Bridget Phillipson doesn't think women can be ambitious

[Imnobody4]

I remember this idea from the 70s, is this really the best she's got. It's ironic how badly she tried to belittle Kishwer Falkner for being too big for her boots.
I despair.

Employers have criticised new government guidelines for British businesses that advise recruiters to strip “stereotypically masculine” language — including terms like “competitive” and “ambitious” — from job advertisements.

The move is part of a broader “evidence-informed” strategy unveiled by Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, before International Women’s Day. She said the guidelines were designed to “ensure women can thrive at work” and to help businesses find the best talent by removing “invisible barriers” in the hiring process.

www.thetimes.com/article/c6da6c53-0d02-4e13-b98b-49f89985d71c?shareToken=8068a9cbfe249af3e6497a2597eee606

Does she want us to do the photocopying, making the tea and being kind to men?What’s wrong with women being competitive? She’s an embarrassment!

OMG, talk about rewrite the article.

Terms like competitive and ambitious do affect the number of women applicants. That's just fact. It's nothing to do with what women can do, it's what they do (or don't) do, as as it stands if you include those terms in adverts you will get fewer female applicants.

Would you prefer nothing is done to change that?

But what if you want to employ someone competitive and ambitious?

You describe what exactly you want from them. What do those terms mean anyway? If you use them, you're advertising for a man.

She's just plain wrong. The world of work is competitive. One job earning twice the money is vacant, people will compete for it. Women have to deal with that just as men do.

As a single mum, I compete for the best paid jobs because it means I can better support my ds at university, rather than take out a maintenance loan.
As a child from a fsm family, I had the ambition to go for a business degree and then compete for an international job. I wanted to offer my future children an educated and cosmopolitan mum and a secure home.

Women are as capable of being ambitious and competitive as men. What we need is more available childcare in colleges, and lower cost student loans. A female leader of the Labour Party would set a good example too. But that would be a step too far for the union boys. So we get Pillipson instead!

Of course women are capable of being ambitious and competitive but most would describe themselves differently, might even see a workplace that demands it as a red flag. What they do day to day means of course they can perform in those roles, but they wouldn't necessarily be attracted to an advert that uses them.

No one is saying the role or the expectations of them should change, only the way they are advertised...if you want women to apply, which of course many of the kinds of businesses that use those terms don't

Of course there is nothing wrong with being ambitious or competitive, and I imagine that BP has had to show quite a lot of those qualities herself to get to where she is today. But that isn't the point.

If the research and statistical analysis demonstrates that certain words deter qualified women from applying for jobs when they would otherwise be perfectly suitable candidates, then wouldn't you want to know that as an employer? It is only advice so they can ignore it if they are so inclined.

Of course, we can have a debate about the societal issues which mean that women are put off by such terms - clearly they shouldn't be. But if that is what the data is saying, what's the harm in highlighting this? Don't we want more women putting themselves forward for these roles?

If you use them, you're advertising for a man.

I don't think this is well thought through. If I were to advertise for someone competitive and ambitious then I would be advertising ... for someone competitive and ambitious. I have no difficulty imagining a competitive and ambitious woman.

Maybe the problem is that people who think they want someone competitive and ambitious don't actually want that at all. That would make more sense.

My point is this has been said since the 70s. How come women don't think of themselves as ambitious yet or competitive.
I take this academic research with a pinch of salt. The quality of much research is poor.

Do women only apply when they are 100% qualified, whereas men already apply when they are 60% qualified? - Salwender - 2024 - European Journal of Social Psychology - Wiley Online Library https://share.google/1egUhprVKzwlUkY9w

5.4 Conclusion
We tested the popular claim that women only apply for jobs when they are 100% qualified, whereas men apply already when they are as little as 60% qualified or – more generally – whether women may want to have a higher qualification fit than men in order to apply for a job. Across one experimental and three correlational studies, we did not find robust gender differences when measuring application intentions depending on qualification fit. In addition, we consistently found higher psychological hurdles present for women present in application situations, such as a generally higher desire for preparedness in women.

If women are self selecting out of potential jobs it makes more sense to deal with that issue earlier in life rather at the recruitment stage.

