I was with my CEO, CFO, and Client Services Director. We had just finished introductions in a new business briefing when one of the clients asked us, “So why are you all female?”
There was a short silence. I then smiled and answered, “I never noticed until you asked.” “You never said your CEO was a woman.” This was many years ago, Before The Internet Cared. Now we have smart freezers, driverless cars, and jetpacks — but we still put “female” in “female CEO” because, well, female.
The use of the word “female” makes what could be ordinary an exceptionality. The reality is female words are the building blocks of insult, condescension, and disempowerment. That driver must be a girl. Don’t be such a pussy. She’s hysterical (“her uterus is disturbed”). That’s so fucking gay. Bitch. Douche.
(If a language holds clues to deeply rooted beliefs, then Tagalog, my native tongue, is among the most egalitarian. There is no husband or wife, only asawa (“spouse”). There is no son or daughter, only anak (“child”). Insults are not feminine, as a rule. “Hayop” is bad — you are not human, you are an animal. I suspect “binabae” (“femaled,” a term for homosexual) was more descriptive than insulting.)
Two giant internet players saw CEO exits recently. Dick Costolo “has repeatedly failed to meet Wall Street’s high expectations.” The language around his exit is about performance: management changes that didn’t quite work out, not being able to articulate clearly enough to Wall Street what Twitter is. The language around Ellen Pao’s exit is partly about performance, and heavily around sexism, misogyny, and pretty much the entire history of vaginas in the Valley.
No one thinks to ask, “How do men feel about Dick Costolo?”
But “How do women feel about Ellen Pao” generates relevant results.
Guess what: I want to be able to fuck up without feeling like I’ve let down half of the human race. I want to make bad calls and be called out for them without the PMS jokes. I want to disappoint my shareholders and be called incompetent, not an incompetent bitch. I want the right to be a douchebag regardless of my ability to use a douche.
There’s irony in diversity. Women receive praise for leading and being women at the same time. Colleen DeCourcy of Wieden & Kennedy: “I don’t want my work in the room because I’m a woman. I want to be the fucking best.”
So how do I feel about Ellen Pao? (I see the story is still developing, and that Reddit’s Chief Engineer Bethanye Blount has quit, stating that Ellen was put on a glass cliff.)
I sympathize with Ellen — not because she’s a woman, but because it’s lonely at the top. I know what it’s like to make decisions that not everyone will understand or approve of. I don’t know enough about her shareholder commitments, or her operating framework; however, I know the sound the buck makes when it finally stops.
Good luck, Ellen. Good luck to all of us.
This article was first published by Lowe Philippines President and CEO Leigh Reyes on Medium.com
