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My daughter is an adult now, Thanks Be to God. And while that means I still worry about her, I don’t have to worry about her near as much as I did when she was a little girl, and then a teenager, and then a college student. Having been a cop, I suppose my sense of hypervigilance was tuned to the extreme. I’ve seen and heard some things that led me to the conclusion that the world can be dangerous if your head is not on a swivel. I’ve never rationalized my need to pay attention to my surroundings. I’ve always asked (and constantly reminded) her to always pay attention to her safety, not take chances, or make bad decisions based on not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings. I told her, “If you don’t want to go to a party or you don’t want to accept a drink from some unknown guy in the bar, then say so.” When she would say, “Oh Dad, you’re overreacting, I’ll be fine.” I would smile and say, “I’m sure you will. I trust your judgment. But pay attention to the people around you anyway, because stuff happens.”
That the sense of how dangerous the world can be is perceived so differently between men and women is startling. The majority of men go through their lives not thinking about their safety at nearly any point in their days, while the majority of women think about this regularly, if not constantly. If you’re a man and you step into an elevator in a parking garage with another man you do not know, your first thought is usually not about if this man is going to attack you. If you’re a woman, it may very well be your first and only thought, throughout the short (and often uncomfortable) duration of that ride.
If you’re a man and you drive to the mall and park in one of the outer rows on a Saturday night, you don’t usually think about your safety as you walk the distance from your car to the entrance. You believe you can handle yourself and besides what are the chances that someone would try to mug you or carjack you as you climbed out of your car? If you’re a woman, both of those things, and worse, are likely on your mind as you walk away from the relative safety of your car to the relative safety of the indoor mall.
There is a quote that has made the rounds around the Internet and social media, which has been attributed to various women. In essence, it says, “A man’s biggest fear is that a woman will laugh at him. A woman’s biggest fear is that a man will kill her.” As a man, it’s stunning and sad for me to read this statement. Yet, most of my female friends hear the quote and nod their heads and agree with it. If you’re a woman and you’re reading this, you’re probably agreeing. If you’re a man and you’re reading this, you’re probably shaking your head in disbelief or saying some version of “Really? No way! I’m a good guy. I treat women with respect. I know my boundaries. I don’t try to pose a threat to any woman. Why would they think that about me?”
Okay, good for you, but stop patting yourself on the back because that’s how it should be; you’re supposed to be careful and polite around women, especially those you don’t know. But most women you know have their eyes up, all the time, when they are out in public places where they are not always comfortable with their safety. Most men don’t know, or worse, don’t care that this is and always has been true.
So back in my daughter’s teenage days, all the stories I saw or heard about, or experienced in police work led me to create four rules for her safety and success.
Rule Number One: Some men are pigs.
What I’ve written above and what you’ll read below should explain why I feel this way. The fact that men of many ages still whistle at women in the street, or worse, pull over in their cars and try to talk to them as they walk past, or say things to their faces or online that they would fight someone who said the same to their mother, daughter, girlfriend, or wife, pains me to no end. Some males have not appeared to have evolved much as our species crawled out of the caves and for that reason, many women continue to be afraid of some of us, or at least wary around most of us.
The ancient assumption that a solitary women walking alone would find it appealing to be catcalled by strange men, especially men in groups, is one that many men just don’t understand. But would they ever say, “Oh yeah, that always works for me. I get all of my dates that way. I met my wife by shouting obscene things at her as she walked past me as I was leaning against a building eating my lunch”? Of course not. The whole premise that this is appropriate behavior around women of any age is ridiculous.
Rule Number Two: People judge you by the clothes you wear.
This rule has what appears to be a built-in bias attached to it, but hear me out lest ye judge first. Clothing and related accessories create an impression. What you wear slots you in people’s minds, whether it’s a potential date, a hiring panel, or your future spouse’s parents.
If you’re a man, you don’t need to wear a three-piece suit (that’s a vest, coat, and pants for you clothing novices) to a spring baseball game. Ladies, no need for a ball gown to your company’s summer barbecue. But the simple fact is that people judge you by the clothes you wear, including your visible tattoos and piercings (beyond just your ear lobes, plugs exempted), and any related accessories (hats, purple and green-striped hair, etc).
Wear an all-camouflage hunting outfit and carry a big camo backpack into an office building and you’re going to get some hard looks from the security guards. If you wear to your job interview to be a bank teller what you’d wear to the dance club on Saturday night, don’t be surprised if you don’t get the job. Dress for an office job interview like you’re going to the beach and don’t expect to start there on Monday.
Dress for the place you’ll be going to, for the plain and simple purpose of fitting in with the people in that place. Wearing sweats or yoga pants to a business meeting, even on a Saturday, is just wrong, even if a lot of other people do it. Don’t be like a lot of other people. Dress for the success you want, which is slightly more upscale than everyone else. Once you’re in charge, you can set the tone, but until then, don’t stand out in a bad way by being the person people roll their eyes about or make jokes about after you’ve left the room. Express your personality with clothing in a way that doesn’t create a negative impression.
We all have biases about these things, but clothing dictates first impressions. Chew gum, wear your sunglasses or your baseball cap during a job interview, and I’d bet the ranch you probably won’t get the job (unless it’s for a position selling gum, sunglasses, or baseball hats). Complain to everyone about covert bias or value judging or discrimination all you want, but you probably still won’t get the job.
Both men and women can be cruel to each other in this regard, but women are often judged more seriously on their clothing and how it relates to the possible quality of their work. Visual stereotypes exist and sometimes they exist for historic reasons. Don’t make it easy for people to stereotype you based on questionable clothing choices. Unless you’re a famous Hollywood, New York, or Parisian designer, dress for the part you need to play in the role you play in your work life.
Rule Number Three: People judge you first by the way you speak and then by the way you write.
Assumptions about intelligence are not often nice, but they can be true. If you cannot communicate out loud or on paper, it’s simply going to hold you back from significant career success. Talking with plenty of “uh, you know, and like, and he’s all and she’s all and then I was like and then she was like, and all…etc.,” is not going to impress the person who is considering hiring you.
Lazy speech usually means lazy writing habits. People judge you by the words you use, verbally and visually. Putting emoticons, emojis, slang, and abbreviations is fine when you’re texting friends and family who know your coded language. It doesn’t work in a professional environment where what you write may have historic, legal, or permanent significance. Spell check your emails (including the subject line) and make sure when you read it aloud it makes sense and sounds like someone who paid attention in English class wrote it. Which leads me to my last rule.
Rule Number Four: Education divides the world.
This last one is connected to the previous one, to be sure. You don’t have to have a college degree or even a high school diploma to be a success in life and business. We’ve all heard how Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg were college dropouts. To this I often say, “Yes, but they are the exception and not the rule. And (to people who aren’t currently running high-tech companies), you ain’t them.”
Finish high school if at all possible, and either get your two or four-year college degree, a specialized certificate in a field, or learn a hands-on trade that you can monetize. Having a degree or a certificate in any field tells potential employers a few important things: this person can finish what he or she starts; this person can meet deadlines and work in teams to do so; this person has been taught to think, speak, and write critically. These are the people who get hired and succeed.
I told my daughter I have never had to use the algebra, calculus, or philosophy I learned at my university, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t useful to have learned those things to prove to others I can think.
I told these four rules to her when she was about 13, always a dangerous age when a new teenager’s puberty, hormones, and defiance mix together into a stew of tension aimed at his or her parents. She survived and thrived. I’d like to think I had a small part to play in her safety and success, based on her adaptation of these Four Rules.
