Women in the workplace are less often confronted with concious discrimination today than they were in the past. However, subtle barriers continue to hamper their progress. As the excerpt below suggests, even sex differences in speech patterns may create problems for women.

One of the funniest moments in the movies "Tootsie" is the bar scene in which Dustin Hoffman bats a pair of six-inch eyelashes and , with a perky smile, tells the waiter, "I'll have a Dubonnet on the rocks with a twist, please?"

The actor's questioning intonation at the end of a declarative sentence did more for his characterization of a woman than any number of false eyelashes. This is the way women have been socialized to speak, according to Dr. Lillian Glass, a speech pathologist who coached Mr. Hofman for his role in "Tootsie"..."many casualties in the war between the sexes result from a faiure to realize that men and women actually speak different languages" (she said).

The communication gap widens when the scene shifts to the workplace. There, a woman who doesn't understand male shoptalk, with all its sports and military refernces may find herself at a disadvantage. At a business meeting last week, for example, a male colleague nudged Dr. Jerie McArthur and said "that looks like a panic pass."

Dr. McArthur, a communications instrucor at the University of Minnesota, got the message. She has taken a cram course in football jargon, and she encourages women in hermanagement education seminars to do likewise. (see comment #1 below) ince women tend to be tak -oriented, she says, they may not realize what sports metaphors mean to men and even belittle such language. As a result, the men may fell uncomfortable around women.

"In the workplace," Dr. McArthur said, "the male culture is the dominant culture, and women need to understand it if both sexes are going to work together effectively. Coming in and telling men that they have to change is just not very adaptive."

But even women who know the language may not get much chance to use it in mixed company. recent research on sex differences suggests that the steretypical wife who keeps butting in on her husband's jokes was probably never that real. Men interrupt women much more often than they do other men, according to one study, while women are less likely to interrupt either men or women.

At business meetings, Dr. McArthur said, men typically engage in "competitive turn-taking," or grabbing the floor by interrupting anothe speaker. Women have been conditioned from childhood to believe that to interrupt is impolite. Instead, they will sit for hours waiting for a turn to speak, she said, "while their male colleagues wonder if they'll ever have anything to say." (However, if she does use male patterns and interrupt doesn't mean that she will be accepted. She will often be judged negatively by the men who expect her to act as a woman and not accept her grabbing the floor as correctly participating.)

A woman who does speak up may undermine her credibility in other ways - by using tentative phrases such as "I guess," by turning statements into questions or by making indirect statements. In a typical scenario, a woman might say at a meeting,"Don't you think it would be better to send them that report first?" A man could then agree, saying, "Yes, it would be better to send that report first." Others at themeeting will coma away with the impression thatit was the man's idea because, in Dr. McArthur's words," the woman never really clained it." (This is what secretaries have been doing for ages. Suggesting ideas and not claiming credit, allowing the boss to take the credit. So men are quite used to not giving it to them.)

Still another problem for women in the workplace is the use of off-color language by male colleagues. Echoing the view of several female executives interviewed, Ravelle Brickman, vice president at Richard Weiner Inc., a public-relations concern, said that the woman is then faced with a double-edged sword.

"Men in meetings routinely use four-letter words, almost as a way of establishing fraternity," she said. "When a woman is present, the man will often apologize. If the woman wants to be acceped into the fraternity, she cannot accept the apology but must, in fact, respond in kind." (If she does she is looked down upon as not proper. If she doesn't, the apologies will be constantly used to show her that her presence puts a crimp on things. They can't act naturally when she is around.)

One of the major difficulties in determining the existence of discrimination is that it may take very subtle forms. One of these is that men and women behaving in similar ways may, nonetheless, be perceived quite differently. such atitudes are almost impossible to document, let along measure, but that does not mean they do not exist. Here are some examples of typical reactions.

Why must women learn men's culture to participate in business meetings, etc.?

Why don't men have to learn jargon associated with women's culture?

If I said, "that looks like she purled when she shouldn't have." Would the reference and its meaning be understood. Would you know I was refering to knitting and that a purl was a reverse stitch? The message being conveyed was that the person had done an unnecessary reversal. Although women rarely use hobby terms as metaphors for social actions and it is very unlikely that this comment would be made. The use of such metaphors is often to exclude not include or pass on information. It says, "I'm in and you're not." Have you had such an experience, where someone uses references to experiences you don't share?

What do you think about these different perceptions of men and women? Are they valid from your experience?

What kinds of things do your friends say about successful women? men? How do they interpret every day behavior?

Do you experience a double standard?

Send me your responses:bmori@oboe.calpoly.edu

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