As an LSE alumna from the
Department of Management, I receive email notifications when new blog posts are
posted on the department’s blog. Most of the times I dismiss the emails, but
this time, the title was too interesting not to dismiss. The snippet from the
email read “If flirting makes assertive women more likable, does it also result in
better outcomes in negotiations?” The blog
post by Dr. Connson
Locke was based on her co-authored research
paper titled “Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of Its Costs and
Benefits in Negotiations” published in 2012.
Since I am a PhD student,
therefore, I consider myself a researcher. But to respond to this blog post, I
am not going to fully put on my researcher’s hat, but rather my sarcastic
feminist blogger’s hat. I am not going to write about how theories contradict with
or conform to what came in the blog post or paper. I am going to bore you a bit
about my idea of the appropriateness of research on this topic in the first
place.
The blog post comes up with ideas
like “there is reason to believe that flirtation might be a useful negotiation
tactic”. To overcome stereotyping of a masculine white-male dominated
corporate culture, a woman could “soften her image and be more influential, a
female negotiator could potentially use flirtation.” I thought stereotyping can
be fought in other ways? Hmm… well the author clearly identifies flirting as a tactic,
she says “flirtation can be an effective tactic but only if it is enacted with
skill!”
For the “charming” research
paper, the authors find that “the degree to which flirtatiousness was conveyed over
and above friendliness predicted better economic deals for female negotiators”.
This is an important finding, but how does the paper handle it? “Feminine charm
appears to be a uniquely feminine technique for managing negotiator
impressions, increasing the proverbial negotiating pie, and, depending on its
balance of friendliness and flirtatiousness, determining how resources are
divided between the sexes”.
I posted a comment on the blog
that this research centers on the objectification of women and research should not
be driven by non-ethical Machiavellian approaches. I am not sure this comment
is going to be published or not. I don’t really care to be honest, because in
this age, everyone has his/her own social media platform to respond.
It is no wonder that Dr Locke and
her colleagues didn’t find much literature about flirtation in the workplace,
because things like that can be found in the what-not-to-do-at-work handbooks
that I would personally write before giving out to employees I manage. To
clarify, I am not against researching flirtation as a way of understanding how
people use it to compensate for their lack of persuasive negotiation skills to
achieve specific outcomes, and discussing how to use other methods in the
workplace to replace this phenomenon. It is common-sense to me that men can be
allured by women and seduced in the workplace, and it is also common-sense that
it can backfire and not always produce the best results, because it depends on
the playful man being manipulated by the woman! So, the hassle of doing
experiments to tell women that they can flirt to negotiate better is not a new
finding, but rather a new daring way of calling out for this to be used more,
because it turned out that it is statistically significant to flirt!
To talk about flirtation as a
skill deepens my disgust at the objectification of women, picturing them as
inefficient managers/employees/negotiators who are unable to achieve outcomes
in their workplace without using their body language as a persuasive tool. Even
though the paper mentions that flirtation can compensate for the stereotyping
of women as being bad negotiators, it actually deepens this stereotyping even
more. It is insulting not only to women, but also to the idea of doing business
or achieving anything in that manner, using what the authors called “skill”!
The other problem that is evident
in the paper is the way the researchers conducted one of the experiments by
giving out two scenarios to people and asked for their response.
Participants
read a hypothetical scenario where they were asked to imagine that they were
selling a car (worth US$1,200) to a potential buyer named Sue. They were told
that they were about to meet the buyer, who had indicated a desire to purchase
the vehicle pending the results of a test drive.
We
manipulated the presence or absence of feminine charm by varying the buyer’s
behavior in the scenario. Participants in the feminine charm condition read,
As you meet and shake hands, Sue smiles at you warmly and says,
“What a pleasure to meet you” You chat about the weather as Sue takes off her
coat and sits down. Looking you up and down, Sue leans forward, briefly touches
your arm and says, “You’re even more charming in person than over email.” Then,
somewhat playfully, she winks at you and says, “What’s your best price?”
Participants
in the neutral style condition read,
“As you meet and shake hands, Sue smiles and says, “It’s a
pleasure to meet you.” You chat about the weather as Sue takes off her coat and
sits down. Looking you directly in the eye, Sue says, “I’m looking forward to talking
over the financials with you and hopefully working out a deal today. Let’s get
down to business.” Then, somewhat seriously, she says, “What’s your best price?”
As a woman myself, I wouldn’t
use these two approaches at all! The first one is completely inappropriate and
cheap for doing to someone I am meeting for the first time. In some societies,
these words can be considered a signal for further “stuff” and men can start harassing
or coming after women after this signal is given. The second scenario is not friendly for
neither men nor women, and it is not “neutral” as the authors say. The attitude
is clearly unfriendly or too straightforward that people can hardly get any
good negotiations out of it.
If it were me, I would be
friendly and “reasonable”! I grew up in a society that has 99% of its women physically
and verbally harassed in the streets or at work on daily basis. Many women in
my society actually wish they were men so that they wouldn’t have to go through
ordeals of being scared wherever they go or because of whatever they say. I learnt
how to be masculine in the way I walk in the streets, but also friendly with
people who I should be friendly with. I wonder if flirtation is a valid “skill”
in a context like mine for example, if it is something women has to use to even
make themselves feel worse about their bodies and “charm”, and increase the
possibility of their own harassment by males who “misinterpret” flirtation!!
Even though the paper is
academically, methodologically and theoretically sound, its underlying concept and
message is simplified directly in the blog post by one of its authors: “Hey women,
flirt skillfully to get what you need, flirt like Sue!” The paper is a very
diplomatic and academic way to tell women that “We found something magical
about you that you can use to get a better salary or selling price!” I wonder what
can be the future research suggestions for such a paper or blog post, maybe
whether flirtatious women are more successful because of their “skill”, or
whether non-flirtatious women are doomed to be bad negotiators because they are
not Machiavellian and have a high degree of self-respect, or even whether sex
and drugs at work can help close business deals!
My aim out of this blog post is
to really think what we seek to get out of research. Is it a mechanistic
publication tool to be promoted, express opinions, understand societies, be
creative, think out-of-the-box, etc.? Everyone has a goal out of writing or
reading research, but what does the world need? My understanding of research is
that it should contribute to a better world, where “better” here contains -among
other traits- equality, mutual-respect, ethics, and empowerment. In my opinion
and with all due respect to the authors, these outcomes cannot be achieved with
research on Sue and her flirtation, unfortunately.
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In a nutshell, I believe the
world needs more ethical research that seeks to achieve a better understanding
of the world’s problems, and hence, people and research can work on solving
them.
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