Women executives: Enter at your own risk

There are some days when I reflect back on how far women have come in business, and some days when I just shake my head. Recently, a meme on social media showed photographs of important international events, political gatherings, and business meetings. One picture shows a group photo, the next photo shows the same photo with all the men removed. The women are few and far between. It was a stark reminder of how far women have yet to travel on the business journey.

The other day I related to another woman in business some of the more outrageous things that happened to me during my 30+ years in the business world. She is younger and had a hard time believing some of them. These events really happened, and I thought I’d memorialize some of them here.

I spent many years in male-dominated businesses. But then again, what business has not been male-dominated? When I worked for one of the largest printing companies in the country, I realized I was missing out on business connections because I didn’t golf. This was the late 1980s / early 1990s. Many of the printer’s suppliers networked with my male colleagues on the golf course. I decided to learn to golf. I bought a set of used golf clubs, and took some lessons so that, at a minimum, I learned golf etiquette.  I began to golf and practiced on Saturdays. I was eventually invited to attend some golf outings, too.

One of the more memorable ones was an event at Wynstone Golf Course, in South Barrington, Illinois. It was a beautiful course, and Michael Jordan played there back in those days.  It was fancy! First of all, there were only two other women playing in the outing. What did the organizers do? They put the three of us together in a threesome.  Nice. Next, one of male golfers took it upon himself to yell at me after the golfing was completed.  He stood across from me and pointed at me: “If it wasn’t for you, we would be playing at Medinah.”  The Medinah course, at that time, did not allow women to play on its master course.  I was around 30 years old at this time, and it was disconcerting to have an older businessman yell at me.  My only retort was: “I would love to play at Medinah but they won’t let me. Why don’t you take it up with them?”

Another memorable time came when I was the only woman vice president and on a leadership team for a publishing company. My company engaged a management consulting firm to help us improve productivity and “re-engineer” the manufacturing processes we had. The consulting company took us offsite to a retreat they owned in rural Louisiana for a few days. This place was like something out of Deliverance, very rustic and remote. We met as a group during the day, had dinner, and then the evenings were to be spent in the main house where the meetings and sleeping quarters were. The only hitch was that they hadn’t had women there before and all the washrooms, sleeping areas, and public areas were communal. They scrambled to figure out what to do with me, and decided that I would spend my nights in a separate cabin on the property. Each night I was escorted there, and I was given instructions to stay in my cabin and not venture out. Why? Because they had guard dogs securing the property in addition to the fences and other security measures. The dogs would attack me if I went out alone. I felt like I was in a prison camp, and missed out on the opportunities to “bond” with my colleagues in the evening because I was stuck alone in a cabin in the bayou. My imagination heard the faint chords of banjo music drifting over the swamp at night.

I participated in diversity training at a large printing company in the early 1990s. When the diversity instructor asked the male manager of the facility if he went out with the guys for beers after work, he most assuredly said, ‘of course’. When the instructor asked the manager if they talked about work issues there, the manager assuredly replied, ‘of course’. When the instructor suggested that the manager include the women supervisors, like me, in the after work events, the manager replied: “That’s impossible. What would my wife think?” That manager was an older man who regularly hosted poker games at his house for my male peers. No women allowed.  After the diversity training, he invited me to my first poker game. What a triumph! The win was being invited. Since I don’t play cards or gamble, I was able to politely thank him for the invitation and show my appreciation as I begged off.  Was that really a success for women?

I’m sure many of you, other women executives, have stories like these:

•  The male customer who literally chased me around a party when I was in my 20s. My boss at the time helpfully told me to “be nice to him, but run faster and don’t let him catch you.”
• The conference calls I’ve been on when I hear male colleagues literally going to the bathroom and flushing the toilet on the call.
• The first time I managed men who were older than me and listening to comments about my inexperience, and “what does she know, she’s just a girl.”

I love men. I’m married to one.  It seems a sad commentary that in my 30+ years of business, there are still so few women at the top of businesses. Very few in boardrooms, too. Until I retire, I will continue to coach and mentor young women in business today. They can still get far, if they have the stamina, the perseverance, and the stomach for it. Diversity is the future, and the growth of today’s businesses depend on it. What are you doing to help the cause? Let’s work together to make sure women have a seat at the table and not sit alone in a cabin, guarded by a dog.

Something to fall back on

I'm on vacation and reading the book "The Good Girls Revolt" about the women at Newsweek magazine and how they sued the magazine in order to be writers, in the 1970s. It really occurred to me that I was not too far behind these women as I was coming up in my career. I, too, wanted to be a journalist. I had no idea in the 1970s that journalism was a difficult role for a woman. As I read the words of Lynn Povich about how she took stenography even though she had a Vassar degree, I thought back to my own high school days. I took typing class in high school, because my mom thought I should "have something to fall back on" in the event I could not get the job of my dreams someday. In other words, I could always fall back on being a secretary somewhere if a real career was not in the cards for me.

Although I do not consider myself old, I look back at some of the toxic sexist situations I have encountered in my life and shake my head: yes, I lived through some sexist times myself.

When I worked for a television station as a reporter in my college town, the news director would not put me on the air until I cut my long, curly hair. "I don't want you looking like a college kid," he growled, even though I was a college kid. And when it was convenient for the tv station, I was asked to do promotional commercials that ran during Saturday Night Live.....to draw in the younger audience, the college students. And when the same news director asked me to come over to his apartment to review tapes of my stories, the only way I got out of it was by letting him know my boyfriend would be joining me since he would like to hear the input, too. Needless to say, the invitation was rescinded, thankfully.

At one of my first jobs post-college, ironically at a weekly newsmagazine, I was literally chased around a piano at a New York party by one of the magazine's customers. I recall running up to my boss at the time, a New York woman about 10 years older than me, and asking what I should do. "Just remember he's a big customer, and try to be nice....and don't let him catch you" she advised. He didn't, but when I tell that story now it sounds like something out of an old Doris Day movie or 1960s sitcom, not something that happened in the early 1980s.

Through the years, I have been in work situations in which I have been groped, leered at, flirted with, and asked out.....all the while being married and trying to do a professional job at the companies I have worked at. I have reported some men's behavior to my companies in the past, and have never seen a man obviously reprimanded or penalized for boorish behavior. Are women still discriminated against in the workplace today? I would say yes. It can be overt sexist behavior, or more subtle discrimination that prevents women from moving ahead or getting certain jobs, or discourages women in other ways: to leave certain industries for ones that are more woman-friendly. Women still need to appear at the top of companies more often, and we will need to continue to ignore bad behavior around us, boost one another as much as we can, and be role models for those women younger and just coming into business. The younger women need to see our success, and perhaps hear our war stories, so that they can be encouraged and not  discouraged themselves. It is good for them to see us helping one another, and not tearing one another down. You never know where life will lead you, and what nuggets from your past can shape someone else's future. As it turns out, I am glad I took typing in high school. Even though I could not have imagined it then, the typing skills I learned have been invaluable in today's computer age. Who knew? And who knows what words you tell a young woman can help her, too. You may tell her something that she can use to fall back on someday.