DOES ANYBODY LIKE ME?

SINCE ENTERING the workforce in large numbers in the 1970s, women have been offered two choices: be a successful bitch or a well-liked failure. We’ve all seen — and perhaps are guilty ourselves of indulging in — the biases and double standards women face at work. A woman who emulates the traits of a decisive and effective leader is deemed bossy and harsh, with the insinuation she’s pulled herself up the career ladder by her claws. A woman who shows more emotion is assumed to be too weak for a position of power, with the implication she’s a pushover and her talents would be put to better use organising the office Christmas party. This is the double bind in which women find themselves entangled. Hillary Clinton summed it up perfectly in her book , about: “Until we can shed that stereotype that women, leadership and likeability don’t go together, we will be putting the baggage of that onto the women who do emerge. … somewhere in our brains is whispering a stereotype that says if a woman is leading, commanding, she has probably given up on ‘female’ traits of empathy [and] likeability.”