The Slow Road Out Of BitchLandia

 Hundreds of women have described this before. But it happened to me, again, this week. And I want to relate it while I remember some of the details and can still recall most of the sting

During my first career, I worked in a male dominated environment for almost 15 years.  So I consider myself somewhat of an expert on male co-workers. 

Don’t let anybody tell you men don’t gossip or talk about each other. Instead of pretending to be kind, as many women are trained to do while passing information, men usually just choose one guy in the office to be the group patsy. Then they “joke” with the chosen target, bashing him about the skull every damn day.

Then again, maybe the men I worked around were meaner than usual. I worked in an unusually aggressive work environment that probably attracted aggressive men.

In the environment I work in now, the man to woman balance seems to be close to 50/50. I wonder if that calms the men down some. Also, there’s no one race dominating the environment like there was at the previous, mostly white environment I worked in before. Friends and cliques cross racial boundaries where I work now. The worst of the petty cliques aren’t as harsh as the men at my last job.

Maybe you need most everybody to be one race to “joke” your way into a mean spiritedness cohesive enough to verbally beat up on a single target every single day. 

So, my day to day is much better in the second career. Even the repetitive lack-of-preparation, lack-of-attention to detail that makes projects messy and painful  for no reason only ratchets my tension level up to about 3 out of 10 because nobody is really searching for a target to exercise their aggression on. Upper level management is not much of a factor in my life, and I like it that way.

My work life is pretty decent compared to my old work life.

The thing that created a disturbance in the force for me this week was something that strongly  reminded me of the aggressive, mostly white men, I used to work with. The thing that made me mad, at myself, is that I got pulled into the bitch zone and almost felt bad about my own behavior instead of his behavior

A white male co-worker that I mostly like wrote me an e-mail criticizing some hastily written notes I left behind when he took over for me. While it’s probably true he didn’t understand why I’d pulled a few things out of line and left for him—due to silly requests from people that out rank me-- I experience this all the time when I work after someone else. Everybody does. You sigh and work it out with mouth closed, like an adult.

The thing that’s different when male B works after male A is that male B will actually keep his worthless trap shut and just keep doing his job if something is slightly different than usual.  When a man works after a woman, he feels perfectly comfortable volunteering all sorts of criticism and suggestions.

This winds up being the moment at which a woman gets sucked into the bitch zone through no fault of her own.

I’m not talking about being an actual bitch by yelling, being nasty in response or even making an unpleasant face.  When you respond to a man who has veered out of his damn lane into yours, it doesn’t matter how polite your are when you tell him to get out, you're going to be labeled "a bitch."


Actually, I take that back.  It does matter how polite you are. If you’re too polite, you wind up FAILING to communicate to your male aggressor, “You are in my lane. Get out.  Do not come back.”

There is no nice professional way to communicate that.  And this has to be communicated sometimes. Actually this should probably be communicated often, in a world where women actually feel safe to behave like they are equal to men.

In my case, I tried some light sarcasm in a return e-mail – which took me way too long to finally write. I took too long because the first, second, and third versions of this e-mail were too pissy to be sent.  But I think I missed my mark with the watered down 4^th e-mail. 

The man seemed happy to see me and unfazed afterward when I wanted him to be approximately 5% fazed. To me 5% fazed looks like nose out of joint, but leaves us able to enjoy one another’s company after a few days have passed.  Had I hit my mark, I worn the invisible bitch sign on my back for a few days once he and his sympathizers talked about my “over-reaction”

I hate wasting perfectly good sarcasm on an idiot. But whaddya gonna do. I’ll get it right next time.

The reasons that this seemingly minor event irritates me so are the same for all woke women.

• 1)      This kind of thing happens over and over again between men and women in the workplace
• 2)      Men don’t ever issue these picky stupid complaints one another, much less in writing.
• 3)       Therefore men aren’t routinely having to figure out how to tell other men to back off when something pretty freaking miniscule happens.

Men, from where I sit men only/mostly have to negotiate real differences of opinion on real issues. As a woman, I have to tell men to get out of my face over the pettiest crap. When these events happen to individual women in work places all over the globe, this leaves men looking professional and women looking like they are always having “personality conflicts” with co-workers.

• Ignoring some men will indeed get them to go away.
• Ignoring the arrogant man is an invitation for him to give you instruction over the most miniscule picky crap again
•  Ignoring some men is an invitation to turn that man from someone tolerable, or even someone mostly pleasant, into the arrogant man.  

So women wind up having to make decisions about how to handle this.

In my experience, the male-er and less racially diverse my work environment gets, the more often I get to decide whether I’m going into the bitch zone when someone stomps into my lane.  Usually the man that comes into your lane is in it over stupid stuff that doesn’t matter. So when I decide I must tell a man to get back in his lane and stay there, I don't get to just be a bitch, I get to be a petty bitch.

Earlier this week, I actually had to respond to an e-mail that asked what the word “What” with a freaking question mark means.

I actually had to write an e-mail that said,

• “What?” means “What is it?” just like it does when somebody else writes it. The word ‘Vague’  means the description submitted was ‘vague’  (There was a third dumb thing he claimed he didn't understand. But it was so stupid, I can't remember.)  

In version four of this dumb @$$ e-mail,  I erased part of one sentence. I got rid of “just like it does when somebody else writes it”  So I sent a very, very short e-mail with three stupid explanations hoping that simple-minded explanations would make him feel simple-minded.  But I don’t think it worked. He was just as happy to see me or neutral to see me the next few times I saw him, as usual.

The thing that irritates me most about this is not that it happened. It’s happens a lot less often and a lot less aggressively in my second career. And unlike my first career, there’s not a supervisor backing this kind of stupidity up. So this is almost nothing as harassment goes. I’ve been harassed. I've been a counselor for the harassed. I know what harassment is. This was nothing.

