I spend most of my time in the corporate world of spreadsheets and slide shows and conference calls.....a lot of conference calls. Today I found myself on a call with four men and one woman. Now these are men that I have worked with for a long time. They are fairly liberal progressive forward thinking fellas without any sexist or malicious tendencies that I am aware, quite friendly, and one whom I am Facebook friends with who generally "likes" posts about feminism and treating women equally.
This conference call was not very structured, it was sort of a freewheeling brainstorming type discussion, and as the conversation wore on I began to realize that the one woman on the call could not get a word in edgewise. Time and time again when she spoke up to try and interject into the conversation, the conversation rolled on as if she hadn't made a peep.
Now of course in a conversation like that there is a lot of talking over each other and interjecting, it's in the nature of the beast, but I could not help but realize that all of the men in the conversation were managing to get their turn in, either because they were more forceful at interjecting or, once the cross talk started, the other men were more likely to cede the conversational floor and put their thought on hold for a moment.
I am going to confess here: I was doing it to. By the time I realized it was happening, I had been doing it for the past 15 minutes just like everyone else. Also, while I am generally a pretty chill guy, my Girlfriend will tell you that when I am in a heated discussion or when I get annoyed, I tend to interrupt her a lot. I don't even mean to, I almost can't help it. And when she points out that it is unlikely I wouldn't interrupt another man the same way, I cannot disagree, she is right.
And this is not at all rare or uncommon. Virtually every single women in the business world reports getting routinely talked over and having trouble, unless a conversation is very structured, getting a word in edgewise in a conversation, while the men isn't he conversation all seem to conversationally freewheel around each other, cross talking and interrupting yes, but also cede I guess the floor and allowing longer periods of speech to go without interruption.
In fact, studies have been done in which recording of meetings were analyzed after the fact, and while both men and women reported feeling interrupted at about the same rate, when the conversations were analyzed the women were interrupted much more often. Showing that not only are men interrupted less, but that the perception of men of who interrupts and how often is occurrs is often skewed.
And this is not a conservative problem, liberals do it too, we all do it. It's a behavoir that is ingrained into us and reinforced through innumerable interactions across our entire lives to the point that it is second nature.
And that is the most insidious kind of discrimination, the kind that requires absolutely no malicious intent, active prejudice, or even conscious action, the kind that plays out on auto pilot unless we take the effort to be deliberatly mindful of it and counter act it.
So next time you are speaking to your female coworkers or friend or family members, and the conversation pace picks up and words and jokes and ideas start flying around. Try and be mindful of the women trying to get a word in edgewise, be mindful of yourself as you talk over her, and don't. There is nothing wrong and nobody will think less of you for even acknowledging the misstep mid sentence, for example: "Well if we exclude the Team Leads from the denominator.....you know what, I think I interrupted you Sarah, go ahead." Or when you do grab the floor, cede it directly, for example: "And that's why I think we should change this calculation starting next quarter. Sarah I think you were about to say something?" And pass it off directly.
Don't get bogged down with guilt, it's not about guilt, its about doing a little bit better each day in the small ways you can.
Fellas, have you caught yourself doing this? Ladies, how often does this happen to you? Sound off in the comments below, and give me a follow if you'd like to see more material like this.