gender

Yes, Gender Impacts Journalism

Haig Chahinian

Jill Abramson, executive editor of the New York Times, recently said “The idea that women journalists bring a different taste in stories or sensibility isn’t true.”

Really?

These are surprising remarks from the first woman to be placed at the top of the Times masthead. Still, we sympathize with her fantasy that gender doesn’t matter in journalism, and Ken Auletta’s story last year in the New Yorker offers a hint why Abramson would maintain this narrow-minded view. He reports:

When Eileen Shanahan, who went on to become a well-respected economics reporter, arrived for an interview with Clifton Daniel, the assistant managing editor, in 1962, she hid her desire to become an editor. “All I ever want is to be a reporter on the best newspaper in the world,” she told him.

“That’s good,” Daniel responded, as Shanahan told the story, “because I can assure you no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times.”

You see, @JillAbramson is in a tough spot. She aligns her worldview with that of past senior editors, perhaps to show that as the Times‘ most powerful woman executive ever, she won’t subvert the patriarchy. If she were more frank about the gravity of being the Gray Lady’s first female executive editor, she’d likely pay a tall price. She’d:

  • be attacked by her colleagues
  • need to defend herself
  • feel seduced away from her formal task of leading the newsroom, and ultimately
  • waste her energy and be de-authorized in her role.

An experience none of her predecessors faced on account of their gender.

And in being so politic, she misses the truth. What truth?

Read more →

What Sheryl Sandberg Didn’t Say at Davos [video]

Haig Chahinian

Facebook Inc.’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg recently spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and related important ideas about women in the workplace. She said we need to be mindful of how we’re socializing boys and girls at home, and called on chief executives to implement equal maternity and paternity leave policies.

Great stuff, right? And yet we’re totally disappointed in her.

Facebook recently filed for an initial public offering (IPO) that’s expected to raise up to $10bn this spring, and which could compensate Sandberg $1.6bn, solidifying her place among the most powerful executives in America.

Because of her newfound perch at the top, when she speaks about her professional trajectory and gender equality, it’s time she acknowledges the full range of dynamics that have helped her get there.

What dynamics?

That her Whiteness has played a role in her success.

Ay, that was hard to write. And we don’t mean to target the newest billionaire simply because she’s a woman. We’re critical of representations of White male leadership, too.

Sandberg’s story goes like this:  Read more →

Grief, Gender, and Ecology at Work

Haig Chahinian

We were totally excited recently to come across Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons, a performance group firmly grounded in the 2010s. Part social commentators and part Nina Simone-inspired musicians, AATJ was spotlit in the Village Voice on the eve of Swanlights, their MOMA-commissioned performance at Radio City Music Hall.

In the Voice interview, English-born and transgender Hegarty reflects on the world he inhabits, and touches us at our core. In one moment — among many — of poignance, he relates his experience as a transgender person with the ecological devastation he sees:

“I see them as parallel issues, as a tiny reflection of a greater problem,” he notes. “Even as a transgender person, I’m excruciatingly aware of my privilege as a white male, and the subjugation of women is critical to understanding the subjugation and destruction of the ecology.”

Brilliance! See him working the dual oppressor and oppressed within him?  He continues:

“America is less willing to consider a gay or transgender having a platform outside of gender identity,” he says. “But we are barely acknowledging that the weather is changing, either.”

Say it, Antony. Americans’ purported less-willingness to see the world broadly can lead to pigeonholing one another, and to misperceiving the continuing transformation of Earth’s geography. He’s grounded in his emotions when he says, “We need to start grieving, at the very least.”

And then he drops a profound mind-bender:

“People can more easily imagine the collapse of the world than they can imagine stepping away from capitalism or patriarchy.”

We’ve been thinking about this idea ever since we first read it. Do you think it’s true, that capitalism and preserving the world can’t coexist? While it pains our brain to ponder, it’s certainly worthwhile to consider.

Still, he seems hopeful when he thinks about his ethnicity and place in the world. “I am as American as it gets,” he shares.

And we remain hopeful, too. Not only about our ability to solve some of these worldly problems, but hopeful that revealing our whole selves at work, as Antony does, will help lead us there.

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Sisters Doing It for Themselves (Brothers Are, Too) [video]

Haig Chahinian

The foundation of our civilization is shifting. Feel it?  NEW New York City, or Non-traditional Employment for Women in NYC, is paving the way (couldn’t help it) towards ground-breaking (stop us!) change in the limits we all place around professional development.  Check out the organization’s mission:

Founded in 1978, NEW is a sector-based workforce development program that prepares women for careers in the construction, transportation, energy, and facilities maintenance industries. NEW focuses on skilled, unionized jobs in the trades with starting wages averaging $15 per hour, benefits, and a path to higher-wage employment.

Totally hot! Not only is the promise of career advancement exciting, this is an organization that clearly encourages every member to bring her whole self to work. In the construction field, we’re talking about revealing and engaging the full extent of your strength, stamina and dexterity, plus so much more.

Now women aren’t the only ones pursuing less traditional occupations. There’s an increasing number of men taking up the role of C.E.O. support system, also known as “husband of the C.E.O.”  From the New York Times story on the men who support women C.E.O.s:

Asked at a Barnard College conference what men could do to help advance women’s leadership, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the landmark “Men and Women of the Corporation,” answered, “The laundry.”

When women and men eagerly take on non-traditional pursuits, we all benefit. These pioneers demonstrate the hard-won fulfillment and freedom that can come with eschewing the trappings of gender.

Watch the stories of some of New York City’s strongest:

This video almost brings tears to our eyes. It’s a shining example of bringing your whole self to work, for sure.

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When It’s OK not to Talk About It

Haig Chahinian

Superstar race car driver Danica Patrick shuns talking about bringing her whole self to work. And we’re OK with that.

We know that many benefits come from learning about how our reference groups–meaning our gender, race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, sexual orientation and physical ability–influence the way we work. Sometimes, however, talking about these ideas can distract us from our primary job.

Patrick has many achievements, including  winning the 2008 Indy Japan 300, and placing 3rd in the 2009 Indianapolis 500. She’s making a successful go of NASCAR racing in addition to IndyCar.  And at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, she has raced faster, and finished higher, than any other woman.

Yet she seems uninterested in focusing on the feminist themes of her rise in the race car ranks. Or she may simply prefer to dedicate her energy to becoming a better racer, as her male compatriots do, although without the typical haranguing about how their gender impacts their sport. From her New Yorker profile:

When reporters asked Patrick if [her win] had made a point about women in racing, her answer suggested that the burden of history did not weigh heavily upon her. “I made a hell of a point for anybody, are you kidding me?” she said.

And then, in reference to steamy photos of her widely broadcast:

Patrick says, “It helped me get the ride. The bottom line is, it takes money to go racing. If there’s money there, and it puts me in a really good car, then I can go show what I can do.” Regarding the objectification of women, she said, “I think people say that it takes away from what I do, it takes away from the driving, because people see that side of things, and it kind of overpowers what I’m doing. So, yeah. I catch flak. And I totally don’t care.”

Her unwillingness to dialogue and accept the mantle for women pioneers is surprisingly refreshing. She would much rather talk about the races. “I had so much fun in a race car today,” she recently told the press. “I can’t wait to do it again.”

Sometimes it’s critical to explore how our reference groups and our internal life affect the work we do. That’s what this blog is all about. And then, sometimes, perhaps because many are already examining the dynamics of personal identity in the workplace, we all don’t have to talk about it ad infinitum. We can just get in our cars and race.

Have you been asked at work to talk about your race or gender, for example, and effectively been seduced away from your primary task? How did you deal with this?

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