Women Leaders Must Support Each Other - Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation - page 145

countless others serve as reminders that we still have a long way to go. A 2010
study by the Workplace Bullying Institute found that 35% of the U.S. workforce
reported being bullied at work. Among those who mistreat their co-workers,
women were more likely to target other women (80%), compared to men who
bully other men (46%) [2] .
“It's a dirty little secret among women that we don't support one another,”
said Susan Shapiro Barash, who teaches gender studies at Marymount Manhat-
tan College and is author of Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women
and Rivalry [3] and Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Compli-
cated Friendships [4] .
Barash believes that because we live in what is still a male-dominated soci-
ety, women are apt to feel like there's not enough to go around for them, which
feeds jealousy and resentment among women, fighting (they believe) for a
smaller piece of the pie. “If you're the gender that yields the power, you don't
have to feel that way,” she said [3] .
If we are to build the “team” in the workplace, we have to shed the cheer-
leader mentality . In many environments, being the only woman is a title inse-
cure women don't want to shed. Being the only woman does mean that you get
a lot of attention, you've made it, and perhaps you're different (i.e., better) than
other women. And yes, you can use this extra attention to your benefit, but is
that all you want, to stand out because of your gender? A woman who is content
with being the “only woman” is not just limiting herself but is propagating the
concept that women in positions of power are the exception rather than the rule.
We're on the Same Team
When Gail Evans, one of the most senior executives of CNN, was asked if
women need teams to enhance their power, she said “My solution to this is
that we need to help each other. The idea is that I care about your success, that
your success matters to me, that I understand the connection between your
success and mine.” [5] In her topic , She Wins, You Win , Evans says that it is
not enough that women understand and play by the rules that men “wrote,”
they must learn to create and follow their own rules. She writes, “…we are
constantly being forced to second-guess ourselves, even when we decide to
follow all the male rules. We are always expected to jump through hoops
without understanding why. That's because our way isn't the expected way.
The female psyche is not the role model for the business psyche; the male's
is. …We need to know the male rules of business. But we must create and
play by our own rules. We should be talking to each other; we should be
planning with each other; we should be working to improve the situation
for everyone of us, not for just one of us. We should launch a new strategy
to advance our careers as a whole rather than advance our own careers at the
expense of other women.” [5]