sexism Archives - The Powerful Woman

FORT WORTH, TX - FEBRUARY 26: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Fort Worth Convention Center on February 26, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. Trump is campaigning in Texas, days ahead of the Super Tuesday primary. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) — FORT WORTH, TX – FEBRUARY 26: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Fort Worth Convention Center on February 26, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. Trump is campaigning in Texas, days ahead of the Super Tuesday primary. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

This campaign season has highlighted realities that women have known for a long time. What is both surprising and gratifying is that men are becoming aware of just how different the societal rules are for women. This may be the Trump’s gift to women. Things have become so extreme that they are obvious—finally.

The Double Standard that Trump Has Made Very Clear

Some of what Trump has dramatically brought to our collective attention, issues that women have been trying to address but with little success, include:

Men talking over you in an important meeting. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/26/donald-trump-raves-on-as-hillary-clinton-speaks.html. Yes, men have louder voices and are often more comfortable being aggressive. Many of us have experienced this phenomenon in work meetings and community events. How does this make you feel? As if what you are saying is less important, not as relevant? Angry?
Men making derogatory comments in front of you about other women. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/18-real-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-women_us_55d356a8e4b07addcb442023. You cringed when a man at work felt entitled to call a woman fat, sloppy, old, blubbering. You struggled with whether you should confront him on this comment that had nothing to do with the woman’s work performance or let it go. This is a double bind for a woman: challenge a man in power for being unfair or just figure out how to deal with him, which often means ignoring him. How do you feel? Fearful of how you look? Angry?
Men staring at your body and evaluating you. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-donald-trumps-vicious-body-shaming-of-women-matters_us_57eac4e7e4b082aad9b77be5. Even when denying he groped a woman on a plane and assaulted a woman in his home with his wife there, or when dealing with an assertive woman interviewer on TV, Trump demeans the looks of the women accusing him, as if this is relevant to what she is saying. And yes, you know what it is like to have a man stare at your breasts when he’s speaking to you, stare at your ass as you walk away or turn and obviously check out another woman instead of paying attention to your conversation. How does this make you feel? Demeaned? Fearful that those five pounds you gained is obvious? Worried about how your hair looks? Angry?
Men invading your space to threaten, intimidate and assert their power. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-invade-space-hillary-clinton-knocks-intelligence/story?id=42762132

We all know what it is like to have a man invade our personal space, repeatedly, whether this is at work, during an argument with a boyfriend or on the subway, and then deny that they were doing anything untoward. We also know how this makes us feel—vulnerable, intimidated and mad.

Girly Thoughts

What do you do with all of this anger? Unfortunately, you turn it against yourself by eating too much, drinking too much or exercising excessively, and with what I’ve named girly thoughts—how you do to yourself what society does to you, what the men in your life do to you: judge yourself and find yourself deficient, wanting, unattractive.

As a male supervisor I once worked for helped me understand, it is important in a conflict to use the other person’s momentum to your advantage. In this world of double standards for men and for women, we have Mr. Trump to thank for repeatedly giving us high-profile examples of how unfairly women are treated so that we can all take a look at this and say, “No more!”

Patricia O’Gorman, PhD is a psychologist, speaker, author and blogger.

Learn more about overcoming girly thoughts at The Powerful Woman: Women and Resilience, and in The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power.

Women in sports take a great deal of abuse, and most of it is off the field.

Professional women athletes are criticized in both public and social media for being competent, for being aggressive, and for winning.

Consider the sexist remarks made before the women’s final of the BNP Paribas Open. Indian Wells CEO Raymond Moore opined at a press conference that “both the Women’s Tennis Association and its players ride on the coattails of men” and that they “should go down every night on their knees and thank God Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were born.”

Negative, Disparaging Attitudes Led to THIS

Not only do professional women athletes receive less media, but what they do receive is often negative. Take the case of the World Cup Championship U.S. Women’s National (Soccer) Team.

ESPN reported that “The USWNT’s victory in the World Cup final last summer not only beat the title-clinching game of the NBA Finals in viewership ratings, but also became the most-watched soccer event in television history. . . .” Yet the women earn an astonishing 98.6 percent less than their male counterparts, receive less funding, less media coverage, and are forced to play on a tougher surface than the U.S. Men’s team.

#MoreThanMean

The negativity came to a head this month in a video about sports reporters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro and the vicious tweets they’ve received. In it, men (who did not know these women and had not previously seen the vitriolic tweets) read them in person to the two professional sportswriters. The fans, who stutter and struggle to read these horrible tweets realize these attacks are #MoreThanMean—they’re harassment.

Do We Do This to Ourselves?

Chances are good that you, too, are outraged at these stories and these tweets. Sadly, women in sports are subject to the same types of disparaging remarks as women in other fields receive.

Yet, if you experience outrage when you hear an obviously sexist remark from a man, why do you say similar things to yourself?

Think you don’t? Consider these examples:

I’m so grateful—instead of feeling good about your ability to work your tail off to achieve your goals.
I’m so lucky, I owe you—instead of understanding you earned that promotion, raise, degree, championship, or anything else.
It’s my fault—instead of standing up for yourself and saying, “No, you can’t treat me that way.”

Telling yourself that you’re not the reason for your own success, or that you are the cause of a problem, is a toxic pattern of internalized self-blaming ideas I’ve named girly thoughts. Why name this? So you can identify and distance yourself from this type of pervasive, negative thinking that has you doing to yourself what the tweets in the video are doing to the reporters—shaming and disempowering yourself.

So the next time you

second guess yourself,
make excuses for your success, or
feel reluctant to be in the winner’s circle,

think of Serena and Sarah and Julie exercising their power, and then exercise your own. See what happens within you when you tell yourself, “That’s a girly thought!”—and don’t forget to share your experience with me.

Want to take some public action?

Share the hashtag #MoreThanMean to increase awareness about harassment of women in sports.

Picture courtesy of pixabay.com!

Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.

Tag: sexism

Trump’s Gift to Women

Women in Sports Really Can’t Afford to Think Girly Thoughts