kids. They are bonkers. I once had to tell Leo, “we don’t lick the bottom of our shoes.” No parenting book prepares you for this shit. Over the years I have tried to slowly loosen the reins on my need to control when it comes to Leo. It is a work in progress but so far he’s turning out pretty awesome and I am convinced that has absolutely nothing to do with me.