A while back, I received a copy of the ABA Journal that I didn't throw away. The ABA Journal is a legal publication, and while I am all law while I am in the office, I am all Cosmo/Redbook outside of it. So no ABA Journal for me please. But this issue actually grabbed my attention because it was a repsentative survey of the feelings of associates and partners about each other with the information sorted along gender lines. I would love love love to read the article on race, but no one has the balls to do that. I am calling you out, ABA Journal.
The article was very interesting, and came to mind today as I read a blog post on the The Professional Woman, where the blogger, Jane Genova, a former professional woman, writes that "no one likes them, not even The Professional Woman." The reason I thought of the ABA Journal is because of an alarming trend in the ABA report: female associates preferred to work with male partners. And female associates were not nearly as preoccupied with the sex line as it pertains to work. They are all about being seen as a lawyer, not as a female lawyer. I had to ask myself: did I take part in this survey? One of my biggest problems when I interviewed for jobs was older female partners who (1) didn't want to talk about gender affinity in the workplace or (2) presented the men as our enemies. I don't think either of those approaches work.
According to Jane, The Professional Woman is an exacting, annoying, perfectionist, who is low on emotions but high on extremes. She is the slow to smile, and calculated in her response. She is cold. She isn't very nice. She isn't very human-seeming, but maybe that is just me.
Jane also provides a picture of the more "normal" woman that The Professional Woman despises. However, seeing and how The Professional Woman despises herself, I won't take it too personal. I didn't quite find her examples universal so much as personal, so I will use myelf as the "real person" example. I am, at work, pretty much how I am at home (minus all the extraness that is reserved for the people I love). Now, I am clearly NOT the professional woman. She just doesn't do it for me. I am a girly girl (my first nickname was Miss Prissy) and I love that. I have a really high voice, and large dimples. Kids love me: I am nonthreatening and look super happy when I smile. And I smile all the time. I am also a generally happy person, and even when I am frustrated I keep it to myself. It is almost impossible for someone like me, who gets confused for a highschool student, to be brazen The Professional Woman who finds her way into an office assistants nightmares on stormy nights. And I don't want to be. It would go against who I am. So I wear my smile, maintain my Southern politeness, and enjoy life. People underestimate me. But I learned in college this really makes me shine! If you think I will get a C, and I get an A, you find my A much more brillant than anyone else's.
I really do suggest maintaining one's feminity/personality and approachability in the educational context, and at work if at all possible. If someone will not take you seriously as who you truly are, they will not take you seriously as a hard-edged The Professional Woman version of yourself. You will still be a woman, if that is their problem in the first place. And people will like you a lot more as a real person. How it carries into the workplace is up to you, and different industries obviously call for different realities (I have heard the stories about female chemical engineers; you must do what works for you). But don't lose yourself trying to be someone else, especially not someone that everyone around you will hate.
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