The Women Connection - surviving the work-spaces

Customarily, if I start this blog by listing the qualities of women in work environments, most of the readers (both men and women) will not go beyond few lines and I know some of them would sift through headings and go to their businesses as usual, ignoring the rest.

In order to make things  interesting, I want to put the argument on table by extending certain backroom chit chats and “titles” given to women, you know those whispers and winks of the eyes across cubicles and the gazes that can went through walls, yeah, LOL right?

Since by profession I am a Technology “guy”, I will use the same canvas to monument these interesting titles, and the same reasons why women can fit in these environments way better than men.

Yes, here you can label me as a feminist.

Let’s dig a little deeper and see how titles originated to brand women on different levels of society, are actually certain traits in making them great professionals and industry leaders, with a catch:

They are compartmentalised

We like to keep them together and closed in one space. We are doing this past 1000 years, and eventually this has grown over them and worked in their favour. They are now empowered within that same space, have made ripples across socio-political-economical domains and now things have changed.

Professionally speaking, they can easily isolate themselves no matter how crowded the workspace is, and bring you the work results.

So the notion that women should stay at home or kept isolated from everyone else has evolved into a skill which men can only achieve with several hours of training.

The quiet and centred people

It’s simple. If you talk more, you will listen less, and vice versa.

Usually and not every time an office floor full of people with a higher percentage of men becomes a loud place. Same you can see with a place full of women, but if you reside one man in centre of these ladies there is less or no chance that the person will feel offended at any given time, but for a woman in the same situation, well, here comes the zombies.

For example, sometimes you can hear the crackling of jokes which tends to make everyone laugh, but you would see (and I have) that they keep their silence and keep to their work. This works in their benefit as they are designed to give less amount of S##t to these target chats and more amount of concentration to their work.

Working bees

Yes they are. You give them work and they will deliver. If they don’t know how to do it and you don’t have time to explain that to them, they will find another source, and they deliver.

Since we have tried to suppress them so much, you will not hear them complaining about those deadlines (as long as they are realistic)

Don’t believe me? Lineup a certain task, assign these with proper deadlines, and keep repeating this for a certain period of time (say six months). At the end, compare the results of each assignment, you will be surprised to see the consistency, but after six months be a good ”man”, evaluate, praise them publicly and give them a raise.

They are articulate

The right adjective should be “extremely”, yes that is the only word I can use to measure the clarity of thought patterns inside a woman’s brain to that of a man in being articulate.

During an argument, if you are objectively listening to them you would know what I am talking about.  For technology professionals, clarity is something which is used to convey sensitive arguments and critics across management staircase.

As mansplaining have taught women so well to speak less but speak clearly, this has actually worked in their favour. Talk to them, discuss the ideas, take their inputs, you will find them extremely supportive and clear.

They bring pleasantness to environment

Women are coloured fibre of the society. You put them in one Gray environment and you can feel the electric buzz moving around the room.

You put them in an all – men work environment and the first change you will see are combed hair, use of deodorants, shaven faces, polished shoes, and lower tone of voices – go ahead deny me and make my day, but I know I am right.  

Respect the space

It’s not offensive to praise them of being whom and what women are. But there is a certain space which needs to be respected.

That protective space is contextual, for example when you are emailing and texting it is extremely elastic, in comparison to when you are talking face to face the space expands and shrinks with every gesture of your hand, eyes, and feet, and when you are physically reaching out, like looking at that computer screen, those notes she wish to show, or something new on her table, boy, that space shrinks.  

As men, we find it difficult to digest – but then we also don’t get sexually harassed that easily right?

The catch…

Okay now, being women does not make you weak, and this does not mean that when you are placed in power you start to abuse it because you see men doing it to your gender or simply you just like to abuse people when in power.

You need to understand that this exploitation is not gender biased. It uses power and fear to extort its surroundings. Just like an abusive man in power, a woman can do the same. That is what power and position does to you. So be careful, be gentle, and be responsive.

Rest, keep rocking ladies, you have done really well for yourself.