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Take a look at stories from our Women Who Can to learn from their experiences in
common situations. If there's a situation we should cover in future interviews tell us about it. |
Your situation |
Her situation |
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When I present to my peers they derail my presentation by taking over the talking and going off topic.
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I struggled with a peer who was very disruptive, not just to me but to all the women in the group. When I presented he’d say, ‘You’re wrong’and would then take over the topic with, ‘My solution is much better…’ and it was impossible to get control of the meeting back from him once he’d done this. Initially I had thought being better prepared, know it better, or review with him ahead of the meeting. None f this worked. I looked for coaching advice. What I leaned was I could use other means of communication, not just verbal. I learned were to stand up during my presentation and be physically close to him as this made him less likely to speak up, and if I was next to his chair he would have to look up at me to contradict me. I’d never used tools like this deliberately before but they worked. I learned how to deal with him and manage the emotional space in a meeting. I learned to seed the floor before he could interrupt with, ‘You have something to say on this topic?’ it put him in a position of having something valid to say rather than just holding the floor. Once he was defused we were able to focus on the work again.
Senior Program Manager
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My peers often make comments in meetings that are private jokes. I feel excluded. me.
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It wasn’t private jokes being shared among a group but was totally inappropriate words when I was the only woman present. I was thinking, ‘Okay you shouldn’t be using those words, if HR were here you wouldn’t use it’. After a while it would get uncomfortable. The VP in the meeting would use certain words and be oblivious to inappropriateness but another guy in the room would be aware, and then look at me, knowing I was the only female in the room. This made my face turn red as I didn’t know if I should be offended or not. I didn’t do anything at the time as it was difficult, but when I left the group HR followed up with me on the situation.
Principal User Experience Manager
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I am being excluded from critical meetings. They keep saying they'll include me but continue to fail to include me.
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We had created a new large vendor call center. We were vendor center was tanking and customers were unhappy. Our VP started to have daily meeting with his directs to sort out the problem but none of them knew the vendor or call center business well. I got so frustrated that one day I called my manager and said,“Look, you’ve got people in the meetings
who don’t know what’s happening and what’s going on. I’m the person who knows the most about this in the company. You need to get me in those meetings right away.” Then I got invited to the next meeting, and was the only non-direct in the meeting. I took the meeting to a new level, and over the week, the meeting changed to having the right people in it that could solve the problem. Director of Experience and Insight
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In meetings I try to contribute but am often talked over and ignored.
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This has happened to me many times in meetings. I use to try to wait for the right pause in the meeting to be able to offer my point, but often it never came. It even got embarrassing when people sitting near me knew I wanted to make a point (due to gestures or starting words). I persisted as it was essential to be heard. I would arrive earlier to meetings and get a better seat at the table, opposite the host of meeting so it was easier to get attention (and harder to be ignored). I learned cues for when the conversation was going to change voices and proactively started talking with gesture together, and often got to speak, and failing that I did resort to humor/expression to signal my trying to contribute and would often get the conversation back.
I did once try to out talk a guy. He was known for talking over someone one. We were in a small meeting, our boss asked a question. I was two words ahead in my answer but ‘he’ ploughed into his answer. I kept talking to see if he would back down. In the end we both talked for half a minute until my boss gave the guy the visual signal to continue and I had to back off. I was mad. I later figured out the way to interrupt him was to blurt at the right moment, ‘Name, let me speak now’ or ‘Name, my turn to respond’. Subtle didn’t work but bluntness did. Consultant
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who when she found herself the only woman on the Supreme Court after Justice O'Connor retired, kept saying, not very subtly: I'm the only woman here; I sometimes get treated in a way I haven't been treated in years; people go around the table and I have something to say, and nobody reacts, and then a half-hour later some man says the same thing and everybody says, 'Oh what a good idea.' Finally now there are three women on the court. So my first piece of advice is get another woman in the room. And my second is demand respect. You should get it. You don't have to be a man to get it. You don't have to be a flirt to get it. Just be yourself and if it's not working for some reason, just say so."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice,
from She Works: The Only Woman in the Room |
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