Is she pushy, or do you have implicit bias? On women who lead.

Am I pushy? Maybe. But, honestly, I don’t really think so. Recently I found out that a few student-leaders that I work with were expressing the sentiment. Publicly. So publicly in fact that, that my friends were texting me while the conversation was happening. After checking my email and counting the interactions, I found that I had contacted that group twice in the past month. However, I said nothing to these people as quite honestly I don’t think I’m pushy, nor do I really care if they think I am. Nethertheless, I was placed in the conundrum that me saying something may make me appear as more pushy as well as the fact that I must continue to work with them in the future. However, I did see a learning and conversation opportunity!

A professor turned mentor and friend once told me “I wouldn’t want to bet against Madison Weber” when I was in the (incredibly difficult) process of getting the Fisher Feminist Club up and running. My Dad often says that I’m a force to be reckoned with. As I’ve previously mentioned, I wasn’t let into NHS in high school because they felt my confidence was a character flaw. I still remember looking my teacher in the eye and telling him he probably shouldn’t tell a 16 year old girl that she was too confident, as they are historically unconfident creatures. But I digress…

While all these things have been said about me – and I do consider these things to be positives – I also do other normal people things. I go to mass every week, and try to do service as often as I can. I work at two different hospitals, and I work in women’s health because I have a passion for underserved populations. Speaking of underserved populations, I came to college and worked hard for a Spanish minor because I wanted to better serve that population as well. I started a Feminist group solely because I wanted to advocate for women and their rights, and to encourage important dialogue on a traditionally conservative college campus. I write for the school newspaper, and am President of the Student Nursing Association as I try to highlight important things on campus as well as promote inclusivity and activism within the school of Nursing. Between this and going to the gym everyday, I usually am able to sleep 5-6 hours a night during the semester. Which is fine and works for me, but it’s work regardless.

So, maybe I’m pushy, but you can't say I don't get shit done. If I have a goal, historically, I will reach it. It may take a bit (years even) but it will probably happen. And, I’ve been told, I’m a good person to have in your corner. I try my best to be a good teammate in all things that I do, and have especially been trying to delegate tasks in the last semester to give other young female professionals things to build their experiences and resumes. I may hold the individuals I work with (both on and off my “team”) accountable, but I wouldn’t say I’m unreasonable by most means. And unfortunately, many of the things I'm passionate about (healthcare access, early professional development in women, diversity and inclusion, political education and activism, etc..) are all things that have faced prior societal backlash. After talking with some of the other leaders and individuals that I work with to try and self reflect, they all came back with a resounding "You're not pushy".

So, ironically, I’m quite pensive and this got me thinking – what had I done that was pushy? Further down my train of thought, another idea occurred to me: am I pushy, or am I female leader? I’m literally the President of the Fisher Feminist Alliance, so of course it’s not an insane leap that this question popped into my mind.

From my research, I found that women leaders were twice as more likely to be called pushy than their male counterparts. When looking at words in the media most often used to describe women like Michelle Obama, Sara Palin, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton they included shrill, slutty, pushy, aggressive, “Ice queen”, aloof, and other relatively shallow (and, in my opinion, probably inaccurate) terms. As women continue to climb and infiltrate the professional arena the reality of professional gender bias can feel more and more prevalent and even obvious.

When women don’t fit the traditional narrative (warm, homemaker, with cookies waiting as their children get off the bus) they can often face unjust scrutiny. If she is decisive, she is abrupt. If she is personable, she will be seen as a pushover or too sociable. If she pushes her team, she will be seen as pushy, or a bitch. However, I wonder, why are male leaders called assertive instead of aggressive. Passionate, instead of bitchy. In general, I feel that male leaders are held less accountable for their personality as long as it does not directly impact their jobs. “He’s just the boss” people will say when explaining their project leaders' lacking persona. Moreso often will a woman's competence to lead be based on her personality or appearance. If I see one more tabloid about a female politician with a headline addressing her outfit or parenting style, I’m going to lose my mind.

I once had someone tell me they thought it was fascinating I could wear a teensy tiny crop top to the bars on the weekend, and then come in to school and hold leadership positions. Is that not work-life balance? Why must these things be mutually exclusive? Let's deconstruct what we think a leader must be. When I was elected as President of Student Nursing Association it became a joke amongst my class because I was not the female leader they had envisioned. Why was I not? Because I was fun, relatively kind, and overall just a normal person. There's so many things that happen in our everday lives that seem small, but when investigated can often show really strong and (I think) interesting bias in surprising ways. I would love to see the stereotype that women leaders are perfect, cold, ruthless, and "pushy" broken down so that more young women are able to see themselves as the leaders they are.

These double standards will unfortunately continue to prevent women from attaining leadership roles, either by others or discouraging themselves from trying to achieve them. It’s just the way that the patriarchal institutional systems continue to serve men in our society.

I’m not saying that a women leader can’t be bad, nor that they should never be introspective and take constructive criticism. However, I do encourage them to not be afraid to look for and question potential gender bias in the feedback they get. Whether it be in a professional setting, or whether other leaders are heard talking about them across campus. And, for both female and male leaders, the next time you’re doling out criticism; take a second to search for any implicit bias in your opinion. We all have it, so it doesn’t make you an inherently bad person. How would we not have it as we grew up in a culture saturated in it? But, recognizing it and doing your best to compensate for it is all the more important because of this.

I hope that we as a society can continue to encourage female leaders, and that we all may do our best to recognize our own implicit bias as well as strive to become the best leaders we can be.

May we beg the question; is she pushy, or is she doing her job?