The only social media I’m still on is LinkedIn. I won’t elaborate why. Suffice it to say, I haven’t yet figured out my identity career-wise. A few weeks ago, a guy who is one of my connections posted some advice on how to prepare for an interview. I read through it and, all of a sudden, there was this illumination: all the advice was written from a masculine view point for an exclusively male audience. Of course he didn’t mean it – actually he’s a government employee in Canada (which is enough to say he would do anything to keep at least the appearances of being politically correct when it comes to women’s place in the job market, bla bla). I was so struck and angry that I replied saying just that: this is not how you’d interview a woman. Well, I actually said it in a more elaborate way, which prompted him to subtly attack me by asking: so please enlighten us and explain how is it that a woman needs to be interviewed.
I thought for a moment. Then I thanked him for the opportunity and promised to come back with a detailed answer, after which I erased my first comment altogether (and if you know how LinkedIn works, all his and my ensuing comments got erased, too). That doesn’t mean that I completely backed down. I simply realized a second thing: that my first reaction had been masculine too – in a warrior way, I struck back. And I didn’t want it to stay there, online, like that. The tone defeated the purpose of my argument.
I gave the matter a lot of thought afterwards and it is probably the theme for a book. But I’ll start with a blog post for now, to underline a few issues.
We’ve lived in a masculine-defined world for so long, that we’ve grown quite accustomed to its masculine tone and we hardly notice it. Carthesianism: this is which defines our world, still. We categorize to make sense of things, situations, tasks, positions. The logic of the head. When there’s a bit of heart in the concoct, there are immediate cries about “bleeding hearts”, “weakness”, “feminine/gay”… you name it, to the point of fiercely imposing the emotional stance. In any argument, either logic or heart must prevail. One or the other. We’re back to the classic versus romantic debate a few centuries ago (hmm… have we ever gotten past it, I wonder). Stupid. We’re not either or – we’re both. And yes, both men and women are both. Guess why: ’cause all human beings have a heart AND a brain (well, at least anatomically speaking).
In this masculine world, women have been either confined to the home sphere (or they’ve accepted it, sometimes gladly only to discover, some time after, there’s some other kind of life out there – see Betty Friedan etc.), or they’ve rejected the homemaking model and turned to careers to fulfill their longings. For centuries, women were either females dominated by males (hint: it is hard to dominate in a money-driven world when one doesn’t make her own money), or females competing with males on males’ terms. There are cases of those who have both of best worlds – sometimes, successful stories; and, what wonder, full of sacrifices too! Overwhelmingly though, it’s still either/or. And definitions are always required. Why the heck??
No. No. No. No. This must stop. Or shall I out it in a feminine way: people, kindly make this stop. This craze leads to frustration, lack of love and understanding, blame, rejection of truth – eventually, war of all kinds.
So many books have been written. How come we still do not see the forest from the trees? Men do this, or this, or this. Rarely do they do more than one thing at a time – this is how their brain operates, and I presume their hearts too. Women do… kinda everything. Women juggle life. It’s a fact. Whether mothers or not, they also juggle men. Men are usually lost without a woman by their side. “Behind every successful man is a strong woman” – they didn’t come up with that from nothing. And then of course “behind every successful woman is herself”. OK… but then this begs another question: what’s a man for? Lesbians would probably say: sperm. Sometimes, that’s not exactly far from truth. Guess why, again: ’cause men don’t have to worry about it? Why would one worry if terms are defined in the only way he can understand? Take a man out of the man’s world and… back to square one: he’s lost without the translator: yeah, that… woman!
Things are quite tangled in our world today – most of the time, whether they admit it or not, men and women are both lost, trying to figure out how to go about it and onwards. And I shall resist the subtle temptation of proposing a solution to the masculine-world crisis. But if we are to trust (at least some of) the advice nowadays, it might not be a bad idea for both sexes to live in the now and to appreciate ourselves and the ones we come in contact with, for shorter or for longer periods. To appreciate their gifts, their other-side-of-the-moon, their different approach, the wisdom which comes with their advanced age. To trust them and their life experience and their darn intuition. To ask reasonable questions about their private lives and hobbies, and take some time to analyze how these fit into the “career” picture. Makes sense (and sensibility)?
As for interviewing women, I’d suggest stay away from “what’s your career goal / define your career arch /give me an example of a challenging situation in which you managed admirably”, if you’re not prepared and willing to hear how your female candidate wrote a Ph.D. thesis after giving birth to a third child in her forties, while also raising her other two pre-teens, holding a job and, of course, performing those neverending household duties, cooking and cleaning – yes, all at the same time. Oh, not to mention overcoming the undiagnosed yet obvious depression (duh!) – without pills: just by faith, love and comedies. I challenge any man counter-candidate to beat that – and decidedly continue with their (career-) life upon rejection.
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