Why do some women do this?

[PipinwasAuntieMabelsdog]

I am a university academic and work with a woman who, despite having a PhD which would suggest that she is both intelligent and capable, does and gets away with the helpless girly girl thing. She's all giggly and flirty and will do the crying and protect me routine to get people men in the department to do things she does not want to do. I've worked with her a few years and thought her a little bit annoying. However, this week I have being doing some KIT days to get ready to return to work after Mat leave with DC 2 and I have felt really annoyed with her behaviour. Does she not realise that she is setting other women back?! I have autism, I struggle to do things, but I mask at work and I am damn proud of my PhD and being able to look after myself, yet she seems to relish being seen as vulnerable... I suppose I just want to see if other's have experienced similar and if anyone would admit to behaving like this, why?

@PipinwasAuntieMabelsdog - well done for being so professional at work.

I work in higher education and I have to say I'm surprised anyone in that environment would want to dumb themselves down whether they are an academic or another member of staff with a PHD.

I'm not an academic but try to come across as fairly intelligent and professional in my line of work.

You have a couple of sentences of information, I have known the woman since birth. This isn’t nervousness, it is the “strategic incompetence” referred to upthread.

Sounds like a trauma response to me.

Sometimes women automatically behave very submissively around men or people in authority, due to trauma in the past. It is a survival instinct so not to appear threatening and to avoid becoming a target.

Extreme fawning.

I use to work with a woman in financial services. She was constantly having issues with her computer. Couldn't operate word, couldn't turn it off and on again. I sat opposite her and it made my heart sink every time a man used to come and help her sort her computer out.

5 years later I find out she's got a first class degree in computer science no less. She now works as a manager in synergy security so gave up this simpering crap eventually.
And anyone saying it doesn't set women back has no idea how men think. It does. Every single time. Just as women can have an #allmen attitude after a stereotypical performance it works the other way too.

Cyber security.

@Allshallbewell2021 I think most people carry on with behaviours which have worked for them in the past. Many of us don't realize how these should grow up with us and be age/role/setting appropriate.
has hit the nail on the head.
Friend does this because she’s learnt it gets things done for her often without her parting with a penny. By the “poor dumb woman me” act she’s recently got someone to offer to pick up a car for her, get it serviced and charge up the battery, another person arranged for and supervised the installation of a new boiler while she went on holiday and she got someone else to sort out a problem in her garden foc. If she doesn’t get her own way the tears start. It’s pathetic to see.