Manterrupting – When a man unnecessarily interrupts a woman who is talking. Example: Last week during a meeting, I was making a point. One of the men at the table jumped in with his opinion. He seemed to think he was doing me a favor by adding to my narrative. I wasn’t finished making my point and he steered the conversation in a direction I didn’t intend to go. He made it all about him because he “needed to clarify for myself.”
Bropropriating – When a man takes credit for a woman’s idea. Example: Returning from lunch, I found one of the account managers on speaker with a contractor. We have an open floor plan in our small office and I heard every word of both sides of the phone conversation. The contractor had purchased television advertising. He was writing his own script and having trouble. In a former job I wrote television commercials, so the conversation piqued my interest. I asked a few questions, made a few suggestions, and eventually offered to write a script. His shoot was scheduled for the next day, so I had to email the script to him immediately. I did. I received no reply. Crickets. Three weeks later I’m sitting in my living room on Saturday morning watching the local news and what do I see? The contractor’s commercial that I wrote. Writing scripts is not a service we normally provide. I did it to be a team player. Not only did I not make any money from my intellectual property, but the contractor also didn’t even acknowledge my contribution.
Manterrupting and bropropriating are linked. One often leads to the other, particularly in meetings, and especially in meetings where men outnumber women. There is even an app you can use to to track manterruptions during conversations. I once worked for a church where bropropriating was intentional. I was the only female on a team of four. We met weekly to plan creative elements for future worship services. The man in charge referred to taking someone’s idea and running with it a “stepping stone”. Gee, that’s a nice term for bropropriating. As if it’s normal. As if it’s not just taking credit for another person’s creativity. Here’s how it worked: A topic was introduced and the first person they looked at to offer suggestions on how to present it was me. Ladies first, you know. How convenient that I was the only “lady” in the room. Then they’d proceed to tear down the idea and offer their “better” ideas. Then we’d circle back around to my idea that they decided they liked after all. They just didn’t like hearing it from me. I was outnumbered 3 to 1. Now I know why my ideas were seldom acknowledged as my own . There were no other females in those meetings to amplify me. This process made me not want to attend these meetings. What was the point of being creative if someone else got credit for my creativity?
To make things worse, women are in competition with each other. As if there isn’t room enough for all of us. Where did we get that idea? If you are the only female on staff and another female is hired, do you partner with her or undermine her? The system is hostile by nature, but this doesn’t have to be the case. We can influence our environment by promoting the fact that the team will get further together than we will on our own. If we’re in a meeting where men outnumber us, we need to speak with authority. None of this, “Well, I don’t know whether this will work or not, but…” We can use non-verbals and power poses like lowering our tone of voice, walking to the front of the room, pointing, and placing our hand on the table to imply command of the conversation. When another woman makes an intelligent point, we can amplify it by immediately speaking up and agreeing with her and giving her credit for coming up with the idea. We can look interested when she speaks, nod our heads in agreement, and lean forward in our chairs. If a man interrupts a woman, interrupt his interruption by saying, “Jim, I’d really like to hear the rest of what Susan has to say.” It feels like trying to turn the Titanic around, but the workforce needs everyone’s brains; not just the brains attached to the loudest mouths.
Please tell me your manterrupting and bropropriating stories here: