I’m of the age now where I don’t take shit from anybody. I’m lucky that my husband says he likes “uppity” women. Usually he takes the brunt of it when I find something to stand my ground on, but today I’m irritable and did it at work and just texted him about it later. (Which is when he replied that he liked uppity women, lol)
I don’t care if people now think I’m a bitch. In fact, in the meeting I wanted to be precisely clear and said that I’m going to be blunt, no I’m going to straight up be a bitch and say that this issue has to be fixed NOW. The issue is that I’m mentoring a new business analyst on a large IT project and the dev team has been jerking us around and dictating things they have no business dictating, like the wording of error messages. In addition to causing weeks of repeated rework because they keep changing their minds (and we’ve been polite up to now and going along to get along), they’re confusing the heck out of my mentee. I’m done with it today, full stop.
I used polite language and never raised my voice, but I was very tense and made myself clear as glass. I know in the corporate world that’s still considered “aggressive” coming from a women. They might fear me now. But you know what? I’m fine with that.
Edited to add: We shouldn’t actually “gendericize” things like this, but we (society) do.
“That took some balls” is taken to mean that a person exercised courage/assertiveness, and seems to be applied regardless of gender. Do we have an analogous expression that might be more appropriate for courage/assertiveness expressed by women? “That took some ovaries” doesn’t have quite the same impact. What else is there?
Men can have the same problem. Being liked is useful, but in business getting the job done is even more useful. I’m amazed how long the attitudes of some men toward women have persisted, women shouldn’t have to feel like it matters when they take the steps necessary to perform their jobs. It’s not something I see often, I’m somewhat sheltered in my industry and location where there a lot of women who are strong leaders, but I still hear about it, and I can sense from other men that they deny their chauvinism publicly but don’t hide it when they think they are safe among other men. I do think it’s fading away though. Getting rid of the last vestiges of such problems is a vexing task, the point of diminishing returns is reached and we have to hope the last holdouts will die off without infecting others.
Anyway, don’t worry about it, don’t make it personal, don’t emulate some asshole man who relies on bullying and bluster to get his job done, just stick to getting your job done and you should get recognized for that.
Yeah, I’m not worried about it. And my default actually is sweet as pie because I’m a conflict-avoider by nature. But when I get pissed off about something then I won’t hesitate to take a stand. If anything bothers me it’s that some people drive you to the point where that’s necessary!
I think I’d care if people thought I was a bitch (or gender-neutral equivalent). That’s not to say that they’d be right to think I was, but it seems like the kind of thing that might well lead to them not wanting to work with me. I’m sure there’s plenty of occasions where there are only two options of a) get something highly important done but be considered a jerk or b) don’t get it done and don’t be, where a) is the better alternative. But a) being the better option wouldn’t mean I don’t care about the negative part of the outcome. I’d want to do something about that, too, if possible.
My wife grew up heavily involved in competitive sports and it has carried over into her adult life and shaped her personality. She is very aggressive and does not like to lose, and usually does not.
She is successful working in a mostly male manufacturing industry and takes no shit. Certain things are expected of me and I know that it is in our best interest that I take care of them. I will take care of them. I will. The alternative is too horrible to imagine.
She is also 100% Norwegian flaming red-haired Viking. I sleep with one eye open.
For far too many women the default mode seems to be apologetic, as if bringing up an issue is inconvenient. I expect it’s because we’ve been conditioned to be nice and “ladylike” for far too many years, so we don’t know how to be assertive when it’s required. It took me a lot of years of being stepped on to learn to stand firm - maybe I’ve gone too far on occasion, but that’s part of the learning curve.
But anyone who treats a woman with a legitimate complaint/issue/suggestion as a bitchy shrew deserves to be slapped down with all due expediency. Just because I have internal plumbing doesn’t make me incapable of seeing what needs to be fixed or changed.
I hope you’ll all pardon me for a brief moment, while I randomly break into song:
*
Jesus has only got one ball
The other they’re keepin’ at St. Paul’s
Peter just has his Peter,
While as for Mary: She’s got b***** all!*
Absenting this entirely from the OP’s example, I don’t think “bitch” and “wimp” are specific enough to say whether one would always be better than another. A bitch could run the gamut from “is occasionally blunt” to “actively destroys the company by ruining business relationships, demeaning good employees and driving them to quit, and never backing down or compromising on a demand, no matter how foolish”. A wimp could run the gamut from “occasionally prevaricates” to “actively destroys the company by allowing other businesses to take opportunities, never standing up for their employees when needed and driving them to quit, and always backing down or compromising on a demand, no matter how foolish”.
The same goes for simply working with such a person, as well, but I think you get my point. There’s such a wide range of potential outcomes to both labels that I couldn’t say “Oh, I’d always pick a bitch over a wimp”. Or vice-versa.
