{"id":454,"date":"2014-09-25T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=454"},"modified":"2014-09-25T09:00:08","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T13:00:08","slug":"masculine-and-feminine-workplace-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/blog-posts\/masculine-and-feminine-workplace-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Masculine and Feminine Workplace Values"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tYes, this is a story about a personal betrayal. But it is also a story about women\u2019s friendship rules crashing into the norms of a \u201cman\u2019s world\u201d where a friendship between two women is destroyed by behavior that is expected between men and rewarded by the organization. A lot has been written about the ways that most workplaces favor and reward masculine workplace values and discourage feminine workplace values, which are described in the table below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Alice, who worked in an engineering environment, would have found herself right at home in a study conducted by Joyce Fletcher. Fletcher found that the relational practices (which include collaboration, teamwork, coaching, and empathy) preferred by the women engineers in her study were discouraged and undervalued by their organizations, even though the engineers produced good results. She observed that work environments in which engineering is highly valued are often characterized by autonomy, self-promotion, and individual heroics\u2014where self-promotion is essential to being seen as competent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Table 2. Comparison of masculine and feminine workplace values<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
Masculine workplace values<\/td>\n\n\n\n\nFeminine workplace values<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Task focus<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\u2022 Community\/team focus<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Isolation\/autonomy<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\u2022 Connection<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Independence<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\u2022 Interdependence<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Competition\u2014individualistic competitive achievement<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\u2022 Mutuality\u2014achievement of success through collaboration<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Hierarchical authority<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\u2022 Collectivity\/flat structure<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Rational engagement (focus on task, logic, and the bottom line\u2014leave personal matters at the door)<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\u2022 Emotional engagement (notice body language and process, encourage relationships, share feelings and personal information, show empathy)<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Directive leadership style<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\u2022 Supportive leadership style<\/td>\n\n\n<\/tr>\n\n\n<\/tbody>\n\n\n<\/table>\n\n\n \nAlice\u2019s story, then, gives us an example of women\u2019s friendship rules of unswerving loyalty, trustworthiness, and equality clashing with masculine workplace values of autonomy, self-promotion, and individual heroics. The masculine values get rewarded: Alice\u2019s coworker got promoted. And let\u2019s notice that Alice says that men compete for promotions through individual heroics all the time. They just go out for a beer and move on, but Alice and her coworker were never friends again.\n \nAn excerpt from my book,\u00a0New Rules for Women<\/em>, available at Amazon (http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0982056982\/<\/a>).]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[207,222,418,612,634],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-excerpt","tag-feminine-values","tag-friendship-rules","tag-new-rules","tag-women","tag-workplace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}