By Steve Seepersaud
Rebecca (Dalton) Cassidy 鈥97 initially thought she鈥檇 have little trouble fitting into an all-female workplace. To her surprise, she was talked over, ignored and gossiped about. When she thought she was making headway with colleagues, something changed in the social dynamic and she was back on the margins.
She was frustrated to find that self-help books overwhelmingly addressed how women should navigate male-dominated organizations. Unable to locate the book she wanted, she wrote Working with Women: Successful Tips for Working Together (New Degree Press, 2021).
Cassidy said women are at a disadvantage because they are often held to two different standards of behavior. Playing to one audience loses the other, which hinders women from progressing in their careers.
For example, when women are in male-dominated environments, they鈥檙e expected to act more like men. Those tones and postures aren鈥檛 well-received by women.
鈥淚t backfires because women are expected to be caring, nurturing, people-pleasers,鈥
Cassidy said. 鈥淪o that鈥檚 when we get called unkind names and sometimes shunned from
the group. But when women act more like women, we鈥檙e passed over for promotions and
generally expected to stay where we are and be happy about it. It's damned if we do,
damned if we don't.鈥
Additionally, Cassidy says women become more risk averse because there is less tolerance
for their mistakes.
鈥淪ocial capital is the currency of the workplace and, for women, it is harder to earn and easier to lose,鈥 Cassidy said. 鈥淚f a female leader hires someone who does not work out, she must have poor judgment and she perhaps should not be in charge of hiring people. When men make the same mistake, it鈥檚 chalked up to circumstance.鈥
Cassidy鈥檚 book stemmed from numerous interviews with women about their relationships with colleagues. The interviewees had plenty to dish about, giving Cassidy restatements of the problems women faced, but not much that was solution-oriented.
鈥淚 did find a few nuggets, but they didn鈥檛 help me answer how we work together successfully,鈥 Cassidy said. 鈥淚 changed my interview questions and started asking women to tell me about when they worked for a woman they respected or about a woman who made a difference in their career. From that, I got stories of leadership, support and women helping women, and those are the stories I highlight.鈥
The interviews helped Cassidy identify nine archetypes. She addresses each one through individual chapters, explaining how women default to these archetypes and suggesting strategies for working more effectively with colleagues.
鈥淭he only behavior you can truly control is your own," Cassidy said. 鈥淲hile we can't change the people around us, we can become aware of our own behavior and make the active choice to lift ourselves up and the women around us up, rather than tear each other down.鈥