In the Office, Nice Girls Finish Last

By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted December 13, 2008.

According to Kim Morris, the study's project director, "[Women] tend to focus less than men on their advancement. They assume that focusing primarily on the health of the organization will result in recognition and promotions."  

Women are also less likely than men to grease their career paths by touting their skills and bragging about their accomplishments.   

A 2008 study by psychologist Shannon L. Goodson compared the office behaviors of professional men and women, drawing from an industry questionnaire about workplace attitudes. Goodson found that women were far less likely to draw attention to their achievements and promote their skills and abilities to co-workers and supervisors, whereas men had relatively little trouble bringing attention to their work. At times, men even lied about their accomplishments, taking credit for contributions that were not entirely theirs.   

"We found that women typically are concerned about being seen as pushy and intrusive, and they may hesitate to ask for the raise, ask for a promotion or do anything that makes them stand out and appear to be boastful," says Goodson.  

In a culture that offers up sweet-voiced Disney princesses as role models for young girls, it's hardly surprising that many women have trouble being aggressive in the pursuit of advancement or blustering about their achievements. According to career counselor Karyl Innis, who has seen this dynamic play out in her work, "you have to roll it all the way back to how little girls are brought up and often they're told to work hard; they're told nice girls don't do this, little girls don't do that. And largely they're being told, 'don't put yourself out there, don't brag.' "  

Meanwhile, men have been primed to pursue their self-interest from childhood. Economist Linda Babcock found that men are far more aggressive when they www.womendontask.com negotiate raises and promotions. According to Babcock, men "are encouraged to go for it growing up. The world is their oyster, they're in charge, they're encouraged to take risks, and they just have so much more practice initiating negotiations growing up and with so much more encouragement from our society that this is an acceptable thing for them to do. So they get more practice. It's not as if women are missing a negotiation gene or something!"  

In fact, Babcock's research reveals that women are great negotiators -- just not for themselves. "[Women] negotiate for their family members, they negotiate for the causes they believe in. So it's not that we don't have these skills. It's that society has told us that it’s not appropriate for us to use them for ourselves -- because that would be selfish or greedy." 

Furthermore, women who buck gender expectations by engaging in what's considered "masculine" behavior face a whole other set of problems in the workplace: when they shed the buffers of femininity, they risk being vilified as bitches. (See: the Hillary Clinton nutcracker, and all the other creative ways some male commentators vented their anxieties about what Clinton would do to their genitals.)

While aggressive self-promotion might make women appear more competent, it poses its own hazard.  According to social psychologist Peter Glick, who has done extensive research on the subtle ways gender expectations affect workplace relations, "There's a very strong prescriptive stereotype that women should be nice. The problem is that some of these self-promoting behaviors that are about "me, me, me" can be seen as not being nice … this can effect decisions, like who you want to promote, who you want to work with, who gets resources." 

See more stories tagged with: gender, women, workplace, education, sexism, hillary clinton, gender equity, equality, ambition, self-promotion, self-interest, double standards, promotions, career advancement, meritocracy, shannon goodson, linda babcock, peter glick, hannah bowles, lei lai

Tana Ganeva is an editorial assistant at AlterNet.

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