On Being Woman, on being Human

I picked up on Danah’s post commenting on Clay Shirky’s post on ‘A Rant about women’,

It’s tempting to imagine that women could be forceful and self-confident without being arrogant or jerky, but that’s a false hope, because it’s other people who get to decide when they think you’re a jerk, and trying to stay under that threshold means giving those people veto power over your actions. To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments, and as far as I can tell, the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction.

I am usually very private and do not discuss anything personal on my blog, but this topic is too close to heart and here is what I learnt:

1. Stereotypes sometimes contain some good schemata for us to quickly categorise and ‘manage’ people,  but not always true: My experience tells me that there are men who suck as self-promotion, there are also women who put themselves out there and talk themselves up.

2. You don’t need to talk and act like a ‘man’ to get respect.  You need to be good at what you do and be proud to tell other people succinctly. This does not discount your respect for other people, but it means that you are STRONG enough to stick to your gun when you guts tell you that you KNOW what you’re talking about.  People can doubt you, but not yourself.  Same lesson for men and women.

3. Everyone has their own insecurities and things that they wish they are better at.  I am still struggling at times of projects that I have no prior knowledge to – but do I rant/share my fear?  To be honest, I would just do it.  Research, ask questions, think, use your bloody brain, talk to someone who is good, hire someone to do the part you are not sure about and focus on your strength.  At the end of the day – focus on the deliverable – if you’re passionate and conscientious about your clients’ work, it comes across.  Whether you are a man or a woman.

4.  I love how Tom Coates put it in bigger perspective,

And while encouraging people to spot the talented and the creative, we should also be considering how we shame those people who self-promote without creating. The financial collapse has taught us that rhetorical bubbles divorced from reality are a danger to us all. We’re already approaching this point – our industry has become venal, insular and dominated by marketing. We have come to value the wrong things. And if we want a continued vigorous, creative, free, open and equal environment, that’s something we have to fix. It’s not something to aspire to.

Time to get real.

5. Finally – I am not actually arguing against Clay, I just want to clarify that women and men might communicate differently, but none needs to be arrogant/ego-maniac to gain respect.  What I note is that when I work with younger people (I’m sorry to generalise), they tend to focus too much on ‘what I can learn from you’ and ‘how I can help’ instead ‘I know what I am talking about and here is what you should be doing.  I can help you with this and that’.  To be fair, I do see more men talking with the latter perspective, which is pretty handy in building confidence with people you work with.  Having said that, I do talk like that too… and I’m a woman.  Damn proud of it.

In sum, the key thing is:

Don’t let other people decide who you are.  You know best, and with trust and compassion in yourself you stand tall. A weak ego usually comes big, because they need all the fluff to fill in the room.  But there is little substance, or foundation of trust in it.  When it bursts, nothing stays because it’s all air in it.

A small but strong ego is a beautiful ego.  It is quiet.  But when it speaks, people listen.