Sweating the Small Stuff May 20, 2013Career Articles, Career DevelopmentOff

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Subtle discrimination can handicap a woman’s career. Here are 10 ways to stop it.

By Joanne Gordon

As chief executive of Theragenics, a $33 million biotechnology company, Christine Jacobs may have broken the glass ceiling, but there is another barrier she can’t seem to budge: the door to the men’s room. “I’ll be the only woman in a boardroom, and when we take a ‘bio break’ I come back from the ladies’ room to find I am the only one who has returned,” Jacobs says. “The guys are still in the bathroom talking about business.” It’s nothing personal; they just don’t realize Jacobs is left out. “It’s life,” says the accomplished 54-year-old.

Jacobs’s nonchalance is understandable. It seems silly, ridiculous even, to complain about such a small slight. But many female executives argue that there is a very serious implication at stake: For all the progress women have made in corporate America, we are still left out of too many conversations. And that, they say, is one of the many forms of subtle discrimination that are jeopardizing women’s participation in power.

The small slights add up. Exclusion, gender-based stereotypes, double standards, condescension and the offhand sexist comment can snowball, resulting in missed opportunities for women to build relationships, showcase their talent, affect decisions and flex influence. In the early 1970s, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ombudsman Mary Rowe coined the term “micro-inequities” for just such behavior. Micro-inequities are seemingly small, prejudiced events that are ephemeral, hard-to-prove, covert, unintentional and often unrecognized by the perpetrator. Today, Rowe maintains that this type of subtle discrimination is the principal scaffolding for all segregation – gender, racial and otherwise – in the United States.

While some claim women have achieved equality in the business world, others fervently argue that gender discrimination is alive and well. It’s hard to disagree with the latter given the data: Women age 45 and up still make less than 75 percent of what men earn, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and women hold barely 16 percent of the officer positions at the 500 largest companies. While the disparity in power is undeniable, the discrimination that helps perpetuate it is likely tolerated because it is more subtle than ever. Compared to illegal acts of sexual discrimination and harassment – not hiring someone because she is female, for example, or demanding sexual favors for promotions – micro-inequities are more insidious because they are harder to spot and tougher to combat.

This phenomenon is something women understand all too well. While only 5 percent of women who aspire to senior positions see sexual harassment as a barrier, almost 50 percent see exclusion and gender stereotypes – pervasive forms of subtle discrimination – as barriers, according to a 2004 study from Catalyst, the New York-based research and advisory organization that works to expand opportunities for women in business. Catalyst’s J. Bo Young Lee, director of advisory services, agrees that micro-inequities are a big reason corporations still have problems promoting women.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good: Subtle discrimination is not completely out of one’s control. No need to fight it with a sledgehammer – by standing on a soapbox or filing suit. Women are already retaliating in more subtle ways and are not getting fired, snubbed or embarrassed in the process.

More than a Foot in the Door

Exclusion is among the most harmful forms of subtle discrimination. When women miss out on conversations – be it in the boardroom or the bathroom – they miss out on opportunities.

A recent, highly publicized example of exclusion came in 2002 when Dr. Martha Burk, former chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, publicly challenged the secretive, all-male membership of Augusta National Golf Club, which included high-ranking executives from major companies such as GE, Procter & Gamble and Motorola. Burk, who chronicled the Augusta episode in her book Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It (Scribner, 2005), posits that Augusta is a metaphor for exclusion at all levels of business and emblematic of how women are denied opportunities.

While the club’s no-women policy is as blatant as gender discrimination gets, smaller and just as frustrating forms of exclusion happen to women every day, such as locker-room humor at the office and rampant talk about sports. While dirty jokes and the weekend’s football games may often be common topics over which men bond, they are not usually the way women relate to each other.

Conversation styles alone, when dominated by men, can aid exclusion and, as a result, marginalize women.

Even when they are invited to play golf, many female professionals find the sport to be the bane of their existence. One year Atlanta Magazine editor Rebecca Burns, 39, had had enough. Fed up that a golf tournament was the only employee event her company paid for at its annual retreat, Burns e-mailed the chief operating officer’s office and suggested that management offer more options. As a result, the next retreat included spa services among the list of free activities. “When I walked into the spa surrounded by women I worked with, it was like a Norma Rae moment!” Burns says with a laugh. The next year, a slew of male colleagues also opted for massages over playing 18 holes. “It sounds like a silly thing,” Burns says, “but it broke down the idea that everyone has to be exactly the same way to be successful at the company.”

Indeed, stopping gender-based exclusion is not about pretending we’re all alike, but acknowledging that men and women are different, even in minor ways. Carolyn Layne, a 43-year-old vice president of marketing at Comergent, a privately held e-commerce software company in Redwood City, Calif., harbors a pet peeve about the corporate tchotchkes, or giveaways, bias toward men. “In addition to golf accessories and oversized crewneck T-shirts, I push my people to look for female counterparts, like v-neck T-shirts with more feminine cuts,” says Layne, who often looks through catalogs herself for female-friendly alternatives. Minor, yes, but the implication is that management is just not recognizing the interests of its female workers.

Women also suffer exclusion when men try to avoid the appearance of sexual impropriety. As a single woman, Christine Jacobs of Theragenics is often not included on weekend trips planned by male peers. “A guy has to be really well rounded before he invites me to his guest house, or he may have trouble at home with his wife,” she says. Jacobs is serious. So serious that when she does get invited she plays the gracious guest, always giving a piece of sterling silver to the hostess and making a point to talk to her colleagues’ significant others. Still, it’s a fine line. Says Jacobs: “I don’t run to the kitchen to help with the salad.”

