The Six D's: Tactics Used Against Women - Dismiss

Smart, ambitious women in the workplace can find that they have become a threat – either to someone's ego, or to the status quo. When this happens, “threatened” parties often take action—using tactics against a woman to bring her down or keep her from moving up.

These tactics can range from very subtle to outrageous, and all levels in between. Anyone can be perceived as a threat to anyone else – man or woman – but the tactics used against women are often specifically targeted at her gender. I call them the six D’s: Dismiss, Disparage, Disconcert, Dissemble, Discriminate, and Dishearten. Individually, they may seem harmless, but when taken as a whole, they can wreak enormous damage on a woman’s psyche, and on her career.In this and the following blog post excerpts from my book Savvy Women: Gaining Ground at Work, I will explain each D and give examples.

Dismiss

Frequently women will find themselves or their ideas simply Dismissed, brushed away like so much lint on someone’s shoulder. As if you are not important enough to even consider listening to. Whether this is part of the corporate culture, or the tactics of one or more colleagues or managers, a Savvy woman recognizes the behavior, and finds ways to be taken seriously.

Ignoring your input/making you invisible

The problem is pervasive even in today’s society. Women are made to feel unimportant even in making purchasing decisions with their own money.

Several years ago, I brought a male friend on a vacation to a place where I owned a timeshare—purchased on my own years before. We attended the “owner update” together – a thinly veiled opportunity to sell me more timeshare points. The ownership is in my name only. My friend was simply along for the company. That didn’t stop the salesman from addressing his entire sales pitch and all questions directly to my friend. It was as if I didn’t exist. I didn’t buy anything he was selling.

This has happened to me, and no doubt to countless women, when buying cars, houses, computers, financial services, televisions, and many other items or services. Getting a salesperson to look me in the eye and take me seriously is nearly impossible if I have a man with me. Even if I go alone I’ve been asked “Does your husband approve?” or generally been dismissed as someone not likely to make a decision that day.

These experiences are less likely to be tactics in keeping women from being a threat – more likely they are just bad salesmanship. Yet they are still pervasive in society, and make it easy for men to use the same tactics with women they work with. As frustrating as it is to be dismissed in the marketplace, it can be even more so – and detrimental to a woman’s career – to be similarly disregarded in the workplace.

The easiest way to take away a woman’s power is to assume she doesn’t have any to begin with.

All the women I interviewed have felt themselves, or their ideas, dismissed in the workplace at one time or another. For Shirley and Karen, in Human Resources roles in very different industries, it was a way of life. Even as Shirley rose through the ranks to HR Director (in the top 1% of a 100,000-person company), HR was considered a support role, and she was expected to go along with whatever the managers and directors and VPs (generally men) wanted her to do. If she came up with an idea in a meeting, she would receive a blank stare, a silent pause, and then someone else would quickly change the subject. Later, if a man repeated her idea, possibly slightly rephrased, people would jump on it and tell him what a great idea he had.

Karen has also felt dismissed, both early in her career working for small government contractors, and later in her role working in HR for an automotive group. According to Karen, when she would suggest an idea the response would be, “Okay, thanks for sharing,” then they would look away.

Dismissed again. Why bother trying?

When you are dismissed, it is like a kick in the gut. After you’re kicked in the gut so many times, you tend not to keep trying.

Eventually, Shirley stopped putting forth her ideas, or found other ways to get them implemented while still receiving no credit. Karen also learned to play the game, feeding ideas to men then pouncing on them with “great idea” when they brought them up in meetings. Neither option made the women feel valued, even if they were ultimately able to get ideas implemented. And motivation takes a big hit. What is the cost to organizations when this happens?

Or you can push back

You can make a lot of noise when you feel you are being dismissed, and not let them take you down easily. Remind them that you do have personal power, and they can’t just ignore you.

Rosa, a successful attorney and recognized expert in her specific field of law, is less likely to sit back quietly when she feels dismissed. When her current law firm launched a new web site, adding the capabilities for her area of expertise, they failed to list her name as one of the attorneys in that practice. “I’ve written books every year on that area of the law, all my business is there, and yet my clients can’t find me on the web site? I call bullshit!” She fought to get her name listed – and won.

Not taking you seriously/talking only to the men in the room

Often the expectation is that women won’t be contributing much. People who don’t know better will talk only to the men in the room or ask them for confirmation of what you are saying.

When I first started noticing men in meetings acknowledging or supporting only the other men I didn’t think anything of it. Generally, I was the only woman or one of a few, and as a junior engineer it made sense that my ideas were less valued. It didn’t stop me from speaking up, however. As I gained more technical knowledge and program management responsibility, and a Master’s degree in my field, I expected the same level of respect as my male colleagues. I was surprised to still find myself ignored. Not that I wasn’t noticed – the only female in a room full of men tends to stand out – but when I expressed an opinion or technical nuance, they would nod and smile and then look to one of the male engineers on my team for confirmation.

Don’t give up

Short of waving your arms around so they know you are there, keep your head in the game. Keep putting out your ideas, interrupt the men if need be, and get yourself noticed. It’s not always easy to do, but it will pay off if you persist.

Becky and one of her colleagues, instead of becoming frustrated with this, made it a kind of game. Young, attractive, and highly qualified IT professionals, they found they could get meetings with clients easily – possibly not based on their qualifications. “When we walked in, people would look up and say, ‘Are you kidding me?’ but then we would open our mouths. Jennifer would take engineers to the mat: she had a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, and she had ridiculous certifications, she took all the switches, routers, etc. When you got into bits and bytes and what integrated with what, she was on it. And it was a riot watching the men’s faces. By the end they would buy from us because we had passed the test.”

At some point, if you don’t let them get to you, they may learn you have something to say.

“Boys’ Club”/exclusion

I know, it’s a cliché. Really, does the “Boys’ Club” still exist? Hell yes, it does. And it’s an effective tactic to keep a woman from gaining too much power.

Judy, an IT professional at a telecommunications company, was promoted to a high-level role: Technical Director reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer. She was a key part of the technical team, helping to influence the direction of decisions made by the CTO.

As the only female among the CTO’s staff, Judy felt like they didn’t know what to do with a woman at her level. When her colleagues and boss got together after work for beers, she was not invited. The casual get-togethers were billed as “guys only”. But they were talking about business when they were out, making decisions, and building relationships. Judy, with a family waiting for her at home, didn’t particularly want to go to these, but she felt like being excluded from these networking opportunities was holding her career back.

She also discovered she was being excluded from important communications among her team, leaving her less informed and unable to respond quickly to urgent matters.

Had Judy’s presence in higher levels in the company made it awkward for some “Boys’ Club” to continue? When she walked into a room and the conversation stopped, was it simply because they were telling an inappropriate joke, or was more important information being passed that she was not privy to? The men on the team were finding ways to exclude her and make it more challenging for her to move ahead.

All these dismissal tactics are used against women generally to keep us in our places. We have become a threat to the status quo, or to someone’s ego, and by dismissing us they can take away our power. We have been ignored, overlooked, and outright excluded from important business meetings.

Savvy women find ways to be seen and heard.