Go read this; make sure to read all the comments, and pay special attention to the ones by Eszter and Gisela and later on by Liz Henry and Haddayr. Rock on, ladies.
H/t to Pam Noles for the link.
Go read this; make sure to read all the comments, and pay special attention to the ones by Eszter and Gisela and later on by Liz Henry and Haddayr. Rock on, ladies.
H/t to Pam Noles for the link.
Read all the comments, all the way down, and I like Amy Hoy very much.
"[Self-aggrandizing jerks] often get what they want, when those of us who could do a MUCH better job fume silently.
We can look at this two ways, as well:
* Society is wrong and should change, or…
* Those freakin jerks are taking advantage of innocent people. I’ll show them what good work REALLY is.
Pick #2, people. Pick #2. "
Good advice, for all.
But see, I would also argue for societal change toward placing greater value on hard work and less on grandstanding and bluffing. I agree with Maggie Mason's comment that Shirky would do better to question his response to the letter: Why did the student's self-embellishment -- bordering on outright lies in places -- work so effectively on him?
Oh, yes, indeed. But. I can't change you; you can't change me. Maggie (who is made of awesome, by the way; I regularly read her blog) can't change Shirky (who /would/ do well to say, "Hang on a sec, why'd I do that?").
We can, however, change ourselves. I can resolve to be less self-effacing (which is a longtime problem with me) and put myself forward more, take more risks, have more confidence. I'm a man, but far from the manliest of men, for good or ill.
Quality--real quality, not insubstantial style--should be rewarded. But we can't reward it if we can't find it, and we've got stuff to do (hopefully, producing quality work of our own). If we're going to find someone who can do quality work, we're going to need help to find it.
This has always been my problem in general: I hate being a self-aggrandizing jerk. Therefore, by Shirky's logic, I am doomed to fail. He vastly over-reaches by confining his argument to a gender. It kinda misses the point.
On a side note, is it just me, or can this also be a geographic statement: People from the coasts are better at being self-aggrandizing jerks than us folk from the Mid-western parts?
Jeff, that's a rather hopeful outlook to take, but speaking from personal experience, the world frequently doesn't work that way. I can make high-quality work, and it will often get ignored, or sidelined, or deprecated simply because of my gender (unless of course there's a token, brief spotlight focus on women to prove how diverse and accepting the organization is). Improving the work, or the person, is unlikely to improve the situation, and your logic -- and Shirky's -- is skirting rather close to victim-blaming.
I often hesitate to "play the gender card" myself because it hurts me to do so. If the problem in any given situation can be solved by producing better work / becoming a better person / getting better at promoting myself, then that's actually positive news -- I'm not afraid of hard work, and I'm harder on myself than everyone around me. But if the problem actually revolves around me and my work being ignored because of who I am as a person? I can't change who I *am*. That means the rules are broken, not me. As someone who's always been raised to work hard, play by the rules and get rewarded for your efforts -- when you discover first-hand that the field isn't level, it's pretty depressing.
People in positions of power -- like Shirky -- need to question who they reward and why. *They* have the opportunity to make lasting change from the inside, and to improve the way that all marginalized groups are treated -- not just women but people with disabilities, people of color, the economically disadvantaged, members of the LGBTQI community, and everyone who intersects more than one of those groups.
Dirk: I'd have to agree, and blame that on nurture as well. In the community I was brought up in, we were taught to be quiet, work hard and let the fruits of our labors speak for us, as well they should. Sucks when it doesn't work that way.
This is why agents and proud friends and spouses and professional resume-writers and their ilk are useful. I'm not being facetious. Society/social norms will not change fast enough, so the problems Shirky talks about will not go away fast enough.
In the comments, someone (I think it was the aformentioned Amy Hoy) made the point that expecting the world to beat a path to your doorstep based on your hard work and excellence is a not-too-distant relative to the arrogant behavior of overstating your qualifications. (My words, not hers.) People in a position of power need to do something, but they have to have something to work with too.
A personal anecdote: When I was in a position to do hiring, I was constantly aware (and reminded) that we need more people of color around here. But I also only ever had a finite pool of candidates to choose from (students in a particular masters program), so it would irritate me when our HR folks would ask "Now, did you make sure you gave appropriate consideration to race and ethnicity? Is there a reason you're not interviewing any [fill in the blanks]?" And maybe it was a pro forma question, but it irritated me because the answer was yeah, there's a reason. I had some power in the process, sure, but that power didn't extend to getting minority candidates to apply, and be accepted, and then come here so I can consider them for this job.
(FWIW, to my mind that also relates to what we know about whether Shirky writes excellent letters for people who put themselves forward more modestly. Which is, nothing. I couldn't infer anything from his essay, anyway. I hope he does, but we have no idea whether he responds positively to an appropriate level of self-aggrandizement. Whatever that is.)
So for now, to level the playing field, people who have a hard time publicizing themselves first need to recognize it and then whenever possible get the help they need. Not instead of working to change the current situation, and not instead of of talking about it. In addition to. The extra work this entails is of course unfair but it might get us to fairness because it can change the demographics of the people in power.
Right on, JimO. Thanks for chiming in.