Women at work are awesome. Women at home are awesome. Basically, women are just awesome. (Duh.) But there are some women – women who don’t help other women — who are downright toxic to the rest of us gals who just want to learn and bond.

Women who don’t help other women are everywhere and we’re sure you’ve encountered a few of these ladies in your lifetime. These women work with you and sit next to you in your college courses. Although these ladies do get on my nerves, I don’t hate these women. Why? Well, because as Laurie Ruettimann points out, every woman is that woman at least once in her lifetime. While this is a pretty sobering statement, it’s true.

Don’t believe me? Well, let’s examine a few of the “woman who doesn’t help other women’s” characteristics:

She’s kinda negative all the time: She makes sure everyone around her knows how hard she works and is very vocal about every sacrifice she makes. (I hate to admit that I used to be this person at the beginning of my freelance career. I had that “too busy” chip on my shoulder to prove to everyone around me that even though I didn’t work a “9-to-5 job,” I still worked my ass off.)

She will undermine women who are older and younger than her: Do you have ovaries? If so, this woman views you as competition. Unfortunately, men and women at work tend to compare a female’s productivity to the women around her. So, teamwork can seem a bit threatening. (While I’ve never undermined another woman, I sure as heck had issues with teamwork when I was around 25 years old — I blame all those failed “team projects” in college for this former attitude.)

Now, I know that most women don’t actively choose to hate on other women at work, or elsewhere. I sure as heck know I don’t. But I know that sometimes when I feel like I’m getting snubbed at work, or that I’m getting ignored, I tend to seclude myself and don’t seek help from anyone.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned to shut-up and listen to my co-workers and the older friends I have. I also have actively sought out women who have been around the block more than a few times to learn from their experiences. Being around and learning from such experienced women has helped me become more helpful to other women around me.

While powerful women may intimidate us all from time to time, let’s all acknowledge that these feelings aren’t helpful. Women can only become successful by helping each other. So, let’s put our egos aside and actively try and connect with women who can help us. Building these friendships is incredibly beneficial to you and to all women.

Related on EcoSalon

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Resources

The Woman Who Doesn’t Help Other Women

CNN piece on women help women

The Real Reason Women Don’t Help Other Women at Work

Image: Seattle Municipal Archives

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How women at work are holding themselves back – and what to do about it.

There are oodles of women at work who feel stuck: Either they feel like they’re spinning their tires, or their hard work is forever being ignored (“Hello? Is this thing on?”). A good chunk of us have habits that are holding us back from greatness. What’s worse, they’re burrowed in our subconscious, so we’re sabotaging ourselves without even knowing it!

Here are 9 career mistakes women at work make without even realizing it (and how you can get your sh*t together):

1. Lacking a clear focus

When we go after the work/home/life trifecta, many of us try to perfect each area of our life simultaneously, which leads to less than stellar results. When women at work do this, it’s easy to end up overlooked for projects and promotions, since you’re not carving out a specific place for yourself. Decide what you want to be known for: This will help you prioritize and stand out.

2. Mistaking “busy” for productive

Women are more prone to multitasking, making it easy for us to stretch ourselves too thin. We’re also detail-oriented – a skill that can just as easily work against us. While you’re making sure to attend every meeting, reply to your e-mails in a timely manner and maintain a dust-free desk, your co-worker just landed a new account from a desk covered in discolored post-its and chocolate bar wrappers. Ask yourself what you need to do each day to accomplish your big-picture goals, then use the time leftover to deal with the minor details.

3. Avoiding conflict

It’s true: Conflict is distracting, and for the most part unnecessary. However, avoiding it altogether means no professional or personal growth. Who wants to feel like they’re on a hamster wheel? Know the difference between good and bad conflict. Good conflict is having a respectful disagreement with a coworker or expressing an opinion (even if it’s unpopular) – you’re expressing your individuality, which is always a good thing. Bad conflict is participating in catty gossip, backstabbing, and passive aggressive manipulation. Don’t get sucked in.

4. Neglecting other areas of life

I’ve spent most of my life having no other identity outside of being a writer, so trust me when I say neglecting other areas of your life for the sake of your career is bad news. Not only do you end up feeling like a drone, there’s no way for you to offer unique contributions at work or in your relationships (oh wait, that’s right, you don’t have any). When you maintain other interests outside of work, you become someone other people want to know and do great things with.

