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I've been hired to redesign a couple of websites and work on SEO after the small business owners paid a small fortune to other businesses only to get terrible, sloppy, half-arsed results. Of course, the people they hired were men and I told them quite frankly, men are all about selling themselves, not their actual skills and products. If you just want it done and don't care about functionality, hire a man. If you want it done right, hire a woman.
So, now I'm working on an UpWork profile. I decided to research web development and SEO and found 1 in 10 UpWork 'professionals' in this field are men. They fill their profiles with technical terms that are irrelevant to make themselves sound impressive. I get the feeling they haven't any actual clue about what they are selling, they just want it to sound impressive. They also charge the highest rates. I've noticed women predominantly focus on social media content manager positions even with excellent web design and technical portfolios.
This is freelance work for me, I have another career in another industry but I've hit 'the glass ceiling'. In both industries, I listen to men babble on about themselves - nothing they say makes any sense at all but yet everyone nods and agrees with them. I am looking to build my own business. My goal is employ others who are also highly skilled but looked over for gender and race reasons.
It reminds me of this article which has some very good points. However, I don't agree that women hold themselves back from leadership roles. I never downplay my skills. I have a 167 IQ, I'm rather proud of all I've accomplished despite the odds stacked against me. I've applied for numerous leadership positions and every time it comes down to me and one other candidate. They always go with the other candidate who is hired from outside the industry and of course, a man who doesn't have 1/2 my education and zero industry experience because they 'love his ideas'.
Thoughts?
https://www.betterup.com/blog/has-social-conditioning-been-holding-women-back-from-leadership-roles
I don't think it's just social conditioning. Men are also purposefully holding women down. Even many women are doing this, not even on purpose all of the time. I actually had a chat with my (female) professor supervising my thesis, and she said she went into the job an idealist wanting to hire lots of women, but even she ended up hiring mostly men, and she didn't really know why. I do know it bothered her.
This is so spot on: “men…nothing they say makes any sense at all but yet everyone nods and agrees with them”. I work in software development and this describes the experience perfectly
I don't remember the source of the data, possibly lois p Frankel's books, but somebody said that men always apply for jobs they are 60% qualified for where women usually don't apply unless they are 90 to 95% qualified. I know in my current position the female director was surprised and impressed that I even applied. I think they're just not used to women going full send and applying for things
I guess men use the same terminology across fields. I just had a conversation with my male boss in my male dominated field about hiring a male vs female candidate. He clearly characterizes the male candidate as more “outgoing” and will “get things done” despite him being in a different field. The female candidate is seen as “not as excited” even though she has relevant experience and even thesis level research experience. Although other aspects are at play, the primary reason my boss is considering her is because he’s concerned about the fact that after I leave, there will be no other women on his team and its bad optics. I felt so gross after the conversation but struggled to articulate it while also keeping my work filter on 😭.
Always be proud. If I catch myself diminishing my abilities, I say “act like a man”.
Wow, I also work in SEO. Very tech-focused roles. I have had the same experiences. I have rejected multiple 6 figure job offers by now because they always reach out to me for a leadership position, I pass through up to 6 rounds of interviews and case studies and assessments with flying colors and it always came down to me and another candidate. And every single time they wanted to give the leadership role to a male without an actual tangible reason (was allowed to look at the scorecards in some instances) But they STILL want hire me as an individual contributor because ofc they were impressed with my technical skills. Or: give me the role to 'test' me for lower pay. And I could always 'work my way up'. Aka: do the same job, put in way more effort to prove myself, get less onboarding, budget and resources for doing the same job as others while being compared to their results and not get anything in return still. Work my way up in your company when I currently lead a team of 10 people and have scaled organic growth in multiple tech startups?? In what world do I need to work my way up? The audacity is real. I have grown confident enough to refuse.