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Sharp Elbows Jab Both Ways

Ruth Marcus on

WASHINGTON -- If you looked in my Washington Post personnel file, you would find an ancient evaluation that describes me as having "sharp elbows." More precisely, being perceived as having "sharp elbows."

At the time, I thought this assessment was unfair. In retrospect, it was probably more accurate than I realized. Either way, it prompted me to recalibrate my behavior, to overcompensate in the direction of collegiality. Wanna share a byline?

It wasn't until years later that it occurred to me how much this critique had to do with gender. After all, journalism is a competitive business. We value the aggressive reporter who hustles to get the story -- to own it. Somehow, I doubt that a man behaving similarly would have come in for the same slap-down. His sharp elbows would not have jabbed the same way mine did.

This episode has been on my mind recently, with events on two coasts. In California, Silicon Valley has been riveted by Ellen Pao's sex-discrimination lawsuit, rejected by a jury last week, against venture capital titan Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

On the East Coast, as the political world readies itself for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, some Clinton supporters have pre-emptively moved to warn reporters against "coded sexism" in their coverage, flagging such seemingly gender-neutral words as "ambitious," "entitled," "polarizing" and, get this, "inevitable."

Both episodes infuriated me -- Oh, wait, does "infuriate" constitute coded sexism? -- but for opposite reasons. The Pao case, verdict notwithstanding, underscores the tenacious persistence of sex discrimination in certain corners, including particularly influential corners, of American life. Conversely, Clinton's self-appointed language brigade illuminates the insidious tendency to view too much through the sometimes distorting lens of gender, discerning sexist injury behind every criticism.

 

Pao lost her case, and the $16 million she was seeking in damages; as a legal matter, perhaps that verdict was correct. Yet even in losing, Pao won an important battle in the war against Silicon Valley sexism, exposing the sexist venture capital culture and the lopsidedly male nature of the business.

Now interim CEO of Reddit, Pao was criticized for having, yes, "sharp elbows' -- elbows, apparently, being the one body part that can safely be referenced in a performance review. Except that her male colleague, Chi-Hua Chien, came in for similar criticism -- "highly aggressive and opinionated," "can come off as having sharp elbows and being a nasty negotiator."

The difference between the two? Chien made senior partner. Pao didn't. Nor do many other women -- which is to say, hardly any women at all. Silicon Valley makes politics look like a pink-collar ghetto. According to a 2014 study by Babson College, there was actually backsliding in the number of women partners in venture capital firms, down from 10 percent in 1999 to 6 percent last year. These are statistics straight out of the age of "Mad Men," as is the accompanying treatment.

Pao's trial featured testimony about a ski trip with entrepreneurs from which women were excluded, and meetings at which women were denied, literally, seats at the conference table. Pao was criticized for being simultaneously too aggressive and difficult to deal with and for not being assertive enough or knowing how to "own the room."

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