The Female Advantage

Sometimes, I become exhausted by all the ways we, as a society, report on the inequities and unfairness we experience at our own hands. We are quick to label things as being "this way" or "that way." We are perpetually victims or martyrs and it all seems quite heavy on the talk, low on the action. And isn't it a bit irrelevant anyway? After all, we all make our own luck, and we all create our own realities.

You may say: How naive! However, I believe I am justified in that belief. After all, I am educated, I am aware, I am involved.

Although, when I write this personal perspective out, I have to admit that I do wonder: am I also displaying ignorance through this, arguably naive, world view?

So what prompted these thoughts is that I have been reading a lot lately about the idea of what has been dubbed the "female advantage" in the workplace. The concept proposes that organizations are experiencing a shift in values, and qualities typically associated with women (open communication, compassion, and collaboration to name a few) are now being sought with fervor. Thus, women are allegedly in a position to capitalize on this shift and make unprecedented advancements in organizations--particularly within those working environments where they previously could have struggled due to their innate gender tendencies.

There seems to be a question out there as to whether or not this advantage is merely a media-driven myth, or if it is a concept that is in fact real, but that is still in the process of being realized.

Interesting to me is that the most popular standpoint is that this purported "female advantage" is actually disadvantageous to females. Irony is just everywhere, is it not?

By way of background: the idea is that workplaces have traditionally been "gendered" as male. That is to say, a direct and "action-at-all-costs" approach is favored in these "male" working environments. There is no room for emotion, and collaboration takes a back-seat to competition. Empathy is seen as a weakness. If you are in need of a tangible example, just watch an episode of Mad Men; Sterling Cooper offers a prime (if extreme) example of what a male gendered organization embodies.

But lately, there has been a lot of buzz about the male style as being passe. The suggestion is that organizations are adopting a more "feminine" model. Thus, characteristics such as listening and compassion are now held in high regard. Collaboration is encouraged, empathy is seen as a strength. And this alleged shift is dubbed the "female advantage" and thus implies that women are in a position in contemporary society to dominate organizations.


Before you get all jazzed up and start spewing personal examples that either refute or support this theory (and I know there are countless arguments for both sides of that coin), the truth is that men are still the ones in power: men earn more than women and they hold many more high positions than do women. You will have to take my word for it because I will not be inserting graphs and offering percentages here. Math is not my bag (and yes, I am aware of the female stereotype I am promoting with that admission), so if you want specific statistics, Google away.


In the meantime, I also want to be clear that it is not my interest or intent to pit genders against one another, to bemoan the disadvantages of being female, or to rant about all the horrible ways that evil privileged creature, "the white male" has been keeping me personally down for years, and my gender down for generations. Yes, I am a feminist.

Incidentally, I am also a daughter. And just as I choose not to blame my parents for every wrong thing in my life, so too do I choose not to blame the society into which I was born (this time around anyway) for every hurdle that is "unfairly" placed on my path. Statistics, historical data, and facts can be promenaded in front of me all day long. Yes, they have merit and they are interesting. No, they do not define me or my particular path. I care deeply about my gender and my status as an equal to all other human beings. Yet I also believe I need to make my own luck and it is up to me to realize my own dreams. I feel to do so bolsters the feminist cause.

Here is where you might choose to call me naive. That is fine: I have certainly been called worse.

But back to the topic. Given the statistical proof of men still dominating corporate America, why is there all this buzz about the "feminization" of the workplace? If the idea is experiencing so much attention, then it must have some merit, no?

Well, "female advantage" has been criticized as being a bit of a false positive. Yes, doors are opening to women because there is a mass evolution occurring that seems to be embracing and understanding the advantages of a more empathic and compassionate approach to life in general, and to business in particualr. So doors are opening everywhere to women in workplaces all over.

The problem is that that they are opening to reveal that old female nemesis: the glass ceiling. That is to say, women can enter any organization they want to, yet they will likely be relegated to the bottom few floors. The high positions still go to men. Women can contribute to the proliferation and bottom line of an organization through the employment of collaboration and increased communication within the workplace, yet these same traits are ones that virtually ensure the women will not be aggressively competing for top positions or elbowing out colleagues for the corner office. The women are in there, but they are not rising to the top. The "female advantage" means that there is a higher percentage of low-ranked female professionals, not that females are advantageously positioned to climb the ladder in contemporary work environments. Basically, it is a false hope, in a way.


Or is it?

So I was getting all juiced up about the unfairness of it all and was ready to stage a coup of some sort (bake sale, group cry--you know something decidedly female just so I can heap irony on top of irony as I so love to do).