Fear of sexual innuendo can also make it challenging for women to bring in new business and thus earn promotions or make partner. Consider how much business development is conducted socially, over dinner or drinks. If a female lawyer asks a potential client out to dinner in the hopes of establishing a business relationship with him, observes Ellen Ostrow, psychologist and owner of Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers Life Coach LLC, the man may decline just because he fears the meeting will be misconstrued as romantic.

Rather than give up networking, women have other options. For example, invite a potential male client to dinner with your mutual significant others, or to a daytime activity, like lunch or a boat trip, with a group of colleagues in tow. Both offer opportunities to talk business and bond while alleviating misconceptions.

To be fair, the majority of men are not plotting to keep women out of power; they just aren’t working hard enough to ensure they have an equal shot at it. “It’s benign neglect,” says Professor Barbara Kellerman, research director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. “And today there is much more benign neglect than overt discrimination.” Indeed, if 80 percent of success is showing up, as filmmaker Woody Allen famously put it, then a woman must be allowed in once she arrives.

Slay the Stereotypes

While legislation and training have clarified unacceptable workplace behaviors, many offensive intentions have just moved underground, persisting because of ingrained, socialized stereotypes.

In 1971, a potential employer told a fresh-out-of-college Susan Sussman, “Why should I hire you? You’ll just get married, go have babies and quit.” While no recruiters in their right mind would say this today, Sussman – who went on to have two children and become a vice president at Tiffany & Co. and CEO of Bally Switzerland, North America – and others say there is a prevailing belief that women are not as ambitious as men. As a result, many women (especially married women and mothers) believe they are often not offered jobs or increased responsibility. Remember the 1980 movie 9 to 5, when the male chauvinist manager Mr. Hart told the bright, hardworking single mother played by Lily Tomlin that he promoted a man instead of her because the man had a family to support? Please. Today, that line of thinking is not dead, it’s just not said.

“An underlying assumption is that a man is more ambitious because he is the major breadwinner, while a married woman is just working for pin money,” says Margaret Heffernan, author of The Naked Truth: A Working Woman’s Manifesto on Business and What Really Matters (Jossey-Bass, 2004). “That assumption alone is implicitly discriminatory.”

Heffernan also believes stereotypes persist because many men in today’s senior ranks grew up without women as professional peers and are not familiar or comfortable working with females in empowered roles. “Men have a very limited idea of who women are. Many only know us as wives, lovers, maids and daughters,” she says. As a result, we sabotage ourselves. Once stereotyped, women start to live it. The bitch. The helper. The pretty face. Stereotyping is so subtle, Heffernan says, that we often find ourselves colluding.

Another solution for women is to make sure their own behavior contradicts widely held stereotypes – for example, if your boss consistently treats you as a “helper” or “server.” Years ago, a 46-year-old vice president of a major bank had a manager who insisted she come to his office for a daily status meeting at 5 p.m., which meant she did not leave work until later than necessary. “I should have said, ‘Bob, I can meet you at 2 o’clock.’ Women allow other people to own and control their calendars,” says the woman, whose company requested she speak anonymously.

There’s hope as a younger, more enlightened generation of men gains a foothold in the nation’s workforce. It’s a generation who grew up with working mothers, who sat next to women in business school classes and whose wives make more money than they do. Still, the ol’ boys network dies hard, and boys will always be boys. Many will continue to poke fun at each other in the joking way men do (and women usually don’t). Others will opt to talk about baseball rather than their son’s potty training progress, and still others may inadvertently chat about business in the men’s room while women wait patiently in the boardroom.

For Jacobs, the solution is to be a realist, not an idealist. “I teach women executives to let these men up off the mat,” she says, which means to forgive the little things men unconsciously do or say. “It is critical for women in business to pick our battles when there is a job to do.”

Yes, the small slights do matter. But when women combat subtle discrimination with subtle retaliation (see page 78 for more), their voices are heard without alienating themselves in the process. “Men need to be taught, not necessarily neutered,” Jacobs says. “I think we are making progress because we are in the room.”

The trick, of course, Jacobs says, is to stay in the room and get as many women in there with us as possible. And if that means barging into the men’s bathroom as guys continue discussing business, so be it. Just do it with a smile.

The Power of Subtle Retaliation: 10 Ways to Do It

PINK asked the experts what women can do to quash subtle discrimination with poise – no lawsuit required.

Forget the tirade. Rather than huff and holler when slapped with a discriminatory comment, take the high road in the moment. “My goal is to appeal to the reasonable people in the room and handle myself with class,” says Theragenics CEO Christine Jacobs, who recently dealt with one inappropriate remark by remaining silent at the time but later reporting the behavior to the company’s chairman. Other people complained as well and the offender was reprimanded.

MIT ombudsman Mary Rowe suggests counteracting micro-inequities with microaffirmations, the daily habit of praising accomplishments and strengths of other women both in private and to management. Consider it part of your job to help other females excel via mentoring and positive feedback.

Stop apologizing. Executive recruiter Deborah Sawyer says women must stop apologizing for their lives outside of work. “We explain to the hilt what we are doing,” says Sawyer, a partner at Morgan Howard Worldwide. “Don’t tell me you’re chaperoning your child’s class trip to the zoo. Just say you need to be out of the office and then stop talking!” The more we explain ourselves, the more we are apologizing for who we are.

Make ’em laugh. Humor helps women level the playing field. Ellen Ostrow, psychologist and career coach, says a friendly, joking tone makes an offender less defensive. If you’re the only woman at a meeting and are asked to order lunch for the group, for example, snap back with a knowing wink, “I’ll order lunch if you’ll get dessert.” Say it and mean it. Get deli delivered, but make sure one of the men gets the cookies.

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