No the "problem" is that many more men than women would see themselves as suitable for that role, whereas if you describe what it means to be competitive, i.e. exactly what you're looking for rather than a vague male orientated term, you'll get more female applicants.

I haven't read the article but I think it's a good step in principle. I previously worked in a male dominated industry. Was not at all uncommon to see language asking for ninja developers or rockstar this that and the other. It is subtle but the kind of language that puts women off. There is a statistic that says women only apply for jobs where they meet over 80% of the criteria in a job and. Men will apply with 60%.

I am competitive, ambitious and high achieving. I would never apply for a role in a company that wanted someone 'competitive and ambitious' as to me, it implies that the work environment is dog eat dog, unpleasant, and colleagues prioritize winning over collaboration, which isn't what I want from a role. I would imagine many women are the same.
Also, there is a lot of valid research on this topic, picking out one study to prove your point would be a good example of 'poor quality research'.

And yes, we should try and fix this problem at the source, but can we really afford to wait 10 years??

Having worked as a recruiter a lot of work goes into using the right language to appeal to the broadest range of applicants. The advertising agency I used have been making these kind of changes for a few years now. Likewise regarding language aimed at different age groups.

Research indicates that specific, often unconscious, language in job advertisements acts as a barrier to female applicants, frequently causing them to feel they do not belong in the role or organization. Masculine-coded language—words associated with male stereotypes of competitiveness and dominance—can reduce the number of women applying for positions by up to 10%.
People Management
+3

Yes exactly that.

What does competitive mean anyway? It means a team that finishes above all the others? Someone who is more accomplished than other players? It doesn't really mean prepared to employ any tactics to win, or it doesn't need to.

‘Competitive’ plays into the narrative of workplace as hierarchical, individualistic battleground. Very masculine structure and values. Thus attracting the kind of ‘I’ll stab anyone in the back to get ahead’ knob-ends who apply for The Apprentice - and creating an inefficient, unpleasant workplace, where people are more focused on individual advancement than on delivering the best job for the company.

Maybe that approach works for some businesses. I don’t think I’d want to work for one.

Collaborative, effective, motivated, customer-focused all seem better terms - and more productive approaches - to me.

Doesn't it make sense to tackle the issue at both ends?

The last paragraph sums it up.
Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said: “Ensuring wording in job adverts are inclusive is very sensible, and recruiters are best positioned to help firms with this, but it is a complex, nuanced picture that is perhaps not best served by diktats from government.”

I am sick of the whole coded language schtick, its glib and easy but achieves very little in terms of real change. It's far more likely to put people's backs up. BP has far more important things to be thinking about.

Exactly this.

I’m someone who does research in this area and I’m very familiar with issues surrounding women’s career development. There is a lot of evidence which shows that women are more likely to be deterred from applying for a position due to the language used as part of the recruitment process. Acknowledgement of that doesn’t mean you don’t think women are capable or ambitious. It’s about understanding generations of societal expectations and influences.

Ugh, they’re doing this in our workplace. AI software is trying to tell us to take words like “strong” and “tackle” out of job descriptions/person specs because they are gendered. My (mostly female) were team were appalled 😆

Your team can be appalled but doesn't stop it being true.

Do you think women are genuinely put off applying for jobs that describe being able to “tackle problems”?

We are a 95% female workforce btw, so it doesn’t seem to have deterred people up to now.

Nonsense. Plenty of women are ambitious and work hard to achieve their ambitions and to do that they have to compete. What is needed is not to discard those terms, but to make clear that they apply to women too.

I doubt that I as a state-educated working-class girl in 1960s industrial Lancashire (father worked in a paper mill, mother was a school cook) would have won my place at Oxford if I hadn't been ambitious, extremely hard-working and also willing to compete. Only one woman candidate in ten won a place back then, since the great majority of colleges (all single-sex) were for men.

As I said above this theory has been going on from the 70s. That's approx 50 years. Can you enlighten me, has there been any change in results during this time? Are these just old results recycled over and over. How many experiments showing no significant difference have never been reported?

I suppose it just feels contradictory to me. We try to give girls the message they can be strong, ambitious, competitive etc, but then we’re removing that language elsewhere.