Opinion | When it comes to women, sharp elbows jab both ways
If you looked in my Post personnel file, you would find an ancient evaluation that describes me as having “sharp elbows.” More precisely, being perceived as having “sharp elbows.”
At the time, I thought this assessment was unfair. In retrospect, it was probably more accurate than I realized. Either way, it prompted me to recalibrate my behavior, to overcompensate in the direction of collegiality. Wanna share a byline?
It wasn't until years later that it occurred to me how much this critique had to do with gender. After all, journalism is a competitive business. We value the aggressive reporter who hustles to get the story — to own it. Somehow, I doubt that a man behaving similarly would have come in for the same slap-down. His sharp elbows would not have jabbed the same way mine did.
This episode has been on my mind recently, given events on two coasts. In California, Silicon Valley has been riveted by Ellen Pao's sex-discrimination lawsuit, rejected by a jury last week, against venture capital titan Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
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On the East Coast, as the political world readies itself for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, some Clinton supporters have preemptively moved to warn reporters against "coded sexism" in their coverage, flagging such seemingly gender-neutral words as "ambitious," "entitled," "polarizing" and, get this, "inevitable."
Follow this authorRuth Marcus's opinionsBoth episodes infuriated me — Oh, wait, does “infuriate” constitute coded sexism? — but for opposite reasons. The Pao case, its verdict notwithstanding, underscores the tenacious persistence of sex discrimination in certain corners, including particularly influential corners, of American life. Conversely, Clinton’s self-appointed language brigade illuminates the insidious tendency to view too much through the sometimes distorting lens of gender, discerning sexist injury behind every criticism.
Pao lost her case, and the $16 million she was seeking in damages; as a legal matter, perhaps that verdict was correct. Yet even in losing, Pao won an important battle in the war against Silicon Valley sexism, exposing the sexist venture capital culture and the lopsidedly male nature of the business.
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Now interim chief executive of Reddit, Pao was criticized for having, yes, "sharp elbows" — elbows, apparently, being the one body part that can safely be referenced in a performance review. Except that her male colleague, Chi-Hua Chien, came in for similar criticism — "highly aggressive and opinionated," "can come off as having sharp elbows and being a nasty negotiator."
The difference between the two? Chien made senior partner. Pao didn't. Nor do many other women — which is to say, hardly any women at all. Silicon Valley makes politics look like a pink-collar ghetto. According to a 2014 study by Babson College, there was actually backsliding in the proportion of women partners in venture capital firms, down from 10 percent in 1999 to 6 percent last year. These are statistics straight out of the age of "Mad Men," as is the accompanying treatment.
Pao’s trial featured testimony about a ski trip with entrepreneurs from which women were excluded and about meetings at which women were denied, literally, seats at the conference table. She was criticized for being simultaneously too aggressive and difficult to deal with and for not being assertive enough or knowing how to “own the room.”
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Infuriating.
On the Clinton front, no doubt there will be straight-out sexist episodes on the campaign trail; no doubt, there will be many more moments of subtle and subconscious bias. The 2008 campaign offered some guidance: don't talk about likability; and for goodness' sake, don't comment on her clothes!
Still, we — we the media and we the country — are navigating somewhat unfamiliar waters as we contemplate the most serious prospect ever of a woman in the White House. That Clinton is the spouse of a former president and a new grandmother only expands the treacherous landscape.
And language assuredly matters. Some words carry inevitable connotations of sexism — not just the one that rhymes with witch but also whiny, shrill, complaining, carping, overwrought and its especially offensive cousin, hysterical.
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But there is a difference between penalizing women for attributes and behavior that would be tolerated or even rewarded in a man — here we get back to those elbows, but also aggressive, ambitious, territorial — and deeming the use of the words themselves somehow offensive when applied to a woman.
Indeed, we do Clinton — and all women — a disservice by conflating criticism and sexism. Running for president means coming in for rough treatment. Hillary Clinton is woman enough to take it. She’s got pretty sharp elbows, too — and good for her.
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