Women in Business

During my tenure in Business School, I was a member of a plethora of student clubs. Some I was more active in than others. One club that I was at first hesitant to join, but in which I became an active member was Women in Business.

When I first thought about joining Women in Business, I was reluctant. First off, I am not a "girly girl", though I'm not unfeminine. I wear dresses and makeup, but I also lift weights, move boxes, pick up dog poop, and generally anything else that needs to be done. I prefer NOT to distinguish myself on the basis of my gender, and for that primary reason I thought, "why would I want to be part of a club that focuses on gender?"

But the fact of the matter is that I am a woman, and I am in business. Therefore, being a part of the Women in Business club, where networks and shared stories of the challenges and triumphs unique to women in business were cultivated made sense. It was perhaps one of the best moves I made. In fact, I discovered that I did have women friends: women who were strong, intelligent, courageous, aggressive and passionate. Women who weren't afraid to break a nail to get the job done. This was the network of women that I had been looking for. WiB cultivated opportunities for the women in both the 1st and 2nd year class to escape the confines of the school, to share who we really were as women, rather than as the stereotypes we were trying to be, through quarterly "retreats" often involving hiking, running, snowshoeing, wine & cheese, and the inescapable homework.

These retreats, unfortunately, made some of the men in our class quite uncomfortable. Despite the fact that it was stated repeatedly that men were welcome and encouraged to join WiB, and welcome and encouraged to attend a retreat, no one ever took us up on the offer. Instead, they felt it necessary to form their own version, calling it MiB, for Men in Breakfast. They met every Friday before class for breakfast & bloody mary's at the local greasy spoon - an email invitation would go out each week. Not only was it exclusionary specifically to ALL women in the class (even those, myself included, who would have counted themselves among the close friends of the male attendees), but also to specific, less popular, less conformist men in the class.

It stunk of the Old Boys Network to high heaven, and one of the most alarming factors was that our Class President Elect was not only active participant, but a vociferous defendent of the breakast. He saw nothing wrong with it, asserted (falsely and weakly) that women could attend (even though none were ever invited or included on the email list) and saw little reason for a WiB club to begin with. After all, women were basically on equal footing now, in his eyes. Even after I, and a close friend, made our forays into attending, it was clear that it was uncomfortable, and even our friends at the table were uncomfortable: for us and with us. We very, very clearly weren't welcome there.

Ultimately the issue received enough attention that the Pres stopped attending, and the breakfasts went underground. Which perhaps is worse. They still very definitely happened (every once in a while something would slip out) but it was very hush hush.

Which brings me to today. Right now I'm reading Naked Truth: A Working Woman's Manifesto on Business and What Really Matters by Margaret Heffernan. I wish this were required reading in business school. Many of the points she makes clearly demonstrate why women, after becoming the majority in undergraduate universities, representing nearly half of all law and medical school students, STILL represent only 33% or less of business school attendees. I'm only 1/4 of the way through the book, but I want to run right out and buy it for all the women in business I care about and give it to them for Christmas. I still might.

And I want to beat our MBA Class President over the head with it. I wish I'd had it to give to him to read then. I had such a difficult time making the argument to him about why the breakfasts were wrong at the time: I just knew in the pit of my stomach that they were wrong. And I took it personally: which it wasn't about me personally, it was that because of my gender I didn't belong.

It points out to me that I have so much to learn in how to handle myself and my work, how to deal with adversity and hostile environments, and how to recognize my own behavior that may be reinforcing negative treatment from male coworkers.

Heffernan is careful to assert that not all men are sexist or discriminating towards women, but the frightening truth about how pervasive and subversive sexism in the workplace remains is there. And learning to see and understand our own behaviors (men and women), conscious and unconscious, that contribute to an unbalanced workplace, is perhaps one of the best takeaways of the book.