The Devil Wears Prada, Women Make Better Bosses, and Other Generalizations That Generally Piss Me Off

This article from last week’s NY Times has been inspiring some lively discussion. The article features an interview with Carol Smith, senior vice president and chief brand officer for the Elle Group, in which she claims, among other things, that in her experience, “female bosses tend to be better managers, better advisers, mentors, rational thinkers. Men love to hear themselves talk.” In the same article, she goes on to make this gem of a generalization:

“We women take things very personally. We’re constantly playing things over in our head — “What did that mean when they said that?” — when they mean nothing. And I’m certainly not immune to this. So there’s a downside to women.”

Of course, Ms. Smith covers a variety of topics in the interview, but these are the quotes that stood out to me. I came away with two main impressions after reading this article.

a) Generalizations, including generalizations based on gender, are, always have been, and will continue to be incredibly limited and simplistic ways of looking at the world (generally speaking ;-). Reading the generalizations in this article made me feel like I was living in a world in which there really are no shades of gray, and the only thing that is allowed to contradict itself is a back-handed compliment. For real, when are we going to get past the tired gender generalizations in the guise of girl power compliments? Smith suggests that women are good managers, and she herself is a somewhat inspiring example of a successful business woman who is balancing her career and family life (she has a daughter and husband), yet she insists on furthering the same ole tired trope: we women also just loovvee to spend our time analyzing the meaningless and being hyper sensitive to, well, nothing at all. Anna N. at Jezebel sums it up by noting that Smith “explodes a bunch of gender stereotypes” in the interview but asks “is she also creating new ones?” Even the traits that she suggests make women better managers in the workplace, such as being “better list-makers” and “rational thinkers” are kind of trite oversimplifications that miss the mark in terms of furthering a real discussion about the role of gender in workplace management. List-makers? Really?
b) The second impression I had was just how incredibly privileged corporate America STILL IS. I’m truly happy to see a successful woman (albeit since I don’t know Ms. Smith personally and can’t speak to her having any of the characteristics I personally associate with success, such as kindness, I’m using the term “successful” in a very narrow way, to mean strictly financially and professionally) speaking out about issues of gender from her own perspective. Sure, it’s a little stereotypical for the NY Times to feature a female businesswoman who is heading a fashion magazine (a la the Devil Wears Prada), but no doubt she has had to work hard to achieve her current position, and I respect her hustle. But I still resent being forced to swallow along with my morning cup o’ joe some self-congratulatory cookie cutter “business” advice from someone who doesn’t really seem to get the multi-dimensional privilege inherent to her position. As Julie Z. of the F-Bomb puts it,

“it’s always nice to hear from women in business who hold leadership positions” but “it’s really disappointing when powerful women don’t really care about gender roles in the work place or don’t hold feminist views, considering that they do have so much power and could be such great role models.”

Agreed.
To that end, a very telling part of this article comes from a quote that hasn’t received a lot of attention. Smith is asked about her hiring practices, and she launches into a discussion of what she looks for when hiring, explaining that “you’ve got to meet someone three times, and one of them better be over a meal.” she goes on to explain:

“You learn so much in a meal. It’s like a little microcosm of life. How they order, what they order. How are they going to give instructions to a waiter? Are they sending back the meal eight times? Can they keep the conversation going, especially if you’re hiring someone who is in sales? Are they asking smart questions?”

See, to me, this is the a-HA moment. These are all LEARNED traits that have very little to do with how good of a job someone will do in their position, and everything to do with their class and privilege background. Interacting in a restaurant setting is a social skill that is acquired through experience. And I may be mistaken, but I assume Ms. smith isn’t referring to the local Applebee’s when she talks about a restaurant setting. Call me simple, but fancy schmancy restaurants take some getting used to. Being comfortable and sociable in that type of atmosphere is certainly more an indication of how often you’ve been privileged enough to be exposed to expensive restaurants than your ability to work hard or meet a deadline, and it’s simply classist to use this as an indicator of someone’s ability to be good at a magazine position. And I’m sure Ms. Smith is not alone, as indicted by her success and high regard in the business world- people in power are consistently toying with other people’s LIVELIHOOD using judgments based on their own classist, racist, shallow, silly BS whims- BS whims that just happen to be institutionalized, purposeful, and completely non-coincidental whims at all, but rather learned behavior used to keep power within familiar and similarly privileged circles of people.
And it’s not just this comment, or anything else that she said, but what she didn’t say that raised a red flag (and then waved it around back and forth in front of my face tauntingly). Where’s the acknowledgment of the sexism, racism, classism, and all the other flaws in the system, or the responsibility to give back from her position of relative power? Where’s the humility and awareness?
Leora Tanenbaum, author of “Catfight Rivalries Among Women: From Diets to Dating, From the Boardroom to the Delivery Room” hits the nail on the head in this NY Times follow-up “Room for Debate” article when she said,

“Yes, countless female managers are great at making lists and sure, lots of men love to hear the sound of their own voices — endlessly. But none of this behavior matters if it’s accompanied with a denial of the continued existence of sexism in the workplace…The best managers, female or male, are those who admit that the corporate structure favors men and who recognize their responsibility to help others follow in their footsteps.”

(emphasis mine)
Despite my issues with this interview, Carol Smith did manage to inspire me in one MAJOR way, and that is in the area of employing empty professional networking rhetoric to make my point. Why speak like a normal person when I can employ the tool of business champions? I can honestly say that after reading this article, I have been TRULY inspired to employ as many cliché business terms as possible. So I’m gonna go ahead and “wrap up” this post by encouraging Carol Smith to “think outside the box” by not “assigning success” to just one type of person and being much more of a “team player”.