Otherness and Assertiveness

I recently came across Advice Line by Bob Lewis. In his most recent entry (dated Dec 27), a reader writers: “Dear Bob ...What books would you recommend on assertiveness?- Trying to be more forceful.”

Although Bob admits not having read anything on the subject, he proposes a number of helpful intellectual suggestions. But in reading his suggestions, I couldn’t help but wonder (and suspect) that he missed the underlying point entirely. And that is because he didn’t think about gender.

I say this from my own experience. In my job, as I mentioned before, I am the only woman. This has been a challenging[-in-a-good-way] experience. The major challenge I have experienced is, coincidentally, with my own assertiveness. While at college, I never wanted of assertiveness. At my old job in strategy consulting, I also was never shy to put forth my opinion to the group. Yet at my new job, I found it significantly more difficult to be assertive. Why? And is this what “Trying to be more forceful” is experiencing in her own male-dominated job?

I’ve done a lot of thinking about this issue because it has been such an existential quandary for me. And unfortunately, being the philosophy major that I am, I keep on coming back to a theory of Otherness. That is, I can’t help but think that for men (bare w/ me in my oversimplification -- obviously there are gradients in "men", e.g. tall white man, African-American man, etc.), everyone inherently has a level of accessibility. It is almost an entitlement of “equalness”. Or, dare I say, as defined and contextualized by society, dominance – e.g., Men are paid more to the dollar than women, are perceived as delivering superior work, and continue to hold more leadership positions. [I bet that last sentence ruffles some feathers....!]

When you are a little bit of an Other, there is a higher mental bar you need to cross to get over to feel that same accessibility. It is a mental trick. Once that accessibility comfort is gained, I think it is almost as easy for me to interact with one of my colleagues as it is for my male-counterparts. But what this comes down to, I think, is that to be assertive, we have to learn how to act as and therefore be "one of the guys."

So by way of practical advice, what does this all mean? My addendum to Bob's response:

1. Keep trying but don’t allow yourself to get frustrated. Although we should never be content to fall into the stereotypical role of ingénue (read Baseline recently published series of interviews with female CIOs on “Smashing the Glass Ceiling” to get more along these lines), you can’t expect yourself to act like an alpha male right off the bat. It takes a while to become “one of the guys.”
2. Seek out other women in your organization (if possible). Interacting with other women reduces your level of Otherness. Along these lines, I recently came across a great quote from Esther Dyson's Law of Large Numbers thanks to Carolina Salas: “If you are 1 woman in a group of 10, it can be hard for your voice to be heard. If you are 1 woman amongst 10 women in a group of 100, it's easier to derive strength from other women and have your voice heard.”
3. Seek out and join organizations that are women dominated. In those organizations, you’ll be able to learn how to be more assertive without having the extra complication of gender. As you learn to be more assertive in these environments, you can then try to transfer those learnings of yourself and your ability to be assertive little by little to your everyday job.