Episode 79: Equal and Different

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“I understand the fear a lot of women and some men have in denying gender differences...but now we are strong enough to say we are both equal and different.”
— Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

This time we re-connect with a guest I first spoke to in 2014. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox appeared in episode 41, Stop Fixing Women, Start Fixing Companies. She writes about gender for the Harvard Business Review and I knew I wanted to book her again when I read her piece To Hold Women Back, Keep Treating Them Like Men. 

avivah wittenberg-cox

 

In this episode we discuss why companies should treat women differently. We get into the whole nature versus nurture debate, and Avivah talks about why company women's networks may be a waste of time. 

This episode is once again supported by Write, Speak, Code.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Episode 78: Unpacking Sexual Harassment

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“When we were called in to dinner he gave my ass an almighty smack and said, ‘Come on, you tart!’”
— Broad Experience listener via email
“To the extent that we still have this misinformation going around about what sexual harassment is and how serious it is...we will continue to turn a blind eye to it.”
— Jennifer Berdahl

In this show we look at what really motivates sexual harassment, and what we can do about it. We hear a listener's story that sounds like something from an episode of Mad Men. And we find out why academia has such a persistent problem with professor/student harassment, particularly in the sciences.

My guest is Jennifer Berdahl of the University of British Columbia (above), who studies sexual harassment and power and status in the workplace. 

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Further reading: This is the op-ed I mentioned in the show, written by a female scientist harassed by a well known professor 30 years older than her. The man was found to be at fault, but he was not punished, and his university asked her to keep the whole thing confidential. 

Nature also wrote an editorial decrying academia's lackluster attitude to punishing harassers.

Here's a New York Times piece on a recent case at the University of Chicago and another on a case at Yale Medical School.

The Mask You Live In is the film I mentioned at the end of the show. I saw it at a screening in New York Last Year. See it if you can.

I produced an earlier episode of the show called Women in Academia and Kate Clancy of the University of Illinois was one of my guests. Kate has done a lot of research into harassment at field sites. The results were published in 2014.

Episode 77: Don't Call Me Sweetie

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“At the end of the conversation he says, ‘OK my dear,’ and hangs up...and I was stunned.”
— Ibby Caputo
“It’s not like every sexual harassing person is a lovely guy at the core, but addressing it in a non-inflammatory way is your best way out.”
— Katherine Crowley
Photo by Marina Bartel/Hemera / Getty Images

This is the first of two shows on unwanted male-to-female attention at work, from terms of endearment to full-on predatory behavior. My guests are journalist Ibby Caputo and business owners and workplace relationship experts Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley. 

This show was inspired by one of my listeners. She asked how women in their mid-twenties like her were supposed to build professional reputations when male colleagues, vendors, and clients kept calling them 'sweetie' and 'honey'. How could she discourage these men while maintaining workplace relationships? In this show, we discuss some of the benefits and risks of speaking up about disrespectful behavior.

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Episode 76: Communicating While Female

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“I have decided that rather than changing myself to be taken more seriously, I would rather just stay who I am and make people take people like me more seriously.”
— Jessie Char
“Our true selves don’t show when we’re in more anxiety ridden situations...Why do we think we should be born an amazing communicator? We’re not.”
— Ita Olsen

The way women communicate is getting a lot of scrutiny these days - from upspeak and vocal fry to indirect emails and over-apologizing, we're being urged to change our ways.

Jessie char

In this show we look at whether the way women use language is our problem, or society's. Jessie Char is fed up of being criticized for her voice and the feminine way she dresses. She says the critique comes down to simple sexism. Teo Cristea has taken voice classes to help her come across better in a professional context. And communication coach Ita Olsen says communication is meant to get us what we want out of life - so why wouldn't we want to improve our skills?

Ita olsen

Ita olsen

This episode of the show is sponsored by Write/Speak/Code. If you're in tech check out the upcoming conference and tell your company about it too - they're looking for sponsors. (Hear more about Write/Speak/Code in episode 24, Women in Tech Speak Up.)

You can also read a transcript of the show.

Further reading: Can we just, like, get over the way women talk? from New York Magazine.

Telling women to apologize less isn't about empowerment, it's about shame from the Washington Post.

Speaking While Female from the New York Times.

Episode 75: Redefining Success

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“There becomes this thing inside of us that we know if we don’t jump we’re going to die inside just a little. ”
— Whitney Johnson
“I wanted to explore why I was so obsessed with this idea that I had failed in my ambition - that I had failed in not really pursuing it to the ends of the earth. ”
— Tess Vigeland

It's the end of the year - a time when a lot of us think about changing our lives in one way or another. In this show we talk to two traditionally successful women who left their old work lives for the unknown. But jumping meant leaving their identities behind as well as their paychecks. 

Tess vigeland

Tess vigeland

Tess Vigeland is the former host of Marketplace Money, the public radio show here in the US. She left her job at the top of her game, and initially wondered if she was nuts to have done so. She writes about it in Leap - Leaving a Job with No Plan B to Find the Career and Life You Really Want. Whitney Johnson was itching to move away from her comfortable existence at Merrill Lynch and challenge herself in new ways. She invites other people to do something similar in her book, Disrupt Yourself - even if you may not think you need disrupting. 

whitney johnson

whitney johnson

This episode of the show is sponsored by Foreign Affairs. Listeners can get three-quarters off a year's subscription by going to ForeignAffairs.com/broad.

Since the three of us spoke, Tess has begun her life on the road in Vietnam - you can follow her travel blog. You can read Whitney Johnson's Harvard Business Review posts here. 

You can also read a transcript of the show. 

Episode 74: On Confidence

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“You see a man in a job interview and he answers off the cuff of his sleeve, he doesn’t think, oh my gosh, I might not able to do that, or could I do that?”
— Denise Barreto
“The times when I’ve had to ask for things it’s seemed so hard, it’s almost unthinkable that I would be able to ask for something and that I deserved it.”
— Stacey Vanek Smith

Study after study shows women have less confidence than men. But you hardly need a study to work that out. Just look around you - how many women do you know who exude the same self-belief as the men in your life? Confidence, or the lack of it, is a big issue in many women's careers, including my own. In this show I talk to business owner Denise Barreto, whose confidence I envy, and NPR reporter Stacey Vanek Smith, who shares a lot of my hangups. She has to psych herself up to ask for things at work, because she's not quite sure she deserves it - but she says you can use that discomfort to your advantage.  

You can also read a transcript of the show. 

Don't forget to check out my sponsor for this episode, M.M. LaFleur - if you order your Bento Box between now and December 31st, 2015 you'll be entered into a draw for a $300 gift card.

Further reading:

Women's Confidence Gap in the Workplace, via Refinery 29.

The Confidence Gap and Women Entrepreneurs, from Forbes. 

Men's 'Honest Overconfidence' May Lead to Male Domination in the C-Suite, via Columbia Business School. 

This Atlantic piece is written by Confidence Code authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman.