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75 responses total.

This happens to me all the time, and I haven't noticed it being a male
or female phenomenon, just people in general.  What do I think when it
happens to me?  "That g*ddamn SOB stole my idea.  I hate that".
  Guess I'll have to pay more attention to gender in the future.

I agree, it isn't really a male/female phenomenon.  It's a matter
of the relative strength of the personalities at the meetings.
(Sometimes it comes down to whose voice is loudest.)  You might
have it done to you at one meeting where you're "weak" in
relation to the others, and then do it someone at another meeting
where you're relatively "strong."  Be yourself in any case, and
don't let it bother you.

Hmm.  I always try to attribute my source if I'm repeating what
someone else said, either because I agree with it, or because I
don't think everyone else in the room heard it.  (This is quite
different from intentionally stealing someone else's idea, of course.)
I haven't really noticed this phenomenon occuring, but it's possible
that I just don't attend enough business meetings.

I haven't noticed this, except in cases where it's been clear that the
noise level kept the original comment to a limited area.  (OTOH, I'm somewhat
one of the hard of hearing, in particular regarding understanding things
where there's background noise.  So I might well *not* hear the original
comment.)

When this happens are the women (the group that laughed the first time)
generally sitting together, or spread out among the group?

I've chaired many business meetings, so I've been able to observe many
such interactions. Many people pick up on the ideas of others. 
Sometimes the original expression is acknowledged, but more often not.
I've never noticed boards listening less attentively to women than men,
but then, as chair, I made sure that everyone could speak their mind.
Telling jokes is a little different, even jokes as asides, than regular
business. I've observed that men "crack jokes" more frequently than
women. However the groups I have participated in very seldom had people
that told sterotypical "male" jokes (sexual, ethnic, booze, etc). 
However, I think what happens depends very much on the "culture" of
the group, and I could imagine what popcorn described happening in some
cultures. What "culture" was it, popcorn?

   I have notices what Valerie is saying.  Not too many times, but I
have seen it.  There are men out there who seem to classify anything
that a woman says as something not as important as what would come out
of a mans mouth.  The one incident I clearly remember was in a
business meeting at PC Technologies, where a woman, newly inserted into
a technical management position stating something to her management peers
that didn't register during one of those long, drawn out meetings.  When
one of the men said it again, perhaps 30 minutes later, it seemed to take
on more significance.  I remember the look on her face--it was something
like "Didn't I just say that", to "I guess I'm not important around here".
She did ultimately leave the company for reasons I never fully understood.

I have witnessed, many times, what popcorn relates. I would suggest that
popcorn pay RealClose (tm) attention to the activities of the jerk
who re-told the story without attribution. 
  
Since I've been trained to listen to content instead of source, it
becomes quite simple to watch/hear this political shit. In fact, with
my background it is easy to listen, also, to dynamics *regardless* of
content. Sooooooo many "meetings" run along "who" instead of "what."
  
And this fiasco flys directly in the face of the (ostensible) function/
purpose ofthe meeting, "what." That situation, allowed to continue,
is the hallmark of a failing organization.  
  
As for the frequency (woman high / man low); women's voices are much
more directly centered in the "speech intelligibility" frequency
range than are mens, 2 KHz for the technically minded.
 
Women have the advantage, naturally, in intelligibility. What someone
(above) described as paying attention to only some voices is the
phenomonen of the "cocktail effect," wherein the listener is able
(by a mechanism yet undefined) to concentrate on a specific acoustic
pattern/signature amids the "background noise." But that phenomonen
is normally relegated to a single pattern, which might be the Chairman
of the Board .... 
  
Literally, a person can "choose" to hear some sound and not others.
Selective hearing is normally the purview of children, some of
whom never grow up.
 
Sorry this happened to you popcorn. If might happen again, in which
case I would suggest popping up for yourself by +stating+ something
along the lines of  "well gee, I +just+ said the same thing a few
minutes ago - glad to hear that you agree with my lead." ("lead" is
the key here, those sorts of meetings (politial anarchy disguised as
stability) are bare-knuckled (mental) battlefields. You can shrink
back or wrest the lead from the leader of the peck(ing order).
  
Good luck.

I agree with all of what tsty said.  When a person works on becoming empowered,
and becomes empowered, what they say is heard.  Two major factors at play here:
who is saying it and how the message is being delivered.  The actual content
is frequently secondary in the perception, especially in a large group, or in
a group of business persons where perceived power is highly significant.  Years
ago, when I had difficulty being heard, I would have agreed that the gender
issue was major.  As I have grown older, and command more respect, both
by my knwoledge and accomplishments, but also by "how" I say things, I am
almost always "heard."  And, if I am not, to my satisfaction, I repeat what I
said until I am heard.  I rarely have to say anything twice anymore.

Essentially, Valerie, start thinking about your delivery and put some energy
and power of your personality behind everything you say in public.  You can
lower the register of your voice a notch, it does help, but its the conviction
behind the message, whether its an idea or even a joke, that makes the 
difference.

#9 contains very good advice. I can't add anything to it. Believe it.
I believe if your message isn't being heard, it is not directly because
you are a woman, but rather because of the lack of forcefulness of
your delivery. You must have conviction, and self-assurance.

Lowering the pitch of your voice should not be necessary unless your 
attempts to be more forceful tend to cause you to sound shrill.
I doubt this is this case.

Actually, the depressing truth is that most people, most of the time,
just aren't listening, no matter who is speaking.  People take for
granted what a person is going to say, and don't bother to compare that
to the words actually coming out.

In almost every meeting, the expectation is that the status quo will
prevail.  Ordinarily that means approving every item on the agenda.
If the committee is supposed to solve some kind of problem, it means
that any action will be postponed until later.  It takes a whole lot
of psychic energy to derail a committee from its bland inertia.

You may have a really great idea that you'd like to see implemented.
Most of the people you explain it to won't understand it (or probably
won't hear you at all) the first or second time.  Don't be surprised
when you come to another meeting, explain it the third or fifth or
umpteenth time, and you suddenly see light dawn in the eyes of one of
the more attentive members.  "Wow, that's a *great* idea!  I wish we'd
thought of that earlier," he says.

I've been to well over 500 meetings in my time, probably closer to 1,000.
I am not joking about this.

 You're not joking about what?

Well, polygon, that sure explains politics ...<g>.
  
I can fully concur with hheaddoc, srw and polygon's expansions. 
 
All that stuff, even being accurate, has bugged me no end. I wish
there were some sort of solution - stuff would work better.

I think there may be other forces at work here as well.  The mind sometimes
hears things sub-consciously.  The man may have heard only a word or two of
the discussion, and his mind picked up on the joke he had heard some time
previously, so he relates it to the group he is talking to and it recieves
another round of laughter.   Not an intentional snub to the original source,
but it could appear that way.  Also to be taken into account is the pecking
order.  If he is superior to you in position, he is less likely to listen 
intently to what you say.  They hear only what they think you are saying.

I have a book, _The art of talking so that people will listen_, by Paul 
W. Swets, that I picked up at the Public LIbrary Book Sale.  It has
some pretty good advice.  I'd be happy to lend it to you, Valerie.

        This has reminded me of an unpleasant occasion. Some
years ago Dave and I were both members of a church committee.
At one meeting, we and at least one other person raised an objection to
something, and the point was discussed and accepted as a valid minority
opinion.  (I'm being so vague because, mercifully, I don't remember)
At the next meeting the chairman had forgotten all about it; I spoke up;
there was general non-comprehension; Dave spoke up; the chairman looked
at Dave and said more-or-less "Since you're the only one who thinks
that ..."   It had a chilling effect on me, but I did not attribute it
to my gender, rather to the obtuseness of the chairman.

#0 indicates a common problem of trying to make a social tendency into a
discrimination against women issue.  This does not help the women's movement.

Legitimate inquiry and testing of hypotheses doesn't hurt anyone or any
movement.  Valerie has had an unsettling experience and is trying to understand
it. In that process, she has formulated a hypothesis and is checking it out.
This is vastly different then making an unsubstantiated statement about the
reasons behind behavior.  The "women's movement" will not be aided by a lack of
inquiry.

   Jon, you're dismissing all such occurances as just social tendencies?
I think it is a lot more complicated than that.  I've seen what Valerie
talks about.  When certain behavior is consistently aimed at women
something "interesting" is going on.
   Now, while I agree that there are women who might complain about this
when perhaps there might be other reasons, but that doesn't preclude
the existence of asshole men.

I agree with you, STeve, that it's more complicated than the way Jon
put it, and I wouldn't want to deny the presence of such men.
However, I still think that the problem observed by Valerie is much
more common than the number of such men would cause.  I believe more
of the cases when this arises can be traced to a natural tendency of
some women to be insufficiently forceful and assertive in their
speech.  Also I should point out that their own behavior is
something they can control more easily than the men's behavior (not
to excuse the latter).

I have not only seen this happen in person, but I have experienced it in
bbsing.  Some of you all might remember the Mark Smith business on M-Net
a while ago.  Just as a lark, I took out my one and only pseudo that I
ever used for bbsing, and spent a month or so responding as a 'male' in
certain non-frivolous conferences (the tech confs, theo and politics, as
I recall)  I made very sure that I never actually *said* anything that I
hadn't said before as myself.  I found that I definitely got a different
reaction as the pseudo than I did as myself.  Somewhere I still have the
conf files, one of these days maybe I'll look 'em up.  I decided after
that that perhaps Mark Smith *did* have a point after all.

Only recently there was some discussion or other where I was in a dissenting
position on some issue, as was janc.  He entered a full screen of reasoning
why he was dissenting on it, and I merely entered "I agree with janc"
For some reason, the person we were disagreeing with chose to jump on *me*,
totally ignoring the fact that while I was agreeing with janc's points, I
wasn't the one who made them or worded them or typed them in.  In fact, his
attack ignored janc altogether.  Now that might be attributable to the fact
that this person and I don't generally get on together anyway, or it might
be more.  Needless to say, I was somewhat taken aback.

(I'm so used to having assorted bosses take an idea I'd come up with six months
 previous and suddenly laud it as their own idea and "why didn't someone think
of this before?" that I don't even notice it anymore.  Prerogative of bosses, I
think)

There are two issues.  One is that people who are not as well respected 
(perhaps they have less experience or have less rank) and people who talk 
softly don't get much attention at meetings.  This is not a sex issue, it 
happens to everyone.

A second issue is that women often don't get the respect they deserve (or
have to work a lot harder for it).  This is a problem.

I think it was Tim Allen who had the ricochet theory...
Everything a woman says just kinda ricochets off a mans head
before finding his ears.

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Valerie,

I don't know that you ever want to be soft-spoken in business matters. (you
in general, not you specific <gr
in>)

(oops)  Being firm makes your point come across, but doesn't have to mean
you're a brass balls bitch. Especially if your person to person skills
are more of the soft-spoken variety.  I guess it would kinda be like being
two people...one that's assertive in meetings, and one that's feminine and
polite to small work groups, one-on-one, etc.

Just my thoughts; I'm not in what's called the real working environment, so
perhaps this is just bunk.

I agree with Pattie.  It is possible to follow through with good
"people skills" without being aggressive (at least its possible
in many situations).  Unfortunately, it seems to involve a learning
curve.  I say that because a lot of people may try to be less
aggressive (or loud), and discover that they may not have other
ways of communicating their sense of resolve.  Meanwhile, the folks
that pass the learning curve often can communicate quietly in a
way that is assertive.