But then I remembered who I am and what I actually believe as a person. I am not here to fight another's battles and if I am sticking to my guns that people create their own realities then I believe that the people who WANT those high positions, get them. So how does that account for the data reporting fewer women in positions of power? After all, as a professionally driven female, I understand that women are just as ambitious as men.

Well, I think that there is something to be said about inherent gender tendencies. The greatest impact on the bottom line comes from those that are a bit more ruthless, a bit more driven, a bit more competitive...a bit more "male," if you will. And I mean "male" whether they are biologically male or not. So I think the issue is not one of gender itself, but one of gender traits. After all, there are plenty of male-minded females and female-minded males. The former is certainly able to occupy the CEO's desk and the latter is likely not to even want such a position.

And maybe that is key: do those people who embody "female" traits even WANT those positions of power at the same rate that the more "male-minded" do? Since more men are "male-minded," maybe the ratio of women to men who do want such positions is accurately displayed in the workplace--female advantage aside.

How many women are angry at me right now?

But the bottom line is that we live in a society of possibilities. You are the only one who knows what success means to you, and you are the only one who can achieve your dreams. Maybe the female advantage will prove wonderful as more women are getting feet in the door, so to speak. Maybe it is the disadvantge as which it has recently been revealed. Or maybe a new theory will crop up tomorrow and the whole shabang will be like when the news reports that eggs are healthy to eat one week and then reveals them as being akin to devil spawn the next.

Just keep perspective. I lost all mine for a few as I became entrenched in the purported gender inequities in corporate America. We do not live in a perfect or a "fair" society. But that is not relevant to my story. Nor is it to yours.

Because, call me naive, but if you can concieve it and believe it then you can achieve it. And that has nothing to do with gender--biological or not.

Surfacing Ick

I have been suffering from a bit of writer's block lately. This "ailment" is, of course, a natural and inevitable occurence; everyone experiences creative hurdles at various points during life.

But knowing that to be true does not assuage the self-judgments and self-criticism I have been inwardly projecting regarding this matter in the least.

That might sound strange to some people--to be upset with myself for having writer's block.

After all, it is not like I develop self-directed anger when I come down with a cold. And aren't they sort of the same thing?

Although, in all likelihood, I have probably gotten mad at myself for having a cold at one point or another. Such an inane display of inappropriate emotion would be just the sort of thing to which I would subject myself. I mean why not become irrationally angry for a falling prey to a perfectly natural, though slightly inconvenient, life occurence? I mean anger is SO productive anyway, right?

That being said, now I wonder: how much time and energy have I wasted being upset at myself for experiencing small setbacks (of a mental, emotional, or physical nature) instead of channeling that energy into healing or solving the issue at hand?

Probably more time than I would care to know. Probably I could have watched those darn lengthy Lord of the Rings movies several times over and read War and Peace to boot.

With regards to this particular creative block though--like many people I know, I come down quite hard on myself when I do not follow through on the plans or promises I make. And I am (ironically?) especially harsh and critical when the person to whom I have pledged these plans or made these promises is myself.

What I cognitively know to be a more productive use of my energy is to not be angry at myself for being "blocked" but rather to look at that anger with the following sort of attitiude: "Hmm, anger. There you are. I wonder what on earth is causing you. Let's sit together for a bit."

Really, I already know that part of what is fueling the anger is simply my avoidance to try to figure out what is causing it. So I stew, stall, and sidetrack myself (often by becoming mad at myself). Why? Because I do not really want to perform the self-examination that I inherently know is required in these sorts of situations.


Frankly, and with regards to my current situation of being frustrated by writer's block, it is easier for me to say I feel guilty and like a bit of a failure because I have not been writing as much as I promised I would write. It is easier be mad at myself because of it than to actually examine it. Self-irritation is a great avoidance technique.

I know this to be true, by the way, because I have a long and complicated relationship with it. Yet, this idea of branding myself a "failure" is an interesting judgment because the expectations and parameters for my writing were set entirely by me. As in: I could change the rules of the game at any time and be a winner.

But of course I would never do any such thing because I am a neurotic young woman who would prefer to wallow in my despair that some unknown "other" has inflicted this grossly unfair predicament on me. I mean I certainly have nothing to do with the writer's block I am experiencing. Yes, it is a manifestation of my own mind and is evoking all sorts of ugly emotions, but it is separate from me. So I will just have to wait it out, feeling all jammed up along the way.

