More on gender expectations
Here’s a link and summary from Feminist Philosophers discussing women’s assertiveness in the workplace:
A recent study shows that women who do ask for promotions, try to get raises, and so on, are viewed more negatively than men who do these things. Thus, simply focussing (sic) on changing women’s behaviour may actually hurt the women who are successfully urged to be more assertive.
I’d be interested to find out about how (’masculine’) lesbians play into this schema. Does the presentation of a more stereotypically ‘male’ persona diminish the perception of a contradiction between assertiveness and being female? At least in my personal experience, I haven’t had as many negative reactions to my assertiveness–both in academics and the work world. Of course, that could be for any number of reasons.