Women, Men and Boiled Potatoes

This week Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's TED talk about why we have too few women leaders is making the rounds. It's 15 minutes, well argued, and sometimes quite funny.  You should definitely watch the whole thing, but I'd like to focus on one of her observations: that women systematically undervalue their efforts and contributions.  I wanted to shout, "Amen sister that's true!" at my computer screen.

Here is just one of many examples I could cite: I attended a party in Berkeley in June, for which I believe my food contribution was wine, tortilla chips, and salsa (maybe not even the salsa).  Certainly no cooking, and overall very little effort.  Another party attendee--female--brought over a delicious potato dish. Yummeee!

But anytime someone sought to compliment her on the dish, de rigeur womanly modesty took over, in force. "Oh, it was so easy"..."Dear God, people, we are only talking about BOILED POTATOES." etc. etc.  Clearly her efforts were inadequate and she should have been deeply ashamed of such a paltry offering.  Or so it appeared, even though we all loved it.

Modesty and humility are fine.  Ritualized protestations of feminine inadequacy are not.  In my experience, these protestations almost always emerge from women themselves.  I have noticed this almost since I began breathing, so--alas--it is pretty deep in the bone.

The flip side of this coin is male overconfidence--the cock of the walk, the man about town, etc.  Maybe that's somewhat for show as part of the mating ritual, maybe it is just the way dudes are. I am sure it's a combination thereof.  Whatever the cause...if I could, I'd bottle up my own excess confidence and give it away free to the many fabulous women I know.   Those potatoes rocked. 

Comments

[Womenshealthnews.wordpress.com]

Well, I would argue that what you are identifying is a symptom, not a cause. Those ostensibly gendered behaviors you're observing probably do happen, but they don't spontaneously happen in a vacuum, or necessarily result from ways in which men and women just naturally *are.* There's a whole load of conditioning and reinforcement that happened before your friend turned up and minimized her potato achievement. If many women systematically undervalue their efforts and contributions, it's worth looking at all of the ways in which women might be being rewarded/not-punished for doing so - or otherwise given the message that appropriate behavior for a woman means not standing out, not being too over-accomplished - all along.

[Marcus]

I totally agree Rachel, and I attempted to get at the same point with the phrase "deep in the bone." There is no doubt a great deal of conditioning here. Whether symptom or cause or both, Sandberg's talk gave me a chance to document something I have observed for years.