EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

Chapter 4 ! Scientific communication 185
they are at a disadvantage.
Women can train themselves, for example in speaking louder and longer and in resisting
the inclination to speak on a higher tone at the end of a sentence. However, for
Tannen, the best solution is to see the differences and to understand what happens
when people talk to each other. Tannen does not advise women to adapt their communication
style to the men in the group, although she notes that a lot of girls and
women do this to get a better result 224 . Likewise, Van Zanten says that for pioneering
women, copying the masculine style was often the only possibility to make a career 225 .
Moreover, these women keep rather silent about their being a woman and a mother.
They do not say for example that they have to pick up their children, but they rather
say that they have another meeting. They use a style that does not make men feel
uncomfortable. This means e.g. never to show emotions, to radiate self-confidence and
to react light-heartedly 226 .
However, Tannen observes that a woman, who tries to behave like a man, can bring
about a completely different impact then she had hoped. Many of these women are
labelled ‘bitchy’ and ‘dominant’ 227 . The male style seems to work for men, but not for
women. For this reason, Tannen advocates more tolerance for different conversation
styles in organizations. Then, ‘on that beautiful day, the glass ceiling becomes a mirror
through which a large number of Alices can find a passage way’ 228 .
2.3. Enjoy the political game
“Women are clearly less interested in power than men. This means that a woman finds
it more attractive that a task is interesting, rather than that it represents the next step on
the hierarchical ladder. Because of that, she invests more energy in her work than in all
kinds of power fights ...” 229
Top women indicate that this is a political game and if you cannot handle that, you
must not aspire to a top function. That goes for men and women, but it seems that
women do not want to master or accept the rules of the game 230 . Women have a ‘natural’
aversion to the power fight that is necessary to become a social climber, according
224 Tannen, D. (1994), op. cit.
225 Van zanten, M. (2005), op. cit., p. 160.
226 Van zanten, M. (2005), op. cit., p. 171.
227 Tannen, D. (1994), op. cit., p. 134.
228 Tannen, D. (1994), op. cit., p. 144.
229 Ehrhardt, U. (2000), op. cit., p. 83.
230 Van zanten, M. (2005), op. cit., p. 110.