Hello Is Mise.

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my note to Jack Herlocker about the excellent article Maggie Haukka wrote on Misogyny in Miniature on August 12th. I really enjoyed hearing from you and wanted to respond to two of your excellent points. They are: 1. if two people, a man and a woman, were both qualified for a job… and 2. This is the extreme end of the scale though…

Re: Number One : Qualifications of applicants:

Part of me sees this solution as being so simple. In my opinion: When a laudable attempt is being made through quotas to equalize the gender distribution in an industry( or government); then first and foremost the resulting hire must be the most qualified of all the applicants. Full stop.

Yet this is when the complications set in. Then a simple solution gets mired in mud. I feel that there needs to be stated, objective and irrevocable criteria used to measure the qualifications of the applicants. There is no room for subjectivity.

The moment we introduce non tangible, gut reaction measures to an otherwise objective process, that’s when society’s biases sway either the decision to hire or the post hire discussion and doubt. That kind of discussion about someone after the hire, contributes to the noise around all the incorrect perceptions about women and their abilities.( please note that I have already stated that the candidate’s qualifications need to be the first deciding factor in the job competition )

Case in point. When I started my first business, I constantly had to deal with feedback that labeled me “so aggressive”. Yet my male counterparts used the same techniques as I did and they were admired for their “focus”. Patted on the back for their behaviour.

I often lost a deal because my identical behaviour to the guys I mention, was deemed unlikeable (unattractive) in me. I was labeled less qualified for no objective reason.

Or try this next one on for size. Here is a case of reverse bias because in this example, I am the one allowing years of societal programming and gas lighting to taint my perceptions.

I was (am) hooked on the tv series BILLIONS. I marvel at how I watch myself give the Axe character much more leeway in his a**holeness than I give to Wendy. For some reason I have been programmed to find those qualities of arrogance much less tolerable in a strong female character as compared to a male. Wow huh. None of us are immune.( But please note, I do see my folly and continue to work on it)

All this to say that we cannot allow bias, stereotyping, conditioning etc to influence workplace decisions. Because when we do, women almost always lose. The qualities necessary to succeed in a job, when displayed by a woman, are often considered a turn off. Or worse.

To repeat from above, to find the most qualified applicant, I believe that the scoring process must be thorough, transparent, inflexible and final . ( Yes, I do know how idealistic this sounds. How else do we keep these double standards and inappropriate conditioning out of the candidate search process? And if the formula is flawed, the wrong person will be hired.)

Re Number 2: Referring to the extreme end of the scale:

Again in my opinion, I feel we (women especially) often make an error in this context. We look at an issue, whether it’s equality in the workplace, economic parity, domestic issues, sexual assault, #MeToo …my list goes on. We often look at the total number of incidents in any one of these areas and although the evidence supports the occurrence of the offence; we too often move to the extreme end and say things like “that’s not correct” or “no, that didn’t happen ” or “I don’t believe it” or “ that’s such a small thing” or “ she’s lying” and so on.

The point I am trying to make here is this. Lets say there are 100 issues reported in a certain category. Let’s choose for this example: hiring decisions or sexual assault. Either. Let’s just say for only this illustration that 80/100 cases are solid. 10 are weakly supported and another 10 are overblown or exaggerated . Why do we often tend to focus on one of the ten instead of the 80? Good question huh. And I do not have the answer.

Is Mise, I hope my thoughts are in someway useful to you. I certainly appreciated receiving your initial feedback. I hope we can have more of these back and forths on Medium and thereby find “ our happy medium” 😀👍