But it irritated the hell out of me that he is the aggressor or micro-aggressor, but it’s me that has to spend time trying not to do anything that might leave me being perceived as a bitch.

This was just one event. And like I said this was virtually nothing considering my current work situation.  But this is major:

I think one of the major reasons I say “no” every single time somebody pushes me to apply for an open supervisor position is because of incidents like this that happened at my previous job – where this kind of aggression was daily and serious and career impacting and eventually career ending. It’s like I have PTSD when I think of my previous career. My basic problem remains. I have not figured out how to avoid being put on the road to bitchlandia just because a male mofo refuses to shut up when he should shut up and stay in his own damn lane

Again, ignoring people only takes you so far. If I was a supervisor I’m not sure that’s an option.  I imagine that if I was a supervisor, I’d probably have 80% that wouldn’t dare cross me just because of black female stereotypes. (Yes, sometimes racism works in your favor). But then there would be that remaining 20%.

I’d have no problem sweeping the legs and throwing a few morons to the ground –  verbally speaking and in a totally professional way, of course --  but that’s only going to work if the person above you has a spine.  And having a superior with a consistent spine is a rare event in the United States  

All of what I have explained above is why I pay no attention at all to the rumors about a black woman manager that works a few departments over.  I know exactly how easy it is to find yourself in bitchlandia. The word "bitch" is thrown around whenever her name is mentioned. But when I ask how Anna's a bitch, the answers are either vague or indicate she said "no" to something.   

It irks me that I have spent any time at all trying to figure out how to communicate “You are in my lane. Get out.  Do not come back” without the receiver feeling bad.

• It doesn’t matter how sweet your tone, the receiver will feel bad. 
• It doesn’t how professional your facial expression, the receiver will feel bad.
• It might matter how on point your sarcasm is, but you shouldn’t have to work that damn hard, just  because a male somebody else won’t stay in their lane.

More to the point though, the receiver should feel bad. The receiver deserves to feel bad. But the woman is the one what winds up with the virtual “Kick Me I’m a bitch” sign on her back. 

During my 15 year career in mostly white, 90 to 95% male land of Aggressorville, the men didn't tell one another what to do and how to do it even when the other man was screwing something up that was huge, and possibly deadly. It was like the men were afraid of each other. They were just as timid with one another as they were aggressive with women. 

Dear men everywhere, 

 
We should not have to tell you to keep your mouth in the closed position when you come across the petty stuff that hasn’t been done exactly the way you’d do it yourself. We shouldn’t have to tell a man,  “Keep your mouth shut in same situations as you do with your male co-worker, the co-workers you actually do respect?”  

 

As an added benefit, when we have to kick men out of our lanes over petty crap too often, we as women are the ones who aren’t capable of supervising a group without having “personality conflicts.”

In my mind it’s probably the best strategy to come off as a fair and friendly person in general but shut down the stupid stuff hard, early on. I think maybe you should put the “Bitch If Crossed”  sign on your own back, get the reputation of (1)friendly not I ain't your friend, (2)fair and (3) B-if-C, then maybe you don’t have to "come out of the box" on the men folk very often at all.

Whatever path we take through bitchlandia, we have to get whatever job we’re assigned at work done well, done on time, and done quietly. Wearing the your custom made “Bitch If Crossed” sign on your back is what will help you get it done quietly-- maybe.

In any case, whenever we are afraid of various types of bitch signs that may be hung on us, we should always keep at least these two things in mind. 

1)  Respectability politics doesn’t work for race and it doesn’t work for gender either. 

IT IS DEM

THAT’S  GOTS  TA   CHANGE. 

NOT US

We can’t change ourselves in order to force somebody else to shed their biases and prejudices against us. Black folks just out of slavery tried it and keep trying it.  The Cherokees tried it via assimilation before  they took their long death march along The Trail of Tears. Trying to be respectable doesn’t get rid of prejudice and biased responses in another person. 

Believing that you yourself are inferior OR that most of your own group EXCEPTING yourself are inferior and deserving of bad treatment,  a bad treatment that will go away if some of us just look better, behave better, respond better means you’ve drunk the poison kool aide; You have internalized the sexism (or internalized the racism.)  

2)The other thing to remember is that  Michelle Obama has been called “a bitch” and everything else except “a child of God.” If there’s a more polished, accomplished woman capable of speaking her mind with eloquence and style devoid of all bitchery I haven’t seen her yet.

So keep your tone even gentle women folk. Keep you facial expressions professional. Keep any sarcasm you decide to dish out very, very subtle. But wear the sign rather than be thought of someone that is run over by the people you work with or supervise, should you find yourself in this position.

When some of us  get enough power OR  so close to retirement age they can’t do anything to us, we should plan to tell some of these men about themselves --and their bobble headed minions that are always nodding in agreement with their nonsense.  We should do so in a professional manner, to their condescending faces.  We will wind up leaving our work environments ever so slightly better for the wave of  women coming into our places of business after us.

I think I’m going to take my own advice too.

When my white home-boy wanders into my lane again. He’s going to take more direct fire. I’ll probably treat him the child he occasionally is and laughed at him a little. I think I will print out his next little e-mail, slap it down on his desk, smile like a shark about to eat, then not stop talking, in dulcet tones, until I watch his face  go from unfazed  to 5% fazed. Face to face, I’m not likely to miss again.

My making sure I get him next time is not about revenge. It’s about me giving him a tiny bit of substitute home training so he knows how to behave around me and the other women he meets in the future.

Mansplaining probably won't die unless we kill it one tentacle at a time. The **male flapping gums at women to complain about virtually nothing syndrome** probably won't either.  So rock on sistahs and do what ya gotta do.