“Excuse me, can we adjust the attitude?
A few nights ago, I was out at the Soho House with some friends when an interesting conversation broke out during my trip to the ladies’ room. I walked into the bathroom and noticed a beautiful woman fixing her make up in front of the mirror. I went into a stall and as I had expected, my best friend, Celeste, didn’t hesitate to pay this woman a compliment. “You are gorgeous! Where are you from?” I half rolled my eyes in my stall almost as if I knew what the ensuing conversation would be. The woman said she was Palestinian and followed this up by thanking her and saying “Why is it that women don’t compliment each other more often?”
Answer: “Women in New York, in particular, are ultra competitive with each other because they feel the only way to move forward is step up on one another. If they looked at their competitors as allies then they would be opening the door for them to more opportunities.”
By this time more women had piled into the bathroom and gathered around the sink. They were checking out each other’s outfits, looking at themselves in the mirror and a few of them even joined in the conversation. While half the women engaged in the talk, another three stood on the outskirts of the conversation, avoiding eye contact and aiming only at one goal: to get in front of the sink.
These women interested me more because there was something very telling in their silence. There was a hint of disapproval in their smug grins, as if the very nature of this banter was beneath them. They seemed as though they were refusing to participate in this somewhat jovial, if not a bit inebriated, discussion because, much like myself, they didn’t even want to be a part of anything that suggested that there were differences between men and women.
“When I first started working on Wall Street, I knew that I had to adapt to the environment of a male dominated workplace and I strived to play by their rules,” said one successful investment banker. “I never felt like I was competitive with the other women because I saw that the women that came in with hang up’s about being women usually were competitive about gaining someone like their manager’s attention. My focus was to be the manager.”
This led me to identify my own perceptions of what it means to be competitive. I never even considered myself a competitive person partly because I thought I was always competing with myself. In fact, most of the really successful women I interviewed about this topic said they weren’t competitive with other women. “My outside personality says ‘No, I’m not competitive’ but my inside personality says “Hell yes!”was a common response.
Many women feel that competition amongst women has negative connotations. “Women have a different work style then men. Women bring more nurturing into the environment and invest more emotion into their work style. As a result, I think women take competition personally so while I do have a competitive nature I try not to be too overt about it so as not to inhibit my co-workers,”.
Several factors weigh in heavily on the issue of inter-gender competition: socialization, our definitions of competition, negative female stereotypes, male dominated work environments and last, media.
Digging a little deeper, personally, I discovered a couple things about my own subconscious thoughts on competitiveness. Foremost, it became apparent to me that I thought of competition as a negative thing. I would be ashamed to admit if I was being competitive, making me covert in any competitive attempts and last I would rather find myself competing against the men in any situation.
Why is this? I thought about the editorial assistant’s struggle to survive in the ultimate dog eat dog world at Vogue in The Devil Wears Prada. The scenes of competition between the women in this film was cliché to say the least and ultimately destructive because it depicted competition as a nasty, inevitable backlash of working with women.
Stories I had heard from friends in openly competitive environments involved atrocious acts! One close friend, who works for a big name designer she asked me not reveal, said she couldn’t count how many times a female co worker had stolen her design ideas and presented them during important board meetings to get ahead. She described her office as “a free for all where the meanest bitch wins!” I shuddered at the thought.
Another girlfriend told me of a time she was horrified to find out that her intern had slept with her boss and overstepped her on the corporate ladder overnight. Of course, these are extreme stories that each had their due consequences but the point was that in both cases the focus of these women’s competitive process was to get ahead by knocking someone else down.
Sometimes, I think I won’t admit to competing with other women in an effort to disassociate from the negative stereotypes that women are catty or untrustworthy. Those stereotypes are shameful and as a result I don’t want to openly participate for fear that I will be viewed that way too. In an effort to disassociate with those stereotypes I focus on competing with the men at work.
For example, when I started my job in Marketing, I was the only woman among 8 men. I loved this position for myself. On occasion I felt like I was one of the boys and I didn’t have to be tip toed around or treated any differently. I felt this was an advantage. It was at these times when I noticed myself striving to do a better job then the next guy or be more detail oriented (very highly regarded at my agency).
However, my motives were guided by fear and therefore I wonder if I was just reinforcing those stereotypes by refusing to embrace my feminine differences. Many more women were hired soon after but my work environment still doesn’t evoke any inter gender competition on my part for a few reasons.
First of all, none of the women here work in the same capacity or even the same position. Second, none of us have to answer to each other. And last, I think we all really like each other. Perhaps, my situation is too ideal.
On the other hand, competition amongst women can be experienced in a healthy way. If women used competition as a means to challenge themselves and better their overall work place performance then the competitive nature could have positive benefits for everyone. This form of competition can strengthen and bind a work force. It can build self-esteem in its participants and encourage or inspire others to work harder. In this case, competition isn’t taken personally by others because the end goal is for the betterment of all involved.
I have concluded that if I were to free myself from the views that being competitive with another woman is somehow shameful or unacceptable then I might be able to enjoy it healthily. What if I could feel as comfortable as my male co-workers do when one of them works harder and does a better job then the other is unabashed about it? Could this potentially make me a more productive and valuable employee? Am I missing out because I don’t want anyone to think I’m a “bitch”? Perhaps. So, keeping in mind the forms of healthy competition I think I am going to try things a little differently and see if it doesn’t catch on around here.
