Professionalism, gender, and power

As I was putting my coat away to go into work, I had decided, “Today is going to be a great day.” Because of my scheduled day, work would be a short 3 hour shift, and I had come in early to finish work I had forgot to complete the day before. I walked to the bottom of the deserted stairwell and hung up my bag and coat, to find the bank manager standing at the stairwell.

I’ve been working at the bank for a little over a month at this point and had a chance for several pleasantries with him. He is an imposing and handsome man, clean cut, and competitive. He’s gotten a reputation for expecting the best from people with a pig headed sort of tenacity for meeting goals. I’ve had the joyful agony of working with men like him in other business ventures in previous jobs. Simply, I like him in a professional sense, not a close personal one.

I started to climb up the stairwell when my manager started talking about our most recent store survey. *My* survey to be precise.

As a recent college graduate, who ran my own business, I am comfortable talking *my way*. My way consists of swearing, Transylvannia accents, and random Family Guy quotations. I grasp the English language with a fierce grip and command it with Mount Olympus force to obey me. After years of precise grammar, spelling bees, and papers which range in the same depths as rain forest precipitation, I feel the need for my own speech to be a fun mix of excitement, positivity, and concrete honesty which I have come to respect in myself.

Apparently, having your own kind of conviction will not change the industry’s version of how you should speak. I am adaptable, but this particular metamorphosis has taken longer than anticipated. I had received a poor survey for telling someone they “looked like you have been ridden hard and hung up to dry.” Honestly, it is laughable to me, and a lesson for me to exercise not only better professionalism, but more kindness in my speech with people. No one, after all, wants to be told they look tired.

The conversation was easy going, with a good understanding between my manager and I, but I was still disturbed. In a half lit, semi-public stairwell, with myself at the bottom of the landing, and he, at the top, I could not help but be conscious of the difference in power between us. I was physically aware of the automatic fear kicking into me as a survivor of domestic abuse. The conversation was not intense, nor was it particularly harsh. Craning back my head to make eye contact, the almost romantic lighting, in a semi public place struck me as ironic as I accepted my light reprimand for being unprofessional with a deference I did not know I possessed.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

The midwest region of the United States of America is where I call home. As a child I was fascinated with women in power. I grew up and started writing poetry and reading to escape the cycle of drug use and violence in my home. I am a survivor of sexual violence. Thanks to financial aid and hard work, I graduated from Ball State University with a degree in Communication Studies. I have graduate school experience, but am not pursuing the rest of my graduate degree right now. I work at a bank, act in the local community theater, and volunteer my time at the domestic shelter and humane society. My partner and I are a poly amorous, sex positive, lesbian couple living in South Dakota. I am rabidly political, deeply spiritual, and viciously loving. My idea of a perfect date is a bouquet of sharpen pencils, a kinky book, a political discussion, and dinner.

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