Women: Stop Complaining!
Friday October 10, 2003
Women need to change in order to adapt and conform to the habits of men - at least, they need to do so if they wish to succeed in the business world. That's the message that Dr. John Gray, author of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, is taking to Australia where he is holding a seminar.
The Herald Sun reports:
Australian women should understand that emotional behaviour is often viewed by male work colleagues as a weakness. "Women have to speak the language of men at work," he said. ... Dr Gray said Australian women also need to know emotional behaviour, such as bonding with workmates by talking about relationships and feelings, can be misunderstood by men as wasting time.
Let's assume for a moment that Gray is right about how women are perceived by men at work: why is it that women have to change? Why is it the responsibility of women to do the conforming and adapting? There might be an argument for that if someone could show that the way women behave was somehow less conducive to getting work done, but otherwise it's just nonsense. Why not ask men to adapt a little too?
Comments
Because men still hold most of the cards. Men would do better to adopt a more social attitude, but that concept would certainly be rebuffed at the top corporate tiers.
When you’re at work, you’re there to work. Emoting and complaining are not productive. Men get things done. If the women want to work with the men, they need to adjust. It wasn’t the men who were saying, “Please come work with us.”
“Emoting and complaining are not productive.”
Because men never, ever complain about anything.
“If the women want to work with the men, they need to adjust.”
Because no discriminatory system or institution ever needs to adjust how it does things when it tries to stop discriminating. That just doesn’t make sense.