I hope you caught the sarcasm in the last few sentences. And if you are just confused as all get out, well join the club. I welcome new members at any time.


The thing is that I acually know what is going on. Just as we all know what is going on in our lives when we experience "bad" feelings or are being particulrly harsh on ourselves or on others. We all know. We might not choose to admit that we know, or even to consciously recognize that we know. But we do.

So the truth here is that there are aspects about my personality that are not altogether marvelous. Big shocker, I know. Sometimes something irks me a bit and I end feeling really unsettled. Like an undercurrent of "ick" is swimming below the surface of my physical body. Now is one of those times.

Usually, if and when I allow this ick to surface, I realize that the reason I have been feeling uneasy, and the reason why I had fought allowing the bugger to surface is because I would have to come face to face with some part of me that was not utterly delightful and charming.

Part of my problem is that I would like to think that descriptors such as "delightful" and "charming" are perpetually applicable to yours truly. Regrettably, they are not.

So what I believed to be true when I started experiencing this writer's block was that I was feeling badly about letting myself down for not writing as much as I said I would write. I was avoiding writing for reasons I did not wish to examine. Instead, I kept telling myself that it was an indulgent activity and would have to take the back burner to my more "important" daily tasks.

But let's be honest. That is not true.

For one thing, writing is incredibly important to me. Moreover, it is incredibly important FOR me. It is my art therapy, my emotional outlet, my way to process exactly what goes on in that crazy head of mine. And I know it is crazy because my good friend Erin verified that on her comment to my last entry.

And the truth is that I want to believe that I write for myself because I love it, and because it can often lead me on an unexpected cathartic journey through the dark passages of life. And, while that is certainly very true, that is hardly the whole story.

If it were the whole story explaining my need to write, then I would be Ann Franking it and hiding my personal journals in closets and under mattresses, not writing a blog for anyone in the world to read at any given time.

So what is also true, and this is part of the ick factor, is that I want other people to read what I write. And I want them to really like it.

And therefore, what I am really saying is that I want all these other people to really like--not just my writing--but me in general.

This admission ellicits a very specific feeling: Ew.

As you know, I talk a lot about being authentic and abandoning this visceral need for external validation that seems to plague so many people, and yet here I am. So the undercurrent of my ick this time around was that I was feeling a bit like a phony. Yes, I want to my writing to be honest and inspired, as that is the part that is healing for me and therefore important for me personally. However, and here is where "ick" arises, I also want to produce writing that is meaningful to others, praised for its insight, and deeply entertaining.

Well, meet my ego, kids. She just elbowed her way into the blogosphere.

I think I would like to call her "Marge." That is what my dear friends Dave and Kristyn call me sometime and it always makes me laugh. Sometimes Dave even lengthens the nickname to "Margarine" and that really gets me.

So when I sat down for several days in a row and felt disgusted by the drivel emerging from my hunting and pecking fingers (somehow I fell into a weird black hole during my schooling as I was never ever a participant of any sort of typing course), I chalked it up to writer's block. I decided I would need to sit it out for a few and wait to be inspired.

Conveniently, I could, of course in the meantime use the block to feel bad about myself and decide that the world was, once again, letting poor little me down.

Sounds productive, huh?

So then I thought: Why do I need to write X amount every week? Because I feel if I do not then I will forget how to write? Nope, not true. Because I am afraid of my emotions stock-piling within me until I blow a gasket without this much needed outlet? Maybe, but I do have other stress releasers and there is no telling what works at any given time; maybe writing is not the thing right now. So the fear of emotional plaque building up was not really true here either. Because I am afraid that if I do not produce riveting material on a regular basis that my legions of (imagined) blog fans will be let down and turn to other bloggers for entertainment and insight? That I may lose the external praise and validation that I love so much?

Margarine, what do you think? I say that sounds just about right.

So, in sum: the root of my anger and frustration is that I am upset at myself for not producing material that will boost my popularity and keep me liked. And I am the one who sits around talking about how important it is for people to be true to themselves and to live for themselves first and foremost. A bit hypocritical, no? Yup, A bit icky.

And I mean, who do I think I am anyway? Margarine is not even real butter.

Moving Endlines

The more I practice yoga, the harder it becomes. This situation is both unexpected and counter-intuitive.

What I have discovered is that the further I am able to physically push and maneuver myself, the more aware I become of how much further I could go. It is as though the proverbial end-line is being perpetually moved a greater distance away.

This “obvious” observation is actually quite a revelation for me. At least, I always knew there would be new yoga poses that would be extremely challenging (and many that may never be possible), but I also made what I deemed to be a reasonable assumption: I assumed that the more I practiced, the easier the “basic” poses would become.

