CVoice_E04_Own_Worst_Enemy

This episode features a discussion about girl-on-girl and girl-on-self crime and tools and tips on how to catch ourselves in the act and overcome our tendency to judge and tear others down, when instead we should be supporting and lifting one another up.

Girl on Girl Crime

Joy discusses Amy Poehler’s reference to “girl on girl” crime regarding how we judge the parenting of others from her book, Yes, Please.

Natalie talks about Hollee Becker's article in the Huffington Post calling out Scary Mommy on how we treat our friends who promote their network marketing businesses on Facebook. She uncovers what led 3 of her friends into these businesses and challenges the audience to support women who are putting themselves out there.

We discuss the 4 patterns uncovered in the book, What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know and related videos courtesy of the LinkedIn website.. The tagline of the book is “From Mean Girls to Queen Bees, we’ve all heard about how hard women can be on each other. “ The research cited in the book claims that it isn’t just our natural cattiness, but goes deeper into unconscious biases women have about other women.   The root of it all is this perception that since so few women do have a seat at the table that the rest of us have to compete for those few seats.  

Here are the 4 Biases we discuss:

1. Prove it Again - senior women in an organization expect women who are newer to the workforce to work just as hard as they did to get there and may judge those of us who automatically receive flexibility and a seat at the table more harshly, instead of realizing that their hard work helped pave the way to make this happen - and being proud of it.

2. Tightrope Bias – The fine line we have to walk between appearing too feminine, coming on too strong, too masculine, or being perceived as a *itch.

3. Maternal Wall Bias – Unconscious bias toward working moms or working women who express interest in parenting.

4. Tug of War Bias: girl-on-girl crime in the form of biases we pass through to other women, related to the other three patterns.  

Strategies to combat the “tug of war” bias:

1. Don’t judge other women or join in when you see it happening. There’s no “right way” to be a woman

2. Be direct to resolve conflicts with other women. Approach them with positive intent and seek first to understand vs.to be understood

3. Respect one another’s experiences. Generationally, our experiences may be different.

4. Get women to work together on projects or tasks, but preferably tasks not related to women’s issues.

Girl on Self Crime

Joy references a short clip from an episode of Inside Amy Schumer - “Compliments - Uncensored”.  Warning that this clip is profane and vulgar. See this clip here.

We wrap up by sharing tips from a Huffington Post article on ways to silence your inner critic.  

1. Put a better spin on things, focusing on behavior in the moment vs. comments about your overall character or personality.

2. Take the damn compliment.

3. Before putting yourself down, ask “what would my best friend say? or better yet, “would a guy say this about himself?”

4. Give your inner critic a name.  When you start speaking negatively about yourself, channeling “The Nag” or “the Gremlin” will bring levity to the situation and remind you about your overall awesomeness.

Connect with joy at http://www.joyschwartz.com and Natalie at http://smalltownleadership.com