In a recent post, Lesboprof chides herself for having been reticent about pursuing a leadership position in academe and wonders if traditional gender norms have been holding her back:
I was looking at the candidates for what could honestly be my dream job in the future, and I had a sudden realization. I might have been a contender for the job … right now! Not in five years, not after promotion to full professor, not after an intermediate administrative post, but right freakin’ now! Not a shoo-in, by any means, but the pool is looking a little shallow if these candidates are the best for the job. Of course, I hadn’t applied, thinking it was beyond my current standing.
Yet perhaps this is a particularly female way of looking at moving up. Many male leaders I see have no compunction against reaching for a much higher position, skipping steps along the way. There seems to be a different approach to taking on leadership positions, a “Sure I can” approach, rather than an “I’m not sure if I can” fear. They seem more comfortable blustering and fumbling their way through until they have figured out the parameters of the new position and made it their own. It is almost like watching people walk up stairs; women usually take them one at a time, while men are more likely to move more quickly, taking two or three at a time. While I tend towards a more direct, masculine approach in interactions, something about this process of moving up in administration has me acting like a more traditional woman.
The blogger realizes that she also may have been constrained by “the way people react to my pursuit of higher administrative roles.”
Many people, even my academic friends, have talked about how ambitious I am. Others, who aren’t my friends, imply that it is weird, self-aggrandizing, or some kind of power grab on my part. Perhaps it is those messages that make me a little more nervous about trying for a big move; nothing looks more like hubris and a hunger for power than a big leap ahead.
Is it any wonder she was reticent when research has found that women who show ambition are often penalized and despised for displaying it? (Silly girls. Don’t you know career ambition and professional success are unbecoming?)
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7 Responses to ‘Yes, She Can!’
sanjoaquin - April 5, 2010 at 9:26 am
Friends who seem baffled by someone reaching out for their own satisfaction at their level of potential may be fighting their own demons; however, they should not be taken as a guide for ones own aspirations. NEVER settle for less than you are worth.
zjmr16 - April 5, 2010 at 9:55 am
My personal experience (not a scientific study) has been just the opposite – where two women who were not qualified for leadership positions in academic administrative both applied for and received the positions. Much to the detriment of the college. Granted – this is just one example of women not feeling reticent to apply for these positions. There may be a general trend – but there are exceptions.
rjmorris - April 5, 2010 at 10:37 am
Gabriel Montela writes “In a recent post, Lesboprof chides herself for having been reticent about pursuing a leadership position in academe….” Lesboprof never used the word RETICENT. It’s Montela’s, and it is misused. Had the blogger been RETICENT, then she would have applied for the job but not told her friends about it. What she describes is being RELUCTANT to pursue (not RETICENT about pursuing), meaning that she did not in fact pursue, the position. Montela, a writer for The Chronicle, should be ashamed. I have three theories about RETICENT/RELUCTANT confusion. The first is the same as my theory about why ‘begs the question’ is so often misused to mean ‘raises the question’ and why disinterested is used when uninterested is what is meant. It’s that about twenty years ago (which is when I first started noticing these errors), some very influential journalism professor made these mistakes before generations of students, some of whom themselves became journalism professors, and the gospel of misuse spread. The second is that people use dictionaries instead of learning words by being voracious readers, and dictionaries don’t always give context. (The people who wrote the Wordly Wise workbooks suffered from this. For every assignment my daughter had to do, there’d be an example of a sentence with a word for the week that seemed correct only if all the writer knew about the word was a terse dictionary definition. That the word might be pejorative, or only used with humans or machines or some subset of all the nouns in the world, or had some other specific meaning that the dictionary did not reveal, made the example a testament to the illiteracy of the Wordly Wise writers and their editors, and all the teachers and parents who think well of Wordly Wise.) The last theory is that reticent, which rhymes with hesitant (by sound although not by visual appearance), is what people think of when they want a word that starts with R that means hesitant. In fact reluctant is what they want.Here are my definitions, based on years of reading and listening to speakers who respected the language. I have no idea what dictionary says this, or if any dictionary does. RETICENT means shy, unforthcoming verbally, modest, exhibiting a particular kind of RELUCTANCE: reluctance TO SPEAK. Example: People are RETICENT about their achievements, so as not to seem like they are boasting. RELUCTANT, on the other hand, means HESITANT and is not specific to the action of speaking. If what you hesitate to do is taking an action (applying for a job, running down the street, buying a house), then you are RELUCTANT to take the action. If the thing you hesitate to do is SPEAK, you can be RETICENT about the subject matter. Another clue: reticent is OK with ABOUT but then it is followed by the noun describing what you would have said if you hadn’t been reticent. RETICENT ABOUT is not followed by an action. You are never reticent TO. Reluctant is followed by an infinitive (TO + VERB). Perhaps Gabriel Montela will reply and tell me which of my three theories is correct. If I’m really lucky, Gabriel may also promise to use the right word from now on.Roberta J. Morris, Esq., Ph.D., Lecturer, Stanford Law School, Member of the Patent Bar and the Bars of New York and Michigan. I get particularly upset about this when people whoSHOULD care about vocabulary make these mistakes. TheChronicle’s editors are in that category.
cbscribe - April 5, 2010 at 11:23 am
Although I’m sure there are exceptions, I’ve suspected much the same thing as this blogger–that women are much more likely than men to doubt themselves and second-guess the value of their expertise when considering a move up. In the past three years, I’ve talked myself out of applying for several positions that I later found I was more than qualified for (judging by the eventual hires). At my last job, in the communications office of a small liberal arts college, I remember when my recently hired boss told me he was going to be a panelist on a multi-school communications workshop on integrated marketing. I asked him what experience he had in integrated marketing, and he just smiled and said, “None. I got a book out of the library.” Now that’s cheeky.
rjmorris - April 5, 2010 at 1:51 pm
1000 apologies to GabrielA. I have a name that often loses its A in the hands of people who are used to typing its A-free counterpart. Gabriel just came off my fingers. Three times. Make that 3000 apologies. – RobertA
gabriela - April 5, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Lesboprof writes:”Perhaps some of my reticence [emphasis added] is rooted in the way people react to my pursuit of higher adminstrative roles. Many people, even my academic friends, have talked about how ambitious I am. Others who aren’t my friends imply that it is weird, self-aggrandizing, or some kind of power grab on my part. Perhaps it is those messages that make me a little more nervous about trying for a big move; nothing looks more like hubris and a hunger for power than a big leap ahead.”
goxewu - April 6, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Don’t you just love it when the spelling/grammar/proofreading Hall Monitor gets caught out of class with no hall pass? “Gabriel just came off my fingers”–yeah, right: no sloppy inattention to detail, no haste makes waste, no not really caring what sex the object of her scolding is. Nope, just “fingers” operating on their own.*I do notice, however, that Ms. Morris gets “Esq., Ph.D., Lecturer, Stanford Law School, Member of the Patent Bar and the Bars of New York and Michigan” absolutely correct. Vocabulary and spelling depend, apparently, on what one’s priorities are.* Yes, I know this isn’t a complete sentence. ‘Tis my style to take license.