Filip Odqvist

While men might fear hiring a woman, a lot of us fear even more the prospect of getting hired by a woman. The hesitation to hire might bear some perceived rational reasoning including the potential “loss” of an employee should the woman become pregnant. All the time, effort, and (most importantly) money put in to her training would go to waste! In comparison to the prospect of working FOR a woman, however, these “losses” seem trifling. Such a scenario would be emasculating, not to mention bad for business. For as we all know, women are not only indecisive and powerless, but their emotional attachment to projects inhibits them from effectively evaluating problems.

The above mentioned scenario is a hyperbolic example of male reasoning; and peculiar as it may seem, I am certain that some people do in fact think that way. While my intention is not to stubbornly refute these arguments (I am well aware that individuals have different experiences), I would like to shed some light on my own, albeit brief, experience working with women in “corporate America”. I currently work in the oncology (cancer) marketing department of a large pharmaceutical company, where the group head and all but one of her direct reports are women. Furthermore, groups that work closely with our marketing group also have a majority of women in managing positions.

What is the most striking aspect of working with all these women? Answer: I have yet to experience a single cat-fight! Just kidding. It is the fact that I failed to notice the disproportionate number of women in my workplace until I sat down to write this entry.

As a rough estimate I would say that women make up 65-75 percent of the people that I interact with on a daily basis. Among them I have yet to find many hesitant decision makers or powerless personalities. On the contrary, in a meeting that my manager and I had with our marketing agency last week, the agency person noted that it would be difficult to meet the present deadline of a project. My manager simply turned to him and responded, “I do not care what you have to do on your side in order to get this done within a week, but it has to be done.” The agency person had no choice but to agree. While such persistence might not always represent the best method of negotiation, it worked effectively in this scenario, and shows that women can also have “balls”.

Interestingly though, while my female colleagues may defy the notion that women are powerless and indecisive, they also perpetuate the notion that women become more emotionally involved in projects. However, I would only argue this as a positive trait in our industry as the ultimate customer is the patient. Caring for the patient, naive as it might sound, allows for a better understanding of the difficulties they encounter, which in turn may lead to more appropriate marketing initiatives that drive sales. In my manager’s case, her previous training and trade as a pharmacist (which, in oncology, involves working closely with patients) definitely influences her decision making process. Granted, this quality is certainly not unique to women (nor is the trade of pharmacist!). In fact, I have worked with many male sales representatives who truly connect with patients and nurses in the hospitals. However, in a society that still regards and rears women to be more caring and maternal, patient empathy might come more naturally to them.

“businesswomen executives become fat-cats themselves”

Having recently graduated from college, my natural reaction is to compare the “working world” with the collegiate world. So far I do not believe that great differences exist between the two. Similar to group work with classmates, one does not necessarily classify co-workers as men or women, but rather as either capable or incapable. That is, I never encountered anyone saying “Gosh, I cannot stand working with a girl. It will suck to have Susan in our group.” But I have often heard people say, “Damn it! Lindsay is an idiot. Let’s make sure that we do all of the work”. The same holds true for “corporate America”.

One dangerous part of this classification is the internal bias. Essentially, people consider colleagues capable or incapable based on their own personality and skills. Within a male-dominated working world women might therefore try to resemble men in order to be perceived as capable. Although not necessarily bad, this trend is unfortunate given the possible loss of heterogeneity in thought. In fact, in our society of big-business scrutiny, where the public may perceive executives as insatiable fat-cats in pursuit of cost-cuts through layoffs, the business world might greatly benefit from the more caring nature of women in order improve its image. But in a society where businesswomen executives become fat-cats themselves, the opportunity to capitalize on their female sensitivity is lost.

- Filip Odqvist

Illustration by Gustaf von Arbin