5. Using wishy-washy words

When you talk to your boss or co-workers, you sound too much like the Goofy Gophers (“Indubitably!”). Being easy to get along with is one thing, but go overboard and you’ll make it seem like you’re apologizing for your entire existence and have no confidence whatsoever. Nix the following out of your vocabulary, stat:

• Kind of/Sort of
• Might/Maybe
• Actually
• Just
• I’m sorry, but…

Seriously, give it a try. Your sentences will sound a lot stronger (you know, like the Terminator).

6. Sidestepping decisions

Everyone loves a good pro/con list, but when asked for your opinion, don’t sit on the fence. When you want to make a move, go with your gut, don’t ask for 10,000 opinions before making a choice. The same goes for saying yes too fast: When you’re asked to help out (even if you’re only grabbing coffee for everyone before a meeting), make sure your decision is based on sincerity, not obligation. Asking yourself, “Does doing this improve my bottom line?” isn’t selfish – it’s strategy.

7. Being impatient

One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was bulldozing my way into the lifestyle I wanted instead of letting it happen naturally. By the time I reached my goals, not only was I severely burnt out, but I wasn’t emotionally prepared to handle all of the responsibilities I had created. No matter how lofty your goals, trust in the fact that you’ll reach them. Pushing to make your goals happen as fast as possible sucks the enjoyment out of literally everything. Stop. Breathe. Repeat.

8. Trying to fit in

It’s good to have tight bonds with other women at work, but not at the expense of your career. In other words, just because you want to go for that promotion or take up other interests outside of work doesn’t mean you’re being deceitful or catty. You, just like the other women you work with, are there to get ahead and leave a mark (or several). If they’re your “real” friends, they’ll support your career moves 100 percent.

9. Acting like “one of the boys”

You don’t need to be anyone but yourself to become successful. Period.

What tips would you add to help women at work thrive?

Related on EcoSalon

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Image: Victor1558

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ColumnIn the fight against sexism at work, a surprising ally emerges in Megyn Kelly.

As part of a recent panel discussion about childhood literacy, Mississippi Gov. Republican Phil Bryant showed his true colors with this response to the loaded question: How did Americans get so mediocre? Bryant responded, “Want me to tell the truth? Both parents started working.”

The back-pedaling was immediate. He started with a “Ha, ha I’m in trouble” (possibly referring to his wife who worked outside of the home for 38 years) and went on to say, “A mom in the workplace is not a bad thing … it’s a great American story that women are in the workplace.”

Bryant’s truth, or as Stephen Colbert would say, truthiness, is based on nothing.

It’s amazing according to billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, that there are any working mothers at all, given the fierce—but still undocumented—connection between our nipples and our ability to use our lady brains outside of the nursery.

In a speech at his alma matar UVA, he said, “As soon as that baby’s lips touched that girl’s bosom, forget it. Every single investment idea, every desire to understand what’s going to make this [the market] go up or go down is going to be overwhelmed by the most beautiful experience which a man will never share about a connection between that mother and that baby.”

Girls? Really? The statements speak for themselves—and yet these guys didn’t just shut up after making their stupid comments. Sadly, both “the great American story” and “the women are superior to men because they can have babies” arguments pretend to respect women by putting them on pedestals made of bullshit.

Bryant is really saying: When we needed you to fill in for the men overseas, you were there—and we thank you. But as you can see, even Rosie the Riveter has picked up a Swiffer and gotten back to the serious business of cleaning her kitchen.

And Jones? His statement is clear: Boobs trump brains.

However, the fact is that today, 40 percent of American moms are now primary breadwinners in their families.

I wonder (though I can guess) how Bryant feels about a new Australian study of child health in same-sex families. This is the world’s largest attempt to study how children raised by same-sex couples compare to children raised by heterosexual couples. Researchers studied 500 children and found that they are not only thriving, but have higher rates of family cohesion (how well a family gets along) than heterosexually led families.

Wait… but some of these kids have TWO working moms! Maybe it’s that one doesn’t breastfeed? How else could Paul Tudor Jones explain this? And what of the gay men?

