So, tell me, corporate women. How many of you find that you are stuck at work doing the grunt jobs while your male colleagues are busy networking, drinking the bubbly, and sweeping up the promotions? Ah yes, I thought a lot of hands might go up for that...
I am afraid the fault is largely ours. Because we working women find ourselves juggling so many balls in the air — work, family, children, kitchen, groceries, housekeeping — we tend to narrow-focus on each ball. We dare not look away because when we do, one or the other comes tumbling down. As a result, most of us miss the background scenery.
Our male colleagues, on the other hand, have no such problems. They have been reassured by umpteen studies that they are not multi-taskers, so they don’t feel compelled to do too much. This gives them plenty of leisure to have coffee with the CEO, lunch with the boss, and play golf with the CFO. They don’t have to rush home after work to feed the kids and put them to bed, so guess who is attending the office parties?
All this canoodling yields rich dividends. Men have never been shy to talk about themselves or their achievements. And there’s nothing like these social interactions for a spot of self-promotion.
The next time you attend a meeting, watch closely. How many women leave the meeting and head straight back to their workstations? How many men move on to the cafeteria or the pavement outside for a smoke? And we all know that more decisions are made informally over coffee then in formal meetings. That’s why a male colleague is likely to get a promotion or a budget approval more quickly than his female counterpart, even though she might deserve it more.
Wall Street executive Sallie Krawcheck has written that “Women tend to fall into the ‘best friend syndrome’ where we conflate casual relationships with shallow ones”. But connecting wider rather than deeper does work better for the career. It becomes important to get out there and be seen and heard. It ensures that you are top-of-mind the next time a decision is being taken, and not forgotten in your efficient but aloof cubicle.
Women employees are more details oriented, so they will focus strongly on the task at hand, overlooking a meeting about a future project or a plan that’s not about their department but which has a larger organisational significance. This becomes a disadvantage in the long run. Although she might achieve her departmental goals far more efficiently, she could still find herself overlooked for a promotion because her male counterpart is so much more clued in to the big picture, which makes him look like a better bet for a leadership role.
And all this is besides the strong Old Boy networks, and golf, club, and gym groups, where men scratch each other’s backs and which women find impossible to break into. This is why the problem for women is not how to work harder, which they already do, but how to get their work noticed. And that’s why, ladies, it becomes important sometimes to attend that damned office party after all.
Vaishna is a staffer with the Hindu and writes on gender, culture, and politics.
