An element of wanting to be liked
The actor Jennifer Lawrence talks about realizing she was paid a lot less than her male colleagues, and getting annoyed at herself.
When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don’t need. (I told you it wasn’t relatable, don’t hate me).
But if I’m honest with myself, I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn’t want to seem “difficult” or “spoiled.” At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being “difficult” or “spoiled.”
Because men don’t, because that’s not how it comes across when they look after their own interests.
Could there still be a lingering habit of trying to express our opinions in a certain way that doesn’t “offend” or “scare” men?
A few weeks ago at work, I spoke my mind and gave my opinion in a clear and no-bullshit way; no aggression, just blunt. The man I was working with (actually, he was working for me) said, “Whoa! We’re all on the same team here!” As if I was yelling at him. I was so shocked because nothing that I said was personal, offensive, or, to be honest, wrong. All I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive.
Because we say it in our little squeaky voices, with our narrow shoulders and puny biceps. It just doesn’t look right.
I’m over trying to find the “adorable” way to state my opinion and still be likable! Fuck that. I don’t think I’ve ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard. It’s just heard. Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale, and Bradley Cooper all fought and succeeded in negotiating powerful deals for themselves. If anything, I’m sure they were commended for being fierce and tactical, while I was busy worrying about coming across as a brat and not getting my fair share. Again, this might have NOTHING to do with my vagina, but I wasn’t completely wrong when another leaked Sony email revealed a producer referring to a fellow lead actress in a negotiation as a “spoiled brat.” For some reason, I just can’t picture someone saying that about a man.
“Spoiled brat” is something you call a child. Men are adults. Women? Not so much.
I see this happening at my workplace, too. There is a test/Q&A engineer on our team who goes to extreme lengths to moderate her language and accommodate the concerns of the other engineers on the team, in stark contrast to the way her male peers bluntly say “this is the way it’s going to be”. Rarely, she will send me an email asking for a consultation on some issue, but will preface her request with a long explanation of how she’s tried everything else that she could think of in order to find a solution, performing “all the necessary due diligence”, before coming to me “in order not to waste your time”, as she puts it. It makes me sad to think of the societal pressures on her that cause her to be so apologetic and explanatory for a request that, honestly, I’m happy to oblige for a valued colleague–no explanation necessary.
In stark contrast to this is an email I read today from a senior male engineer who asked me a question about a snippet of code that I wrote, including the comment that prefaced it. The comment itself had the answer to his question, but he hadn’t even bothered to read past the first sentence. Because, you know, entitled senior engineer doesn’t have to do “due diligence” when he can just fire off a terse email asking for an explanation.
And guess which of these two engineers that the management team defers to, on a regular basis?
… a “spoiled brat.” For some reason, I just can’t picture someone saying that about a man.
Apparently she hasn’t worked with, e.g., Justin Bieber. Or, e.g., Richard Dawkins. Or …
I honestly don’t know whether I’m glad or not that I don’t learn how to do what’s expected of me easily. I know it creates some negative reactions, but other people like who I am and in the long term, feeling comfortable in my skin is best.
In the early years of The Avengers, Dianna Rigg accidentally found out, through a slip of the tongue, that the male technicians on set ( and they were all male in those days) were paid more than her. She was one of the two principle stars of the series, but the cameramen and sound technicians had better salaries.
She wasn’t long fixing that.
Which is why I grew up and stopped thinking that feminism was “anti-man”, that feminism wasn’t needed and all feminists were “hairy legged dykes / man eaters / man haters / too ugly to root / pick your own stereotype. I became a feminist.
And I can trace my conversion to feminism arriving at the same time I joined a Men’s Group, a place where we talked openly and freely about our lives, loves, losses, and fucking hell, about our feelings. A place where I grew to be a better, more compassionate man, a better person. We were a group of men who loved women and wanted better relationships with the women in our lives, be they lovers, friends, family, or work colleagues.
And what, in my mind, is a male feminist?
A man who accepts that all women are equal with men, that women have the right to autonomy in every aspect of their lives, that women are not toys, and that together men and women can achieve far more than they can apart.
I have been inspired by women such as our host here, and by other women such as Maryam Namazie (actually, I am in awe of her courage and strength), as well as ordinary women leading ordinary lives
I may not have reached perfection, but I will never denigrate a woman for her gender, I will disagree with her when I believe she is wrong, but not because she posses girly bits”.
I don’t even think it’s always a matter of ‘wanting to be liked’–it’s more like ‘needing to be liked if you want to keep your job’. I’m perfectly aware that my economic survival depends on working hard to make sure the men who have power over my employment prospects like me; whether they think I’m competent is secondary to that. The other day a colleague of mine (not my actual boss, but at the same level and working directly with him) was having difficulty understanding what I was explaining to him, despite my repeating it very clearly several times–it was a Friday afternoon, he’d had a long week and was probably tired and not concentrating (and maybe didn’t feel like he had to pay that much attention to what a girl was telling him), and although I wasn’t rude I did express that it was really tough going to help him get to where I needed him to be on this issue. I really shouldn’t have done that–I’m going to have to be extra conciliatory and ego-boosting next time we interact.
I recently bought and reread this book, which is I think even more true now than when it was written:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8050-0639-1
I encountered something similar. When I found that a male in the exact same position was making more than me, they hemmed and hawed for a long time and gave some sort of non-responses. Finally, they pointed out that, as a man, he needed more to support a family.
This male was single, with no children. I was a single mother raising a teenager on my own without receiving child support.
I dropped it, because I was an intern (we both were) and I was hoping for a permanent job. When the male came up for a permanent job, there wasn’t one available, so they worked through the system to create one for him. When I came up for a permanent job, there was one available.They pulled the posting; a week after I found a job somewhere else in the system, the job was re-posted, the administration secure in the knowledge that I was no longer in a position where they had to give me preference.
Funny how there was never a permanent job available when the female interns reached the point to be converted to full time (this wasn’t the first time this happened to a woman working there); a week later, some male would start in the job that didn’t exist.
I guess what I learned from this is that if I worry about people liking me, it still won’t matter. I won’t get the job anyway.
Yes to everything guest said at #6. Esp. the first sentence.
I think also for women there is a conflict between competence and likeability. That is, one’s competence/skills/talents/insights are perceived by some men as a kind of insult/aggression, particularly if one is more competent etc. than the man in question.
It is as if – no matter how nice you are and how much you try and soften the interaction to accomodate his ego – he experiences your superiority (in that instance, or generally) as you being deliberately competent/insightful AT him (even if it is something he will benefit from).
This is all too silly. Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t negotiate her own fees, hard nosed men and women who don’t give a toss about being liked do it for her. And, of course, she got paid less than some men but far, far more than the majority of men on the set, so aggregating the sexes for the sake of the polemic is misleading. She was a very young unknown actress when she headed up the franchise that made her famous, so her agents had less negotiating power. There was a long long queue of talented young women eager to work for less. Nonetheless, last year her income was $56,000,000. That’s last year. Cry. Me A. River.
Pinkeen, she acknowledges the fact that she’s rich in the essay. In fact, that’s part of the reason she didn’t hold out for more.
Nevertheless, she got paid less than her male peers.
She employs those hard nosed men and women. She is involved in those negotiations.