A recent conversation on a plane had me re-thinking @cshirky’s Rant About Women and reminded me of the importance of @kio_pio’s When Strangers Meet discussions…

I took a plane ride the day before yesterday to Miami.  Before take off I noticed an empty middle exit row seat a few rows ahead of me.  As any traveler knows, this is prize real estate in economy.  With the stealth-like moves of a hunting puma, I slid across the aisle, and geared up to pounce.  Mustering my sweetest polite Brit-ness, I inquired to the man on the aisle if anyone was sitting there.  And – well, he replied rather gruffly to me, pretty much informing me it was free but…. he didn’t want me to sit there.  I was mortified, normally people usually love for me to sit next to them. I just stood there, guppy-like for a little while.  The air stewardess hustled me out of the aisle, and I had no real choice, nor him, other than for me to plop in right in the contested middle seat next to him.  My bottom lip was out, I was dejected, and a bit offended.

His wife was in the other seat next to me. I looked at her, and in the manner of someone who hates to have disappointed, or offended, I spoke to her.  Something germane along the lines of “oh I wish I wasn’t going home” in the hope of warming the Siberian winds blowing at me from the other seat.  She replied, and we began to exchange a little chat.  I apologized for the kerfuffle over the seat.  “Don’t worry” she said as we took off, “that’s the worst you’ll be told off about this.”  I smiled, feeling about 7 years old and wondering how the middle exit row seat had started to feel strangely like the naughty corner.  Then, something started to happen that amazed me.  Its the reason I’m writing this post. The lady next to me and I began to talk. We talked quite a lot actually.  And I came away from the conversation thinking of Kio Stark’s When Strangers Meet class, and Clay’s recent rant about women.

Turns out  that despite a 30 year age difference, we had some things in common: lived in the same place for a while, both in creative places work-wise, and had similarities in our non profit work.  We began to talk about my recent work for Human Rights Watch and the topic of maternal mortality and her work on parenting classes in underprivileged areas.  She had a very soft voice, and warm lines around her eyes.  I listened to her as we moved from mere information exchange to thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation.  She told me of the feelings of a mother towards her child, the fears and the weight of being completely responsible for another, and wanting to do the very, very best for this little person.  We discussed how to connect people through this shared role of motherhood.  Since beginning this HRW internship, working on this issue, of course I’ve felt hopelessly out of depth, having never been a mother, I mean – yes, am great on the social media stuff, but the content of the campaign, I feel woefully incompetent to comment sometimes.

This is where I got to thinking of Clay’s comments about women needing to be more vocal in their talents, in promoting themselves, these thoughts swam in my head mingling with recollections of discussions with Kio about fleeting relationships formed with strangers, and their sometimes incredible significance.  In the the space of 45 minutes (and one slight altercation with her now sleeping husband) we had become sharers of intimate, close and thoughtful conversation.  We spoke quietly, yet with excitement – there was a connection.  She spoke to me of relationships and marriage. She was wise, and smart.  We moved to religion, and even politics briefly.  And I wondered, do men do this?  Or is this kind of connection unique in its quietness, gentleness and subtlety to women? Is this a kind of alternative to the self aggrandizing promotion type-behavior that Clay discussed a few months ago?  Is it just as powerful and effective?  I don’t necessarily know, but in that conversation I was reminded of the grace of women and how we connect through a myriad of commonalities.  She asked me if I had read “Eat Pray Love” as she pulled it out (a book that makes me want to simultaneously love and hate Elizabeth Gilbert for her discussion of the female psyche).  I smiled, and pulled out her sequel “Commitment” from my vast purse.  They sat on our laps as we continued to discuss, just as Gilbert does, love and relationships, family, children and careers.

As the flight drew to an end, her husband began to thaw a little.  Maybe because he heard snippets of our conversation and had hopefully realized, that although I was lacking a little in etiquette sometimes, I was really pretty alright.  He needed a pen to fill out his customs form, I proffered mine.  With few words, we slowly began to interact.  As we fastened our seat belts for landing, he turned to me,  and began to speak.  “I’m sorry if I was a little gruff earlier.  You know, my daughter would have done exactly what you did with that seat.  You doing that reminded me of her and when she does stuff like that it sometimes embarrasses me.  I think I aimed that embarrassment at you.  Our generation aren’t like yours in that way, you are all such go-getters now.”

His honesty threw me for six, and prompted me to reciprocate with an apology to him for not asking the stewardess before switching seats, and in not doing so, had deprived him of his option to object without me being thrown out of the aisle next to him.  I found myself saying that sometimes my generation perhaps missed out on the common courtesies in our rush to be go-getters.

As we left the flight, we exchanged names, there were lots of smiles.  His wife and I said how glad we were to have met each other.  It was one of the most significant conversations I’ve had in a while, the whole thing really touched me on many levels.  My old girls school had the motto ‘Valens sed Clemens‘  meaning ’strong yet gentle.’  We used to laugh at it at the time.  As a student body, we deemed it slightly reminiscent of a deodorant slogan.  Yet, perhaps it was more right on that we realized at the time.

