I’ve been procrastinating a certain task by bingeing FaceOff, an elimination show for people who do special effects/creature make up. Every week someone gets eliminated based on the results of what they created for that week’s challenge. It’s fun to see what they do and sometimes it’s just really amazing.
Every now and then they team up and work on a project in pairs.
Inevitably there is a male/female (both cis as far as I can determine) team in which the guy refuses to listen to the woman in a classic cases of “Can’t hear the woman talking.” Here’s how it goes: They get the assignment.
- Guy doesn’t listen to any suggestion and proposes his.
- She says something along the lines of “But that isn’t the assignment.”
- Guy does the verbal equivalent of “My idea is great and that’s what I’m going to do.”
- They start working and the guy gives her the shit work or turns her into his assistant. As the project visibly goes off course, she makes suggestions or tries to find ways to fix the looming disaster.
- Guy: This is my idea and it is great.”
- The judges say, But this result was not the assignment. Why didn’t you do — swear to dog– most if not all of the things the woman suggested.
In the after interview they never show the guy acknowledging that he should have listened to his teammate. And the judges very often mention what a shame it is that the woman didn’t make herself heard. They NEVER say, what a shame the guy didn’t listen to his teammate.
JFC. The problem is not the woman and her words. The problem is men who can’t or won’t work with a woman. Every woman ever in history knows this. I wish all the contestants would be told about this common dynamic and warned about the consequences. And if the judges see this happening, they should send the guy home. Not the woman who kept trying to save their project.
It never fails. Every single team project ends up with a team that has this dynamic.