Shockingly, it’s Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly who kills it in the debate about women at work. She even defends gay parents when she takes on Redstate editor Erick Erickson and Fox host Lou Dobbs. Throughout this amazing interview—and including a moment of true disgust after being called, “oh dominant one” by Dobbs—she undoes their “evidence” and leaves these guys looking as throwbacky and out of touch as they truly are.

My favorite moment might have been when Kelly says to Erickson, “Just because you have people that agree with you doesn’t mean it’s not offensive… I didn’t like what you wrote one bit… Your facts are wrong and your science is wrong.”

In an attempt to undermine her confidence to paint her as an angry feminist, Erickson chuckles and says, “Be careful, Lou!” Yes Lou, she might have PMS! She continues to dominate, if I dare use the word, and control the conversation.

Kelly does pause to point out that she’s not a feminist—and such comments might explain why these same old battles repeat generation after generation. If women keep falling for smarmy divide and conquer tactics, we cannot advance our common goals of choosing how we lead our lives and make choices for our families.

Strong women like Kelly should stop feeling they need to state that they aren’t feminists when debating men who are obvious chauvinists. The battle that’s going on about women in the workplace isn’t about male and female roles in society, no matter how hard the Lou Dobbs of the world try to make it seem that way. It is simply a battle about equality. While Kelly may not embrace the feminist label, she sure embraces equality and I’ll take her on my team.

Image: Fox News

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ColumnGraduating in the ’90s has defined my career.

Last month, I reached a huge milestone. I have kept the same full-time job for two years. Two whole years! For most 36-years-olds this would not be an accomplishment, but I have quit 10 jobs since graduating from college.

Mostly when I write about work here, I talk about wage disparities, lady CEOs and issues related to being a woman in a workplace. But, work is personal. It’s where most of us spend at least eight hours a day. So when I think about issues related to work, I think about how I got here—here being my full-time position with a healthcare startup in Chicago.

My journey starts with beer, or rather, the promise of beer. I graduated from college in the winter of 1999. I wasn’t worried about getting a job, and I had little reason to be. It was the ’90s. Armed with an English degree, so-so grades from a great school, good internship experience, and a special interest in Romantic poetry, I figured I was good. It took me about two weeks to land my first job.

I was in college during the sweet spot—after Kurt Cobain’s suicide and before Clinton didn’t have sex with that woman. During freshman year, I was told I had something called an email address and that I could go to the library to use it. I never bothered. By the time I graduated, I had a laptop with an Ethernet connection in my dorm room. Things were happening really fast and everything seemed possible.

It was the start of the dot com boom, and my generation was going to do the work thing differently. Every article I read promised me a cool office culture with a keg in the kitchen and ping pong table in the break room. I’d work hard and play hard, wear jeans every day and be surrounded by super-talented people lounging in brightly colored plastic chairs. Work was going to kick so much ass!

My first job was an entry level writing position in the marketing department of a magazine publisher in Washington, D.C. I would make enough to afford a roach-occupied (not all the way to infested) studio apartment in DuPont Circle. Signing that lease was the first of many times I incorrectly thought: I have arrived.

What I failed to take into account as I envisioned my career unfolding is that even if you are lucky enough to get a job with the makings of a cool culture, just beneath the exposed brick walls there are other factors that can totally mess things up. Some of these are: creepy co-workers, abusive bosses, absent bosses, bounced paychecks, shit commutes, weird buildings without real windows, boring work, too much work, not enough work. The possibilities for disappointment are literally endless. And those disappointments are why I kept chasing the job that the ’90s promised.

While there have been times I’ve been drunk at work, and I did once work in a loft office that had a pool table, 13 years and 10 jobs later, work has not lived up to the hype. As I am the only obvious common factor in all of the jobs that I have had, I could blame myself. But I don’t. I blame the promise of the ’90s, and most of all, I blame Fast Company magazine.

Talking about my experience with other people, I get a few reactions:

1. Oh totally, I feel the same way! We were duped. (Form the 35ish crowd)
2. Ha ha. Why the fuck would you think that? (From the 45ish crowd)
3. Wow. That would have been amazing, it took me a year to find a job and it’s not really in my field. Oh, and I lived with my parents for a while. (From the under 30s)

There are a few reasons that I have made it the two-year mark: some great co-workers, access to natural light, the ability to wear jeans, CEOs who don’t refer to me as “girl” (or worse—and yes, that has happened), fair wages, health insurance and work that I am interested in for a mission I believe in. But the biggest reason is that I finally stopped chasing the ping pong ball and gave up on the idea that I want to be surrounded by drunk people in the office.

