
Why Women Should Flirt at Work - tswicegood
http://www.fastcompany.com/1705873/why-women-should-flirt
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mortice
I'm not too impressed with this article. If we replaced women in this article
with any other underrepresented group in the software business and asked that
group to conform to a stereotype to get ahead, it would be considered
offensive and rightly so.

Dave Thomas's keynote from Rubyconf comes to mind.
<http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote>

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Jun8
Did you not like the post or the research in the article it's linking? The
article is a link-bait with a title that tries to grab attention. This is
typical, even _The Economist_ does it.

However, I find the basic idea that "women may be perceived as competent but
unlikable or as likable but incompetent" in the workplace to be completely
true. This idea does not carry over to other underrepresented groups, I think.
For example, would you say there is a similar double whammy for black people?

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mortice
I'm objecting to the article rather than the research, and I agree that the
'double-bind' described does ring true. What I'm objecting to is the
conclusion that women should conform to a stereotype in order to be accepted
in the workplace.

I'm not saying that the situation is the same for every underrepresented
group; I'm saying that if the article were to advise any other
underrepresented group in a similar way it would be denounced as
discriminatory.

EDIT: I have no idea why parent is being downvoted. He/she raises valid
questions.

~~~
Jun8
I'm OK with comment up/downvoting to reflect agreement. What I find immature
is to downvote without raising a counterpoint. Look at the first comment for
this post, it just labels the post as "shitty" without telling why. Same hasty
approach.

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sp4rki
I don't think that this should be about women flirting or not. It's more about
women not behaving like feminine behavior is something to frown upon and the
fact that men are generally cautious around 'prudish' women because they tend
to attract harassment lawsuits like bees to pollen.

Let's be real, men will always congregate around the water cooler to talk
about life, work, vices, and women. The woman that can integrate into the
"workplace community" is generally of the more liberal type and come's of as
friendly toward the male population. What the feminist girl-power types don't
get is that a smile, a high five, and jokes of the 'horse walks into a jewish
bar' kind get you a lot farther down the road of being likable by your male
peers. This also has the effect of toning down our male tendency of vile
language when referring to women, which is off course a plus.

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wonderzombie
This article drives me up a wall.

"The choices then are these--work within the stereotypes or be careful in
situations to not activate gender stereotypes."

Really? Those are the only choices? Wow. Forget about changing attitudes or
anything like that, I guess. It's like the Y-chromosome-exclusive version of
"publish or perish."

And notice how it's incumbent on women to figure out what to do. Men shouldn't
worry their pretty little heads about it. It's just too much to ask for men to
maybe examine their biases, conscious or unconscious.

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mooism2
How about people make an effort not to judge other people according to
stereotypes?

~~~
symkat
That would assume people are aware of their predispositions on a general
basis.

Some of those are simple, "stop being X to Y people because you think they are
Z" is much easier to notice a pattern of than the sub-conscious effects of
"for some reason I don't like people who act in these ways."

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Eldila2
This article contains little information. Five minutes I will never get back.

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edw519
Articles like this make me so glad to be in the software business...

Replace <anyBullshit> with "Does she ship?"

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AndrewDucker
You're assuming that the software business is immune to this kind of thing. It
really isn't.

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tiffani
If anybody's interested, a paywall-free link to the paper is at
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1397699>.

And FWIW, I'm not exactly a fan of the article's conclusion ("work within
stereotypes") that I should be flirting at work. In a work environment where
you're one of two single women in a mostly married male environment, it's just
not good form.

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sudont
Anybody who isn't making meaningful contributions in favor of being self-
serving is an asshole, regardless of gender. I expect collaboration from the
people I work with, something that this article would consider "feminine."
Fuck that.

And the most competent person I work with is a chick, but she's a freak of
nature for her talent level.

~~~
studer
Freak of nature in absolute terms, or for being a talented chick?

From the article: "... evaluators tend to make negative judgments about women
who behave in masculine ways to fulfill the needs of their jobs."

(Oh, instant downmod for asking a question related to gender issues. Silly me,
forgot what site I was on.)

~~~
sudont
She's an order of magnitude faster in developing HTML+CSS than anyone else
I've met, and I've worked with some extremely talented people.

It's not a gender issue, just happens that a lot of talented developers I've
met have been women.

~~~
Tycho
Does she have a tech blog or portfolio site?

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Tycho
This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode where the first officer goes in a
'personnel exchange' to a Klingon ship and the female Klingons try to flirt
with him.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrNVimz-F4>

skip the first 3 minutes. bring your cringe goggles

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DjDarkman
Let's upgrade this concept: women should have sex at work. Sounds
ridiculous/offensive/immoral etc.?

If the above doesn't sound good than women should just be competitive. It's
equal opportunity. These articles take problems out of context.

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acconrad
Given how short and pointless this article is, all it can do is make
FastCompany look like a bunch of chauvinists.

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tgraydar
It's a secret story! Not about showing leg at the office! I get it!

