On Discrimination — of the Sexes, and Not Only Them

I work in a sector of the economy where, among the people who make the decisions, men have traditionally outnumbered women.

Before March 8th — International Women’s Day — some of my female colleagues shared their stories: times they’d run into a sense of injustice that, the way they saw it, came down to their gender. They’d be in a meeting or a negotiation where the sides were arguing for genuinely different positions, and even with well-grounded, fact-backed arguments on their side, the men in the room would be forced to give ground and accept the point. And then those same men would quietly sabotage the very decision they’d just signed off on. It seems the male ego and status had taken a hit — a public one at that, and from a woman, no less.

It turned out to be far more effective to reach for a different toolkit: to smile, to laugh lightly, to flirt a little with the men before the meeting even started, slipping the ideas in without any pressure. By the time the meeting itself came around, the men would show up with an already-adjusted position, happily taking the “new information” into account. The result came not only faster — the decisions actually got carried out, with none of the hidden roadblocks.

At first glance this might look like a textbook case of sex discrimination. But!

As we know, most negotiations aren’t really about money — they’re about ego and status. And stories like these apply not only to women, but to anyone who tries to make their case through sheer intellect.

Take me, for example. Looking quite a bit younger than my age, I’ve often run into the same thing: at the table, people would size me up through a certain lens — “Who’s this smart-mouthed kid showing off?” Trying to deliver even the most reasonable arguments head-on would often meet sharp resistance, rejection, sabotage — at times even at the cost of money the other players lost. At some point I realized it, and I started doing everything I could to avoid head-on collisions of viewpoints.

When an important decision gets made in the heat of a negotiation, it means the “homework” was done badly. Ideally, the talks happen ahead of time with all the key players, and the formal meeting just rubber-stamps the decision that’s already been reached — the one that needed to be reached. No arguments, no one’s status diminished; those who disagree have to concede defeat. But none of it happens in public, and everyone keeps their face.

The world is full of injustice and discrimination — that’s a fact. Can we do anything about it?

May we all always find the right decision for ourselves! 😎