the Apprentice, Karren Brady and men over-ruling their female boss

[hatwoman]

anyone see this last night? The men had a female team leader who said she was not going to be the model in their beach product poster. So the men went off to buy some clothes and props for the photo, and completely ignored what she had said, asking the shop if they had a "one piece bikini" or one with tassles. I was virtually throwing stuff at the telly.

Karren Brady, on the other hand, did us all a favour by pointing out that her management team was majority female and that bickering and bitching was not the norm for businesswomen, and that the wannabe apprentices needed to think very carefully about the representational role they might be playing.

Why did the team leader change her mind and be the model if she had clearly stated that she wouldn't do it? confused.

No it's not the norm in real life. I had a female boss once and she was great, and our team was ALL female. But we all knew exactly where we stood in the hierarchy, you know! We KNEW who we should be taking instruction from, and who we should be guiding or helping. It worked really well, and I would love another environment like that. Never had it since.

The apprentice is a totally unrealistic structure, they're all equal, all competing for the same job, and are supposed to temporarily role play that one is superior to the others..

in the interests of the project, I guess. also, tbh, she had - in every other way - won their respect (she was a good team leader) so maybe she calculated that she could do it without undermining her credibility? or maybe it was one of those situations where it was "easier" to let it go than stand your ground. I don;t know really. but it resonated as one of those situations where a bunch of men are being sexist idiots, without even realising it. and where a woman has to make a compromise - one way or another - the kind of situation men don't seem to "get" (in both meanings of the word)

VS - fair point.

It annoys me immensely that the program starts by dividing into a men's team and a women's team. why not blue eyes and brown? the outcome is that if the women's team has an obvious characteristic (like, in this case, a tendency to argue)it looks like it's tied to their gender - rather than other things, including the articifiality of the situation

Oh I was SO disappointed with her for agreeing to model. She really should have said nfw, let's hire someone if we really need a model (which they didn't). I can only think she was in massive people pleasing mode and so wanted to win and thought that to do so she really had to comply. She really didn't though.

Agree re Karren Brady, thank goodness she pointed that out, the women on The Apprentice last night really were awful to watch. I really wanted to say "we're NOT all like that in business, really" but thank goodness Karren did.

The way the women talked over each other and made it all personal was embarrassing to watch.

This really really annoyed me to - why did she have to model - it could just have easily been a male model on the picture.

I would have told them it was inappropriate and if they were that keen they could have got their clothes off. I did shout lots at the tv last night.

But thought she was very good team leader although she told the one that he wasnt doing the pitch because he was basically crap and boring and then he did it anyway

re the arguing, yes they did plenty of that but so do the men.

My overriding thoughts were that KB and Sugar would not have found the bickering so unsavoury they been male. Yes, it was abit tedious but in amongst the cross words were some valid and relevent points that were overshadowed by the fact that women were voicing opinions in such a way, as if women shouldn't behave in such an 'unbecoming' way.

Oh yes, I agree about letting the crap bloke do the pitch. Why show her saying (very nicely) "you're not as good as we might like" and why did she then let him do it? They didn't explain that at all. The other bloke has much more charm and would have done a much better presentation.

yes what was that about - keep apologising for speaking - aarrrgghh

They seemed to be getting at Joanne a bit and i felt they were ganging up on her a bit - none of the others came up with any ideas at all - it may have been a crap idea but it was the only one

It really was a TERRIBLE idea but I don't reckon any of them have ever read a book. There is nothing easier for reading that your hands! You don't need a stand in the sand!

I think her making that point was awful actually. I couldn't help but think if she had been talking about a race or colour/ culture to infer that people were representing their race so "be careful of how you behave as you are role models" would be insulting.

I haven't put that very succinctly but I hope you get what I meant. I was also shouting at the TV when all the guys were saying "I'd like to see her in a bikini, do it for the team" or some bollocks.

Interesting to see she was poplular with them because she agreed to model. They didn't do a lot of what she asked.

I agreed with KB the way they behaved was appalling and I felt sorry for their PM who really had no chance of achieving anything with their arguing.
Regarding Stella I didn't really see it as her being overruled I think a product that was mainly aimed at women would be better if it hard a woman modelling it and so it made sense for her to model it.

I was raging at the tv when they were bullying her into modelling. I couldn't believe she caved in and did it. It was completely inappropriate and, frankly, made for very uncomfortable viewing. I hated it.

I was completely bemused by Karren Brady's comments and the effect they had on the team. They certainly went quiet for a moment in the boardroom and Siralan backed her up: "well said". But he then promptly fired the only candidate who had not been bickering and shouting the others down all day.

KB didn't appear to grasp the irony of that - she backed SirA up in Dara's show immediately after.

very true namey

I take your point grape, absolutely.

But it is so dispiriting when the women on a show like this just conform to awful stereotypes and I felt irritated by them. It's NOT ok to talk over people in meetings, or to make personal remarks and they certainly needed reminding of some fairly basic rules of business etiquette at the very least.

Yes, I agree WWW. But last week there was some extreme behaviour from the Boys team lots of bullying from that leader guy, name calling and sniping and it was not picked up on in the same way at all.

I can see why some people didn't like KB's point - and it is of course true that no-one would have made a similar point about the blokes. but - because she mentioned that her own team was majority women and that they didn;t behave like that - I kind of took her as meaning "rightly or wrongly some people - largely because the world's a sexist place - might consider you representatives blah blah". which I think is true. I guess she didn;t phrase it quite like that, but I that's how I interpreted it.

God it was horrendously sexist wasn't it? I was getting beyond irritated with the narrator repeatedly refering to the Synergy team as 'Stella and her boys'. Vom.