It's not simply a matter of being loud and obnoxious or not.  It's
more a matter of learning a style that is effective without the 
loudness.  For me, a main part of this is to get to know the individuals
involved and find out which ones are the good listeners.  From there,
talk to the people who listen and are willing to talk to you.  You may
appear to "lose a few battles" in the arenas that you choose not to be
a part of, but you can win the confidence of significant people who
prefer to not battle.

I've seen situations where all the people involved (myself included)
took an odd approach.  We saw ourselves as a group working together,
and yet there was a subtle sense of competition.  It was as if someone
was keeping score and personalities seemed to matter more than people.

I now prefer (and seek out) situations where some people take a (IMHO)
nicer approach.  People can get together and each offer what each is
willing to do to reach the goal.  This tends to replace the competition
with cooperation.  It also helps people to be seen in their own best
light.

What I'm trying to say is that choosing to be more forceful or more
polite or less forceful or less polite may not have any effect on a
given situation.  When people listen respectfully and communicate
openly, dynamics can change.

Well said.

popcorn Jan  8 23:21:28 2004 Valerie Mates popcorn Jan  8 23:21:28 2004 Val
popcorn Jan  8 23:21:28 2004 Valerie Mates popcorn Jan  8 23:21:28 2004 Val
popcorn Jan  8 23:21:28 2004 Valerie Mates popcorn Jan  8 23:21:28 2

        "... women are at a disadvantage, since women are more likely 
than men to phrase their ideas as questions, take up less time with 
their questions, and speak at lower volume and higher pitch. 
 ... men who do not use the forceful strategies associated with 
masculinity are also at a disadvantage."  -- Deborah Tannen
        

Well quoted, Grace!

  I think that *gasp* in boardrooms men are unaccustomed to hearing a woman
articulate an appropriate point of view.  This is not because women are not
able to do so, it is just that for so long they were not allowed.  Some men
naturally ignore a woman in this situation- its not intentional, just condited.
  I believe as more and more of the newer generations come to dominate the
board room, that this will not continue (hopefully).  Until then, speak up.  If
I or any other man skrew up and do this then stop us immediately.  Most of the
time we don't mean it.  

What is an appropriate point of view?

It seems to me that the "old" position of a women in a boardroom was to 
provide a token female point of view- and was thus considered unappropriate
to the men.  Now that a woman's role has been widened, many men are hesitant
to accept that a women can express important ideas, and indeed that feminist
ideas are important.

I can't speak for all men, or many men, or even for anyone but myself,
but I don't think the majority of men are that backward.

I think they used to be

Why should succeeding in competition with men in their boardrooms
be important to what women are anyway?
It seems after reading the above that once a women has "spoken up" and
"been assertive" that this will prove...what?  That she is a successful
person?  
I cringe at the idea of the traditional boardmeeting being used as a
slide-rule for a person's Personhood.
It takes for granted the fact that success in impressing one's own
thoughts into the minds of others is some sort of defining characteristic
for healthy human behavior.  This may or may not be true.
I would hate to think that boardroom success determines my masculinity.
Why can't it be self expression through art, or anything else.
If boardrooms are such a snake-pit, then maybe succeeding in them 
means that you've become just another snake.

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"The idea is to have the option of being a boardroom success open to
everybody," i.e. every _person_.

I take that to mean:  only persons succeed in the boardroom.  Non-persons
DON'T.  Being 'listened to' = person, not listened to = nonperson.
This is what I just said, and in my opinion it is a catagorical error.
Why would a person's femininity or masculinity ever come into question
in cases where they were not being listened to?
Only if personhood were associated with _being listened to_, I think.
If your "everybodyness" is threatened by not being listened to in
boardrooms, then maybe a new definition of "anybody" is in order.
Preferably one that doesn't include boardrooms.

Is it possible to rename this conference?  If so, maybe it should be called the
aspireing person conference.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss