I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that women who show off their, erm, assets when applying for a job are 19 times more likely to get to the interview stage.
That was the finding by French academic Dr Sevag Kertechian, a researcher at Paris-Sorbonne University, whose research shows that women who flaunt their attributes are 19 times more likely to land a job interview.
The premise of the study - appropriately unveiled at a conference called Appearance Matters - was that women who show off their cleavage in pictures attached to their CVs are 19 times more likely to get an interview than other women, regardless of how similar the CVs or levels of attractiveness are.
And this, the good doctor found, was the same for jobs in accounting as it was for roles in sales.
Although Kertechian expressed dismay - the words he reportedly used were shocking and negative - he wasn’t surprised and suggested, as all good researchers should, that the topic deserves more probing.
I thought all this nonsense was behind us... that the days of women being seen as meat hanging on the rack were gone... that we are respected based on what we bring to the job and the company, and not based on the contents of our wardrobes.
Clearly, I was mistaken.
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The results of the study probably gel quite nicely with all those other studies showing that men dominate executive or decision-making positions. But that’s a research paper for another day.
While we’ve made huge strides in women’s rights - it’s hard to remember a time when we didn’t have the vote, but there was - we don’t seem to have won much ground in the office. Which is why “sleeping your way to the top” became generally used in our lexicon.
We’ve all seen the type: the woman who wears skirts so short they don’t justify the name (you know what I mean, but I’m not writing that in my column); the woman who leans suggestively over the table to maximise exposure of her assets; the woman who laughs at every joke even if it’s not funny; and the woman who is just a tad too affectionate.
Frankly, women like that really get on my tits.
I don’t see why they should “climb” the corporate ladder any faster than me, especially if I can prove I’m better at whatever task than they are. The workplace is not a place for shamelessly selling yourself.
And that’s a conscious decision; a choice we can make.
Many moons ago, when I was in my second attempt at my final year of law (it took another year, but let’s move on), I took up a full-time job to cover varsity fees and other expenses.
I landed a sales job that was meant to be an administrative role. And I sold tools. Not just hammers and spanners, but hydraulic and pneumatic tools for heavy duty work.
That really is wading into a man’s world.
So, I had to make a choice: Did I doll myself up to make better sales, or did I go with a serious-and-knowledgeable approach?
I went with serious and knowledgeable and took courses to fill the gaps in what I didn’t know.
Sure, it took longer to make sales than if I had gone with the non-existent skirt, but what I earned - more than the salary that covered fees, books, toiletries and car payments - was respect.
It got to the point where I didn’t even have to go out to get orders. They arrived by fax. Or phone, or email.
I even - thanks dad for the introduction - got our company on the supplier database of a very large mining company, although it’s not so large anymore.
And the men didn’t leer at me; they respected me.
If I can do this, why do so many other women feel they need to flirt their way to the top?
All that does is make it harder for those of us who refuse to lower ourselves to the point where we feel we need to appease men. No, we don’t. We don’t have to prove ourselves through our bodies. Be proud, sisters, be proud!
* Nicola Mawson is the online editor of Business Report. Follow her on Twitter @NicolaMawson or Business Report @busrep.
IOL