Polly's press & media appearances
|
Self-flagellation and the City
Rediscover your Passion - Go It Alone
Finansmiljøet i London - et Jobbhelvete
Fear and Loathing in the Heart of the city
My Glittering City Career Turned into Golden Handcuffs
Do Women Really Get a Raw Deal in the City?
|
21st October Polly Courtney "What d'you mean, 'Will I be up to the job?' Why wouldn't I be?" That was the reply of a colleague when I asked about his new position in a firm where he would be earning more than double his current base salary. That day, I learned that my friend's sister had also been offered a promotion. She'd turned it down. It was too much responsibility and she didn't think she'd cope. We mustn't generalise, but it seems there's a fundamental difference between men and women: men don't like to doubt themselves, women do. If a woman doesn't know for sure that she's capable, chances are she won't go for it. A man, on the other hand, will. As women, our approach is polite and earnest; we think things through, weighing up the pros and cons instead of bulldozing our way through and dealing with the implications later. It's not career-enhancing, but we all do it. Why? Because it's not feminine to bulldoze. We were brought up to be ladies. I'm not talking manners; I'm talking attitude. As a child I attended an all-girl grammar before switching to a boys school that had just started to take girls. The difference was startling. Having become accustomed to the "Maybe you'll succeed but keep working hard" advice, all of a sudden I was hearing: "Well done - you're good." For girls, motivation stems from fear of failure, not desire to achieve. That's why we overwork for our exams -getting 95% when the pass mark is 70. We're driven by insecurities and an underlying belief that while we're doing OK, we need to do a bit better. Boys are incentivised by success. They are good until proven otherwise. It's not good to be seen as cocky. Extreme confidence comes across as arrogance - a very undesirable trait in a woman. Don't get me wrong - we love a bit of arrogance. Jeremy Clarkson, for example. Alan Sugar, Jeremy Paxman, Simon Cowell ... we demand it from all of them. And not just from celebrities. We want our MPs and chief executives to be full of it, too. But transfer these traits to a woman boss and suddenly it seems ... well, wrong. Women should be sensitive, rational, considerate. They should be humble and willing to admit when they're wrong. And in general, that's how they are. Which is unfortunate, because these can be career-limiting qualities. Take sales. If you're ramming a product or service down a customer's throat, you can't do it half-heartedly. You can try the soft-sell, but nothing works like the good old-fashioned foot-in-the-door-and-start-talking technique - something best suited to someone who can take rejection on the chin. If you don't exude confidence then you're not going to hit your sales targets - ergo no promotion. Government talk of employers "addressing the gender imbalance" leaves me cold. Sorry Mr Blair, but recruitment should be based on merit, not chromosomes. We need more women going for it, not just more women being accepted. And how do we achieve that? We look to the teachers, parents and other elements of society that influence our children's perceptions, and we rethink how girls are brought up. Or maybe we don't. Maybe we leave things as they are. Women will continue to be feminine, and men will continue to bulldoze. But whichever option we choose, let's not pretend it's "equality" in the workforce, just because we've hit our 40:60 target. It takes time to change how we think. Polly Courtney's novel Golden Handcuffs is published next month
|
Polly's TV & Radio appearances
From Engineer to Investment Banker to Novelist
Berliner Zeitung Magazin, 2007
I Know the Pressure Matthew was Under
I Sold My Soul to the City - then Wanted it Back
Banker Novel Shows it's not all Success in the City
Taste of High Life in City can Seduce Interns
City Woman who quit City over Sexism admits Lapdancing
|