From my minor self aggrandizing jerk behavior (otherwise known as go-getter behavior), in seizing that seat, I learned again of the strength of the connection between women, and the differences between generations.  All over the contested middle exit row seat 9E.

Yesterday evening, my professor Clay Shirky at ITP wrote a great piece on some observations on the male-female differences at ITP.  Specifically, why aren’t we being more assertive, sticking our hands up more – in a nut shell, he is worried that “not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks.”

His piece is here and my comment follows – along with some right on points from Eszter Hargittai and Caterina Fake, amongst others.  I’ve re-posted my comment below also.

Response

Thank you for ranting about this, its a topic that makes my head spin and not a good way. I hope that these comments from a current ITP student might help with thinking about how to improve things.

A few points – principally on the importance of role models.
Summary here – fuller explanation below.

• Chicks need female role models

• All timid students need to be told they are good to increase their confidence (assumption – their work is good)

• As their confidence builds – this network or blanket of a confidence boosting ‘inner circle’ or team helps to them go out and put their work out there

• That collection of constructive criticism and confidence-boosts means they’ll realize the world will keep spinning when they get hit in the big wide world

• We DO care about what people post/say about our work

• We DO need to toughen up – learn skills, be pushed, work on our weaknesses.

• For chicks in a male dominated environment – learn the lingo or rise above it, ideally both

Role models for females

• The importance of role models is that they often give you the initial confidence to go knock on someone’s door and bullshit them and convince them you’re worth hiring. I would never have had the guts to do some of the things professionally that I’ve done without people I really respect suggesting to me that I can and should do it. As a guy as a freshman at Yale, you might not have needed it, but having someone I respected suggest it to me was a huge kick in the pants to go do it, it was the catalyst – some people need one, others don’t.

• I canned one career because I had few female role models. I hate to think that – but it is true. That said, I embarked on another career largely because of the most amazing female role model. At ITP we have them too. So am not sure why there’s an issue there. That stumps me a bit. I think as much as it kills me to admit it, female role models for female students are important though, even if the evidence at ITP might not support my argument. There’s a disconnect somewhere between that hypothesis and your observations in female behavior at ITP, maybe they need to be more visible – I don’t know.

Toughen up – learn skills, even if it hard, we all have to do hard things we don’t like BUT there are rewards

• Chicks need to toughen up. I can see you cringing but, ok, the quiet boys need to toughen up too. I agree with both Eszter and Caterina that sometimes you have to stick your hand up, be hated, keep going.

• The world out there in any field, artistic, academic, tech – let alone corporate, is a tough place, professional life is. Not in the sense of dog eat dog, but you HAVE to get in that hypothetical conference room, and talk. Its skills like any others – and the classes that do that at ITP are beyond wonderful at teaching those skills – how to work in a team, how to assert yourself, how to present, make a pitch, apply for a grant. It should be compulsory.

• One thing also, as an issue for women, is that sheer bloody minded success in a woman is sometimes commented on as a lack of femininity. I have been complimented by being called “a machine” several times. To me its a huge compliment, and I understand what that means – ie pushing out a large amount of error free work quickly. Still though – to some females, I’d imagine that might not sit so well.

Network of Confidence Boosters and Constructive Criticism – and finally realizing your shit is good

• I think we all care about the reactions to our work when we do put ourselves out there. Perhaps because you have heaps of experience of it, you maybe can ignore harsh comments more effectively. On some level though, this this issue of enough confidence coming from those we respect – eg our mentors and peers should weather us through the criticism, and realize the criticism can either be bollocks, or helpful – something either to discard or embrace – either way, its ok. The more good experiences we have of something, the more it shows that the whole world isn’t going to stop if something bad happens. This kind of reinforces our experiences of “jeez I did this and it was good,” which then enables us to confidently describe our brilliance on paper.

In the workplace as a female: learn to speak Man – or be revered by them, ideally both

• When you are in a world where men are more dominant, as a chick you have two routes – either learn the lingo and embrace the male culture, or rise above it and revered. If you are smart you’ll manage both. I am learning Internet memes right now because I am fed up of not being able to share in the joke about your wolf t-shirt in class, yet I am also in the process of trying to have a Xeni Jardin style hair do at the moment. Its both. Am not sure men have this issue in a male dominated environment.

Final thoughts

• I think that’s it. Your observation is true that the females at ITP are less forthcoming in self promoting. But the solution, I still really think boils down to dealing with all people with a lack of confidence rather than differentiating between men and women (because I want it to – clearly, still hating to acknowledge the issue).

• Remember, your classes naturally attract people who want to talk. I realize last semester’s class was often dominated in conversation by me and a bunch of quite confident men But, if you go into a room of graduate lawyers, I’d bet my fur coat the chicks would dominate. So much is in the subject matter. Which – if you want to solve that issue, you have to nurture confidence that females can talk Internet and computers. Will be fascinating to see the male-female class discussion ratio in this semester’s poetry class.

• Surround all of them with positive criticism, shove them gently, and teach them to be boisterous. We learn by watching and trying to emulate our role models – and slowly, as we realize we have good stuff, that people want to listen to us, and then we start to make that call to the journo to tell them we have something to show them.