The dream of the ’90s is alive and well in Portlandia. But here in Chicago, I’m good with life in 2013. I have learned to assess jobs for their realities, both good and bad. I have started to understand that my job doesn’t need to be perfect, and that there’s probably no such thing. I have built space for myself to do what I love (you’re reading it now) outside of my normal workday. And yes, when those Best Places to Work stories come out with photos of yoga rooms, days free of designated work hours and vegetarian snack bars—today’s version of ping pong and beer—I get a twinge of… Oh! Maybe! But then I remember what I have learned and resist applying for job number 11.

Image: Tommytoy

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The new workplace sexism is less overt and, studies suggest, reflective of the boss’ marriage.

Just when I was getting used to the same old sexism at work—being called “girl” and knowing I have made less money than some of my male counterparts—it seems there’s a new breed of discrimination at work. It’s less overt, but does just as much to keep women from advancing in their careers.

What’s happening, according to four studies by researchers based at Harvard, NYU and the University of Utah and published under the title, “Marriage Structure and Resistance to the Gender Revolution in the Workplace” is that male leaders—Fewer than five percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women—are treating their female co-workers the same way they treat their wives. There are a number of problems with this, aside from the initial uncomfortable factor.

Here’s what researchers found: “Husbands embedded in traditional and neo-traditional marriages [relative to husbands embedded in modern ones—modern being defined as both partners working outside of the home and helping with domestic labor] exhibit attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that undermine the role of women in the workplace.”

Here’s what that means for you. You know that guy at work who leaves his dishes in the sink expecting that the assistant (usually a younger woman) will wash them? He does that crap at home too, and his wife is cool with it. Or, maybe he’ll put you on a pedestal, “protecting” you from stressful meetings (aka the ones that actually matter) or withhold information that might be “upsetting” given that you’re a delicate flower. Being shut out means you don’t meet the game-changers, and you’re not considered to be one. Or, let’s say the guy in charge of salaries has a wife that doesn’t work, there could be an underlying assumption that you have someone supporting you, and therefore don’t need to make as much money as the boys.

Which is total bullshit on a number of levels.

We are underpaid—we make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. As a reminder, the year is 2012. Over the course of our careers, we can expect can expect to lose $431,000 because of the earnings gap.

We don’t live in a world where salary is based on need. However, looking at the stats about pay for working women, it seems that perceived need is a huge issue—and these new studies offer one explanation for why you might have a smaller paycheck than the guy in the next cube. If your CEO’s wife doesn’t work or has a part-time job not out of necessity but so she can feel empowered when buying $100 yoga pants, the perception could be that you too are working for spending money, not supporting yourself money.

Your salary should never be based on what your partner makes, whether you have one or not. Your salary should be based on the following: The job title and description, your experience, your education, your skills, how good you are at your job and the market value of what you do in the city or town you’re doing it in. That’s it.

This newly defined kind of sexism is very different from your 1950s secretary being chased around the desk. What is happening today is so ingrained that some men don’t even see that they are doing it, which is pretty scary.

So, what should women do? When being interviewed by a man is it important to ask if he ever does the dinner dishes? Is it cool to say, “What does your wife do?” and run screaming if she happens to be a stay-at-home mom? I don’t think that’s the answer—though if I have the chance to ask in casual conversation I am totally going to.

Start by being on the lookout for this kind of behavior and remind yourself that you might be married to your job, but you never agreed to be married to your boss. Hold the people leading your company accountable for both overt and subtle sexism—and stand up for yourself. I say no when a male co-worker asks me to, essentially, take a memo (as a note, memo-taking is a fine thing to do but not part of my job description) and I mention it when the same people (men—none of the women in any of the offices I have personally worked in seem to do this) leave their dishes in the sink day after day.

There’s a risk in saying no. There’s a risk in the making the non-joking joke about the dirty dishes. I am sure some people think I’m a bitch. I’ll take bitch over pushover any day.

Photo: Jerry Bunkers

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