amBITCHous: (def.) A Woman Who: 1. Makes more money 2. has more power 3. gets the recognition she deserves 4. has the determination to go after her dreams and [1]

This book happened to be uppermost in my mind when I read Jay Vance's blog in Advance: Is it really a man's world? [2]. Yes, I know - I'm way behind but my last blog kind of brought this topic back to the surface.

Jay posits that in trying to be more like men, women are doing themselves a disservice. Let me tell you why I think Jay is maybe TOO in touch with his feminine side.

But underneath it all, it seems to me, there's an unspoken but unmistakable inference that in order to be taken seriously, female MTs need to stop being like themselves and instead try to be more like...

Men.

I'm with him up to this point. But then he says:

...it's actually alienated a huge bloc of MTs who truly need AND WANT representation in the workplace.

Followed up with:

But I just can't believe that the only way women MTs as a group can successfully advocate for themselves is to deny who they are in order to compete with (or please) "the suits."

So now I'm confused. Are we talking about running our businesses - or is this about the ultimate pet project, an "organization for MTs," which is a recurring theme for Jay?

Let's talk a minute about our businesses because that's MY pet project. As noted in my comment at the blog, although women comprise the majority of the MT workforce, management and executives are primarily male. And the decision-makers at the hospitals and clinics are primarily male. When it comes to our businesses, we are dealing in a world where decision makers are primarily male. Under those circumstances - yes, we absolutely have to be more like...

Men.

Ever wonder why?

First of all, women don't communicate in the same way men do. Casey Miller and Kate Swift, two women who studied the language habits of males and females, characterize the differences between male and female communication this way:

Males adopt a more direct, forceful way of talking; females, a more tentative, questioning approach. What one typically phrases as a statement or comment, the other formulates as a request.

University of California linguist Robin Lakoff attributes this to cultural conditioning:

Discouraged from expressing herself forcefully, a girl may acquire speech habits that communicate uncertainty, hesitancy, indecisiveness and insubordination.

Lakoff goes on to say that women are more likely to use "tag questions," such as "don't you think?" at the end of their opinions. Even when a women doesn't conclude with a question, she may raise her voice at the end of a sentence so that it becomes a question, rather than a statement. Men see this as being weak and indecisive. What a women perceives as politeness, a man may interpret as reluctance to commit to a plan or a course of action.

Is becoming more like a man in how we communicate really a bad thing?

Women are also more likely to wait for someone to notice them, rather than speaking up and stating their opinions or position. They are less likely to take credit for a project, even when they deserve it. This is one reason more men are in executive positions than women - they are raised in a sports environment that teaches them to win. Forget "how you play the game" - if winning or losing didn't matter, they wouldn't keep score. I remember my first meeting with an investor (in the capacity of an advisor). I was asked "tell us about yourself." Um... my name is Julianne Weight and I've been in the transcription industry for 20 years. They kept looking at me, expecting more. What they expected was for me to list all my many accomplishments for the last 20 years (they assumed I had some or else I wouldn't have been there). To a woman, that's bragging - to a man, it's establishing your bona fides. How many of us put what WE want on the back burner to promote the interests of a husband, boyfriend or our children? We eat the dark meat because nobody else will and somehow we don't feel we're worthy of either demanding our share of the white meat or buying a more expensive cut that is all white meat.

Let's talk about how all this looks to other women.

Let's face it, there's just one word that our culture bestows on that supremely ambitious woman who unrepentantly values a career: bitch. It's our prevailing cultural paradigm: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are bitches.

And who is hardest on ambitious women? Other women. We're seeing this in the current presidential election, in the reaction to the selection of Sarah Palin for Republican Vice President. A major reaction among women was to decry what the position would do to her role as a mother. Carly Fiorina was castigated as much for her decision not to have children as she was for acquiring Compaq during her stint as Hewlett-Packard's CEO. (Please note that I am not saying I think Sarah Palin was a great choice, would make a great Vice President and that I support her - but I am saying if I have criticisms of her, they're based on her stand on the issues, not her motherhood, marriage/marital status, children, etc.)

Women who are openly, unapologetically ambitious are labeled as ambitious bitches; i.e., ambitchious.

amBITCHous [3] is about showing women how they can be frankly, audaciously ambitious and happy at the same time. Condren states: "Let's reclaim ambition as a virtue."

In order for women to be ambitious without guilt, we unfortunately have to ignore the slings and arrows of our sisters, who feel we've lost touch with what being a woman is all about. (See my Hold the Liver [4] blog.)

What I see as a large problem in the MT world is too many women acting like...

Women.

Look at the MT reaction to offshoring. It has been emotional, to say the least. Anyone who wasn't violently against it was severely castigated, even if they were neutral; a strong "for us or ag'in us" mentality. MTs refused to work for services that were known to send work offshore. MTs who worked for companies that sent work offshore - especially if they were editing work from overseas - were called traitors. Very few MTs looked at the business aspect of offshoring or asked themselves what they could be doing to compete better (i.e., win the game) - they focused on emotions. My experience with MTs and QA is very similar. QA corrections are met with an emotional response (and frequently, denial) instead of a "what do I need to win" attitude.

Do you want to know why offshore workers got a foothold in this country? They don't disappear when they're supposed to be working and then tell you they had to go take care of a sick mother or take Johnny to the doctor. They take the job seriously, they apply themselves to learning how to do a better job - and we all knew they'd just get better over time, it was inevitable - and they don't argue that QA is just being mean, spiteful and jealous. (Well, maybe they do - but not to the MTSO in this country and not to their clients.)

When I see MTs on the discussion forums say "MTSOs are just making money off our backs," I have to wonder if the person has any inkling of their relationship to the business. The MTSO is running a business. The purpose of a business is to make money. When you enter into a contract relationship or employee relationship, you are agreeing to produce something in exchange for pay. That's how it's supposed to work! There's no trickery here, no enslavement. If the MTSO doesn't make money, there's no reason to BE in business - and if there's no business, there's no need for MTs, either. It's a mutually beneficial relationship, the way it's supposed to be. If MTs aren't making as much as they'd like to make, it can be related (again) to the predominantly female ranks. MTs have continued to let their work be devalued and have continued to work for increasingly lower and lower pay so they have the "privilege" of working at home. I understand that - but don't complain about it. Essentially, what women are saying is they are willing to continue eating the dark meat; in other words, work at home regardless of the cost to themselves and the industry.

We see more of this feminine attitude when it comes to discussions about AAMT/AHDI. Many of them show a shocking lack of not only the purpose of an organization but how a business is run. I saw disaster coming when it came to the school approval program. I knew there was a contingent that felt only 2 schools were worthy of approval and they would cry foul if anyone else was approved. Did anyone REALLY believe AAMT/AHDI went through all that trouble just to approve 2 schools? Really? The same is true for advertising at the AHDI and corporate memberships. Come on, people - anyone who ponies up the corporate membership dues can be a corporate member. This is not unique to AHDI. I have never joined a professional organization in any capacity, personal, corporate or supporting, and had to fill out any kind of screening form. Likewise, anyone who pays for advertising gets to advertise. Let me share an experience I had with one publication. I got a call from the publisher - a woman - and she told me I would not be allowed to advertise because she "heard" I worked with offshore companies. Yes, this was back in the highly emotional days of offshoring. I asked for a copy of the policy regarding this. Not only was there no policy, there was no way of verifying that what she "heard" was true. I flipped open the publication and named off five companies I knew sent work overseas and asked if she had "heard" about any of them, as well. Bottom line - my ad was accepted for publication.

Yeah, call me a bitch but don't expect me to be insulted by it.