Female aggressive – the other side

You need to read Candace’s post on this subject first for this response to make sense.

Believe it or not, when I posted a reply to Candace’s post, I expected her response. Then why do it? Because when she and I agreed to do this blog, our supposition was that we truly wanted to explore gender difference from both the male and female perspective. To do that, we had to be honest and deal with tough issues from perspectives that are created over decades of personal experiences and luggage that each of us bring. In many cases, we will not agree, and that’s OK, as long as we listen and respect the history and perspective of each other. And that’s the case here. Now here’s my take. I don’t post these views to kiss butt to the female side of the audience, and I will admit that I have a soft spot for the girl team, but these are my true experiences and opinions.

I believe we have a definitional difference, but not a disagreement in the difficulty women “can” face in the work place because of a ton of reasons (delta in size between men/women, natural instinct of men to observe pecking order [e;g alpha male], tendency for men to react more physically when frustrated, and a ton of other reasons).  But here’s the rub from my POV. When Candi describes her behavior as aggressive, I see it as determined,  competent, and professional; and I have no problem with it. Now let me describe what I call as aggressive female behavior, which is similar to aggressive male behavior only with less anger. When someone in a work environment tries to disrupt the logical process for no reason but to disrupt the proceedings, or demeans someone, or yells, or acts rude, that’s aggressive behavior to me. Let me give a couple actual examples. I will change names for obvious reasons, but they are all true.

1. I was assigned to manage a Tech Team to develop a series of analytical models to help an organization project how to adapt to a changing environment over time. I was asked to give a briefing before the executive committee with ideas on how our team could help the organization better understand how to survive over the next 15 years. After the briefing I was asked a variety of direct and probing question, exactly what executives should do since my proposals would determine whether they live or died. By the end of the meeting everyone voted and agreed with my proposal except one executive, lets call her Jane. She turned away from me, never asked a question, and wouldn’t even look in my face. Her response was in an extremely demeaning tone. “I’m against it?” All others in the room looked puzzled and the senior official asked, “Why, Jane.” Again without looking at me she huffed, “I just don’t like mathematical models.” I tried several times to interject in order to understand the basis of her concerns but in each case she ignored me. Now understand, this was my first encounter with Jane so there was no history. Finally, I realized she was a “no no.” That was a term people in my profession use for a management that was only comfortable with status quo. Anything that rocked the established mode was a no no. Finally, she informed the senior in the room she was going to tell the Director of the organization it was infeasible to develop models for this project. That was my line in the sand. In a professional but determined tone, I informed the back of her head, “Jane, you may tell the director you are incapable of this task, or even that you don’t agree with it, but you do not speak for me or my team and infer we can’t do it, cause we can. If you do, I will insist on a meeting myself.” Now that to me was aggressive behavior on her part. Needless to say, she was voted down by the committee which actually included two other senior females, we build the model, and we were successful.

2. I worked as a Division chief in a modeling group which was about 50/50 between men and women. One of the managers, lets call her Tammy continually had difficulty with the other women. She always treated them in a demeaning manner, yelling at then in front of their co workers, complaining about their clothes and a ton of other bullshit. She didn’t do it to the males cause they would tell her to go to hell. Finally one day she crossed the line. She accused a wonderful, competent, gentle young female of poor performance and some other stuff that was bull. She demanded she be fired. Now this was a government facility and the only practical way you can fire a civil service employee (other then espionage, stealing, or sexual harassment) is if they are conditional (been there less than a year). I requested the female be transferred to my division on probation and agreed to document her performance over the next 120 days. All parties agreed and after the four months I wrote an exemplary report, because she was fantastic as a team player, her analytical insight was keen as hell, and she was efficient at her job. Tammy was just being an aggressive angry person.

I could give another dozen examples, but the point is, to me aggressive behavior is negative, non productive, unnecessary and causes frustration to other people. The behavior Candace describes is not aggressive, but determined, competent, and professional. It’s interesting that often when women use the term “aggressive” in reference to a woman’s behavior; it is in the context of a positive necessary trait. Yet aggressive behavior from a man is negative and unjustified. The truth is, aggressive behavior is negative regardless who does it, and unnecessary.  Being determined, being resolved, maintaining your cool, being professional, those are characteristics that everyone deserves to encounter in the work place, and that’s what Candace described, at least in my minds eye.

And even being the size of a moose, I have experienced aggressive behavior from men as well, just not as often as professional women, and in each case it was a ploy to cover their own insecurities by attempting to demean others. I recall a case when I worked in the pentagon where action officers (of which I was one) were briefing a group of both civilian and military executives. One executive, we’ll call him George, made an effort to openly demean and chastise each action officer with nasty derogatory comments. When it came my term to brief, and he started chewing on me for proving his office had screwed up the study of a weapon system, I explained that I would be treated with respect or my briefing was over. He yelled at me that I needed to remember my position, or he could have me fired for insubordination, etc. I greeted his aggressive behavior with aggressive behavior myself and told him I’d be glad to continue the discussion in the parking lot. Fortunately, the senior General Officer stepped in, other wise I’d probably still be in jail. Point is both aggressive behaviors were wrong, and his demeaning treatment of all the action officers in the room was to obfuscate his own Napoleonic insecurities.

I do realize as a big male, I never suffered from the crap Candace and other women had to deal with. I also recognize that there are men that dislike women in the workplace because of their own insecurities, but there are women that exhibit the same behavior only its not as physical or threatening, but its wrong just the same. Neither should be tolerated or is professional or beneficial in the workplace. Point is, most people adapt their behavior to what they experience across their life. If they are fair and compassionate toward others, they do not prejudge how they will treat people based on there gender, race, etc. Unfortunately, many of both genders do this and react in an unnecessary aggressive manner to hurt others or appear better then they really are.

I consider Candace’s reaction reasonable, appropriate, and professional to the situations she voiced. I do not define it as aggressive. Course, that could just be me, my baggage, and my experiences.

Wow, that turned our longer than I expected. Bet its full of typos. Proves this is an important topic, you think. I’ve got to get back to actually working on two manuscripts that are due, so Candace, no more comments this week that stimulate me to reply (g), and I’m skipping two weeks since this is my second post this period, so there.

Big Mike

Davisstories.com