Sexual Politics for Young Women in Sales Jobs
If you haven't bookmarked the Free Beer blog on BNET, you're missing some really interesting discussions about business. Her most recent post destroys the tired myth that men make more than women -- a "factoid" that's based upon invalid statistics.
In that post, however, Ms. Trunk provides some lousy advice to her fellow young women about sexual politics. And since the majority of new sales pros are women, I thought I'd provide my own observations as a counterweight. Ms. Trunk advises:
"Don't pretend to be a guy at work. Don't dress like a guy by wearing boring suits. Show some cleavage - yup, you read that right - because guys like working with women they are attracted to. And show some leg because it's fun - legs are the easiest thing to flaunt and the last thing to go. Women who dress like women move up the ladder faster because men think those women are smarter."Her statement is basically correct, but she's badly misinterpreting what's going on. Men don't really think that attractive women are smarter than unattractive women. What's actually happening is that -- no matter how ridiculous and impossible such thing might be -- they're thinking in the back of their brain that they might get some action. As a result, a man will almost always treat an attractive woman more nicely than an unattractive one.
However, this power over men's minds is a double-edged sword. Women who lay it on too heavily or too long run the risk of being seen as manipulative. That was probably the real lesson behind the infamous sales rep Debrahlee Lorenzana who got in trouble at her workplace for coming off too sexy.
Contrary to popular female belief, men aren't complete idiots. Even a man with plenty of Neanderthal DNA will eventually get to the point where his big brain tells his little brain to "shut the eff up and let me get some freakin' work done."
More importantly, dressing too sexy can close off an important avenue to fast track success: getting mentored. While exceptions no doubt exist, it's my observation that older women (Ms. Trunk calls them "bitchy, outdated ranters") aren't interesting in mentoring young women. Sad to say, older women tend to see younger women as threats and dressing sexy just makes that situation worse.
For a typical (albeit exaggerated) example of female "mentoring", check out the movie "The Devil Wears Prada." In that film, the older female character (Meryl Streep) mentors the younger female (Anne Hathaway) by treating her like crap and then dumping her the minute she shows some independence.
In most cases, if a young woman is going to be mentored, it's going to be by an older man. And unless she plans on sleeping her way to the top, what a young woman wants is an older man who sees her as a daughter figure and therefore out-of-bounds as as sexual partner.
A really great movie that investigates this dynamic is "Up in the Air" where the George Clooney character, though a bit of a rake, does not pursue the young woman (Anna Kendrick), but instead helps her achieve her career goals, even though her success will mean the end of the job he loves.
What about younger men? That's a slightly different story. The right role there for a young woman is to become "one of the team", but not "one of the boys." To do that, she should dress attractively, but never overly sexy, and never, ever, EVER flirt with team members -- unless you plan on sleeping with them. Think Elaine on the old TV show Seinfeld.
So Ms. Trunk is right about dressing attractively, and maybe showing a bit of cleavage, but it's a BIG mistake to turn up the amperage. Dressing too sexy will sour your relationships with other women (especially older ones), alienate the men your own age, and irritate the older men who might otherwise be willing to mentor.
READERS: I realize that the above is chock full of my personal opinions. But, gee, I'm calling it like I see it and I've seen plenty.