Because women are at a disadvantage in the workplace regarding compensation and promotion, it is not surprising that several books have been written advising women on how to succeed and to be paid what they are worth. Two notable examples are The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, and Know Your Value by Mika Brzezinski. Since these books are written by women who have become quite successful and who deserve to be well paid, they would seem to be eminently qualified to give advice on this matter.
After all, if you want to learn something about the game of bridge, you will buy a book written by someone who has proven himself to be a champion by winning tournaments. If you want to learn something about physics, you will buy a book by someone who is a physics professor at a prestigious university. And countless other examples could be given where it makes perfectly good sense to seek the advice of those who have been most successful in their field.
But is the advice given by successful people on how to succeed appropriate for everyone, or just for those who share their intelligence and ability? Back in the 1960s, when psychoanalysis was still in vogue, we used to hear a lot about the inferiority complex. We do not hear that expression so much anymore, but the underlying idea is still with us, which is that such feelings are unjustified, because those who have them are just as good as everyone else. That someone might have feelings of inferiority because he is in fact inferior never seems to be considered. For such people, advice coming from the most successful among us might do more harm than good.
We are all familiar with the idea of rating people from 1 to 10. I first heard of it when the movie 10 (1979) came out. Although the emphasis was on physical beauty, other elements of attractiveness could easily be taken into account and weighted accordingly, so one could be rated not only for beauty, but also for personality, intelligence, and so on. In any event, in the movie, Dudley Moore plays a man who becomes obsessed with Bo Derek, who is a 10. They end up having sex, of course, but in reality that would be most unlikely, because Moore is nowhere near to being a 10 himself. As a general rule, 10s are likely to mate with 10s (why would they settle for less?). Presumably, a 9 would tend to be attracted to a 10, but since the 10s are going to pair up with other 10s, he or she will probably settle for another 9. And so it would go, right on down the line, until we reach the bottom, where the 1s are paired up with other 1s. When I was in high school, I used to hear the expression, “Uglies for the ugly.” It always made me cringe when I heard my friends say that, since it seemed so cold and unfeeling, but I guess this pairing up of the lower ranks is what they had in mind.
There is one problem with this reasoning. It assumes that people will know their place and accept it. But as one moves down the scale, the lower someone ranks, the less likely he is to be content with someone of the same rank that he is. A man who is a 6 is only worth another 6, but if he has his heart set on an 8, he is going to be disappointed. A woman who says that good men are hard to find probably has in mind a man that ranks a couple of points higher than she does. The situation is summed up in the old joke: “For years I looked for the perfect woman, but when I finally found her, it turned out that she was looking for the perfect man.”
When we look at the opposite sex, there is no internal mechanism that adjusts our perception to match our own appearance. Though we be ever so homely, yet we still find ourselves wanting what is beautiful and way beyond our reach. If only our desires matched our desirability! And so, step by painful step, we learn to adjust our wants to suit our worth. Many will do so, and even the 1s will often end up marrying other 1s. But many will not, concluding that it is better to be alone than settle for someone no more attractive than oneself.
As miserable as all this is, the misery is often compounded when the 9s and 10s presume to advise the 6s and 7s about how to succeed with the opposite sex. Although the 9s and 10s are well aware of their beauty and all the advantages it brings them, they realize that their pulchritude is mostly a matter of chance, for which they deserve no credit. In order to be able to take credit for their success, as if it were something achieved as an act of free will, they are wont to claim that their success is a matter of style and technique, which they have honed to a perfection. And thus it is that those of us in the lower ranks are often told by those in the upper ranks that we are “doing it wrong.”
In the movie Kate & Leopold (2001), a tall, good-looking aristocrat from the 19th century goes through a time portal and ends up in the 21st century. He meets a woman named Kate, and befriends her brother Charlie, who is a funny-looking little-guy. Leopold and Charlie end up one evening at a nightclub, where they sit at a table with some beautiful women. Charlie tries his best to amuse the ladies, getting nowhere, while Leopold just sits there being the strong, silent type. Later, as they are walking home, Leopold tells Charlie that he is a Merry Andrew, a clown, and that is why he gets nowhere with women.
Now, I guarantee you that if Leopold had acted like a Merry Andrew, and Charlie had just sat there being silent, it would still have been Leopold whom the women were wanting. In fact, the movie might have been more interesting had the actors switched parts. If Charlie had been tall and good looking, but was a flop with the ladies, while Leopold had been a funny-looking little-guy who succeeded with women on account of his Victorian manners and aristocratic demeanor, then that might have been interesting. Not realistic, but interesting. As it was, the hapless Charlie, whom fate had provided a plain face and small stature, had to endure the additional insult of being told by a man both handsome and well built that he is “doing it wrong.”
In addition to the insult, there is the injury that befalls the 6s and 7s who take to heart the advice they are given by 9s and 10s. They think that by applying the proper style and technique, by “doing it right,” they can succeed just as if they were as good looking as those who offer that advice. To be at a disadvantage in attracting the opposite sex is unfortunate, but something one can live with and come to accept. But to be misled into thinking that one can do better, when in fact one cannot, is to be doomed to frustration and bewilderment as long as the delusion persists.
What has been said regarding success in matters of love applies equally well to success in the workplace. Brzezinski, Kay, and Shipman may provide much needed advice to women who are 9s and 10s, but for some reason underestimate themselves, thinking they do not rank nearly that high. Such women need encouragement. But here too, there are without a doubt women who do not succeed because they do not have what it takes, and, if encouraged to think otherwise, may lose the advantages of having a job they are suited for, and remaining content with that.
I hope it is not necessary to say that this applies equally to men. It is only because these books have been directed toward women that I have focused on them. But men probably get bad advice about being successful even more than women do. And given the still existent double standard, the results may be even more disastrous. If less is expected from women, they suffer less from failure; but as more is expected from men, their failure in the workplace is all the more devastating.
And then there is the simple matter of losing your job. All that advice about being confident and assertive sounds good, but people who are confident and assertive get fired every day. From sheer inertia, a boss may keep a marginal employee on the payroll, especially since bosses are human, and they do not enjoy laying off workers. But if that same marginal employee unapologetically lets it be known that he deserves a promotion and a raise, it may be enough to tip the scales, for no boss wants a disgruntled employee working for him. Speaking as someone who ranks far below the likes of Brzezinski et al., before you confidently go into your boss’s office to assert yourself, I suggest that you have about a year’s worth of living expenses in the bank, and a couple of likely job prospects in mind.
So be wary of taking advice from those who have been very successful, because it probably does not apply to you. More useful may be the advice of losers and failures, especially the ones who know their place in this world, and are resigned to stay in it.