And yet that is utterly not the case.

A “beginner” pose might come easily to me for weeks and then one day something shifts and I am aware of how little I have understood about the pose itself. Suddenly, it becomes clear that my grasp on this pose has been very shallow, and that the depths of it are actually fathomless. As I push myself further and further into what may seem to be a simple bend, I am aware of how much further I could go; I am aware of that end -line moving away.

I am left questioning how I could have been so naïve as to believe that I mastered something which I am decidedly and indelibly so very far from mastering.

And so it is with life as well.

What I mean is that it seems as though the more I learn, the more I realize how much I just do not know. Indeed, the more I learn, the more I realize how fantastically uninformed I am about pretty much everything—and especially regarding those things about which I was formerly “certain.”

I used be thrilled when a revelation inspired a comforting evaluation of: “Aha! Yes, I get it. Done.” But such a reaction seems to be a thing of the past. Now I seem to answer every question with a string of questions (I am a super fun conversationalist these days), and I find that I feel uncomfortable with neat little answers. Rather disquietingly, my old quests of seeking—presumably obtainable—confirmation are being replaced with a new pattern.

The best way I can describe my current state of being is that a new concept might unexpectedly occur to me, sort of rain down on me, and in its wake, I am left with small puddles of ideas all over the place.

The thing is that what I initially perceive to be self-contained little wading pools are each, upon a closer look, actually as vast as the Atlantic Ocean. It seems that before I only allowed myself to see—or was only able to see--these tiny, boundaried puddles. When I finally actually looked beyond the boundaries I placed on them, I realized how limitless they all actually are. Thus, I realized how small I was making my world.

Now it is wonderful, in some ways, to imagine the infinite possibilities in life. But it is also more that a bit daunting. As in: with such expansive areas to consider, how will I ever figure ANYTHING out?

The thing is, I may not.

And, in keeping with my yoga example, it is the most basic knowledge that I feel I “had” that is being called into question more and more . . . and so I wonder what I know about anything.

But what does anyone know about anything? If life is a big game, and we are all creating our own realities then there are countless truths and interpretations to be had about virtually everything we encounter in life. Right?

What is especially strange for me right now is that I feel I am out-growing being a “Type-A.” I mean, that seems weird. It is not like giving away an old pair of jeans; it is a shedding of an integral definable aspect of who I am as a person. Do we outgrow these things? I seem to be. At least, I used to treat everything in my life as a puzzle to be solved, a destination to be reached, a goal to be achieved. I wanted definable end points and clear assessments of my performances.

But what good is such a philosophy when you think about it? Because what happens once you have solved, arrived, or won? Then what? Game over? Neat little packages, the contained little wading pools, are certainly safer and make the world an easier place in which to be, but I am finding that I do not want to make my world so small and controllable (though the temptation will likely arise from time to time—if for no other reason than it is my default setting).

So now it seems that more “solutions” I have, the more questions they beseech.

Along those lines, I was talking yesterday to my wonderfully perceptive friend Doug. We were just two old friends, catching up and enjoying a light and fluffy conversation about death. Doug is a teacher of mindfulness and someone who has what I find to be an inspiring and enlightened perspective on life. Over the course of our friendship both of our fathers have died—his much more recently—and that circumstance was the impetus for some of our conversation topics. At one point, I was driveling on about how death is a transformation and is not a negative entity and I realized I sounded like I was death’s hired PR personnel. Realizing that my words sounded like a strange sales pitch, I qualified by saying “Not that I am dying or anything.”

A few minutes later, Doug said,” You said you were not dying, but you are. We all are.”

I started to say, “No, what I meant was that I am not dying NOW.”

But I am, aren’t I?

So then I wonder: Aren’t I living rather than dying?

But am I?

I think I confused myself sufficiently. What I do know is that what used to be a closed book issue for me—death--is now a wide open canyon of possibility. I used to feel so separate from death. But what is it really? A departure, a rebirth, a good bye, a hello, a transformation? And what is life?

The crazy thing is that if I thought I knew anything for absolute certain, it was that I knew I was living a real life. Now I wonder: how could I ever have presumed to have known THAT?

So, was I crazy then…or am I crazy now? That is the question of the day, folks.

Maybe it is like with the yoga pose where I falsely believe to have “mastered” it, only to realize that what I do know is only scraping the surface. And the end-line is nowhere in sight.

Remember when I used to just write silly stories about my dogs and we would all have a good laugh?