"Women's Work": When, Why and How Women Should Say "No."

By Erica and Karen

We doubt there are too many of us who weren’t asked to plan the party, serve on the recruitment committee, proofread the work of others, train, mentor, get the coffee. Often, we reluctantly volunteered, thinking that we were being good organizational citizens and actually just glad we were even there to be asked. How often did we hear a man explain, women are just better at it? Right.

Three female Professors at Carnegie-Mellon University and their colleague at the University of Pittsburgh, overwhelmed and overworked, got together and, over time and wine, realized that the hours and effort they were spending on these tasks (which they labelled nonpromotional tasks or NPTs) were actually getting in their professional way. Their male colleagues were using their time for researching, writing and lecturing; these women were overwhelmed with work on search committees. What was going on?

The result of their research is a fascinating book, The No Club: Putting a Stop To Women’s Dead-End Work. They found, for example:

• • That 87% of companies reported that employee work supporting co-workers, including diversity and inclusion work, was critical to the organization, but only 25% of them said the work was recognized in evaluations;

• That in groups of men and women, women usually volunteered for the NPTs. In groups solely of men, however, a male volunteered more quickly to do the same work. And, interestingly, in groups solely of women, they held off volunteering! Why? Because both the men and the women expected another woman to volunteer. So when there were no women in the group, the men stepped up. And if there were no men in the group, the women stepped back because they didn't need to cover for the men.

• That women volunteer more than men because they are expected to. And when they don’t, they feel guilty and expect a backlash. What is perceived to be optional for men, is not believed to be optional for women.

Importantly, this book is not a manifesto urging women to say no to every NPT that comes their way. Sometimes, as they say, it makes a lot of professional sense to agree to do the work. Or you might actually just enjoy doing it. Rather, their book is about taking control, analyzing the request and then making an informed choice. The book goes on to lay out specific strategies about how to deliver an effective no in a productive career-enhancing way as well as how to plant the seeds for organizational change.

So why are we, retired career women, intrigued with this book? Two reasons. We have daughters and nieces and colleagues still working and this is an imbalance that hasn’t gone away. Witness just one of the many comments in reaction to the authors’ WSJ article, Women’s Work Often Goes Unrewarded: Perhaps they are simply disproportionate whiners. Need we say more?

Second, the authors lay out a strategy for choosing which NPTs to undertake and it struck us that those strategies are equally useful in deciding what we want to do now. With their guidance as a guide, what if we asked ourselves:

1. Will it fulfill me personally?

2. Does it leverage my expertise? Is it appropriate for my position and experience?

3. Does it provide a good return for the time spent—however I choose to measure the return—mental engagement, mental break, money?

4. Does it fit into everything else I want to do or have on my plate?

We have written about the importance of saying yes to take us out of our comfort zone, make us try new things, meet new people. We have also written about just saying no to stuff we don’t want to do. And we have written, too, about taking control—when we have the ability to make a choice, not letting ourselves be pulled into commitments or work we just don’t want to do.

The message here is empowering. It’s not just about saying no, or even yes. It’s about why, when and how you decide to say either one.