AOC, uppity women, and ad hominem attacks
Photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, official portrait, 116th Congress Public domain
Last week, a woman was outside her office building when she ran into a colleague, one she doesn’t usually talk to very much.
He walked up to her and spoke with anger about recent comments she had made in a meeting. She’s Latinx, and he’s white, and in the meeting, she had been advocating for people of color. Looking for ways to address some unfairness they have to deal with.
Her colleague told her she was “disgusting” for her suggestions, and said, “you are out of your freaking mind.”
She told him he was being rude, and continued on to her office.
As he was walking away, he said to no one in particular, “Fucking bitch.”
Photo of Ted Yoho, official portrait, Public domain
You probably already know about this exchange. Because the colleagues are members of the US House of Representatives, and the comments were overheard by a reporter.
But exchanges like this happen all the time at work. Slightly different contexts, and (usually) less aggressive language. But the same outlines, and the same motivations.
So I’m going to unpack what’s going on, so you can recognize it when it happens in your workplace.
Our cultural programming
From birth to death, our society trains us how to understand and interpret the world around us. In anthropology, we call this socialization. In my trainings, I like to call it cultural programming, because we tend to think about our brains as if they were computers.
It is through this cultural programming that we learn to see the world with bias. Among other things, we are taught how to judge who is important and who is not. Who is a speaker and who is an audience. Who should be taken into consideration, and who should be ignored.
We are programmed by the messages we received from society at large. And also from our own communities, our own families, our own life experiences. So, depending on who we are, we can end up with very different framings of the world and how it is supposed to work.
The Biased Frame
What is “normal”? What is “appropriate”?
Because of our cultural programming, we end up with biased ways of framing the world. Depending on who we are and what our experiences have been, the bias shows up in different ways.
For this example, I want to lay out the skeleton of the common Biased Frame that Ted Yoho seems to have been operating with, along with its implications.
The Frame
Women* are subordinate to men.
Women of color, especially Black, Latinx, and East Asian women, are additionally subordinate and deferential, especially to white men.
Women's competencies lie in domestic labor and emotional labor. Otherwise, they are presumed incompetent.
The Implications
Women should speak less than men.
Women should speak deferentially, not with authority.
Women should not contradict men.
Women should not criticize men or their ideas.
Women are responsible for the feelings and comfort of the people around them.
Knowing Your Place
In my years of research on interpersonal interactions, I have found that humans love hierarchies. We create hierarchies in every aspect of our lives, but especially at school and at work.
High school, middle school, elementary school. 4.0, 3.5, 2.7. Summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude.
CEO, Vice President, Managing Director, Director, Manager, Individual Contributor. Partner, Associate, Paralegal, Legal Secretary. General, Colonel, Major, Captain, Lieutenant, Private.
Humans like vertical structure and order.
And in my years of research on bias in interpersonal interactions, I have found that humans hate when it looks like someone is positioning themselves too high. That they don’t know their place.
English has a ton of words to describe someone who doesn’t know their place, who thinks they are higher than they really are. Like uppity, conceited, pretentious, arrogant, too big for your britches.
But it has very few words for people who position themselves too low – and they are positive words. Humble, modest, salt of the earth.
And what I see, again and again, is that people flare up with anger when they think someone doesn’t know their place. Real anger. Sometimes rage.
The anger
Understanding the Biased Frame helps us understand what happened outside the House of Representatives.
Ted Yoho was angry.
Because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not know her place.
She should be subordinate to him, but she is not. Ocasio-Cortez has the same job, and gets a lot more press and attention. For example, he has 49 thousand Twitter followers; she has 7.9 MILLION.
She should be deferential to him, especially because she is Latinx and he is white. But she is not. Ocasio-Cortez debates and speaks like other members of the House of Representatives.
She should speak less than him, with deference rather than authority, and should not contradict him or criticize his ideas. Ocasio-Cortez is in a different political party, and it is her job to debate the ideas of Yoho and his party, and to speak with authority.
She should be engaged in domestic labor or service work, a job “beneath” his, but she is not. Ocasio-Cortez has been a bartender, but now has the same job as Yoho.
She should make sure he feels comfortable, but she does not. Ocasio-Cortez’s job is to be a successful politician, which does not entail the comfort of members of the opposing party.
According to Ted Yoho’s cultural programming, Ocasio-Cortez is violating the natural order of things. She is inappropriate. She is out of line. She is out of place.
And things won’t be right until she is put back in her place.
The Equitable Frame
When it comes to gender and its intersection with race, the Biased Frame is not the only frame out there. There is also what I call the Equitable Frame. It can take a lot of unlearning and deprogramming to get there, both for people who were raised as male and for people who were raised as other genders.
The Frame
Women are equal to men.
Women, including women of color, do not need to be subordinate and deferential, even to white men.
Women’s competencies are wide-ranging and go well beyond domestic and emotional labor. Men are also responsible for competency in domestic and emotional labor.
The Implications
Women can speak as much as men.
Women can speak with authority.
Women can contradict men.
Women can criticize men or their ideas.
Women are not responsible for the feelings and comfort of the people around them.
The Equitable Frame appears to be the framing that Ocasio-Cortez uses. Along with many other people in American workplaces.
So what we see here is a clash of frames. Of expectations. Of norms.
But both frames are not equal. The Biased Frame leads to bias, unfairness, and inequality.
It relies on identity categories and pedigree instead of competence and performance. And it leads to bad outcomes.
The Hierarchy of Disagreement
In 2008, Paul Graham wrote about a hierarchy of disagreement, presented here as a graphic.
The best forms of disagreement are refutation and counterargument. You identify the central point, and you explain why it is wrong using explicit facts, quotes, reasoning, and supporting evidence.
The worst forms of disagreement are ad hominem attacks and name calling, which ignore the substance of the argument. They attack someone’s characteristics or authority, and are aggressive. They appeal to feelings and Biased Frames instead of facts or intellectual reasoning.
Everyone has been focused on Yoho calling Ocasio-Cortez a “fucking bitch.”
But when it comes to bias at work, what is more common and more interesting (to me) is that Yoho called her “disgusting” and said, “you are out of your freaking mind.”
These words are ad hominem attacks. They say that if you advocate for people on the receiving end of bias, you are disgusting and not mentally healthy. You are out of line. You are working against the natural and appropriate order of things.
Ad Hominem attacks at work
I hear stories like this all the time.
Where people don’t engage with the content of what someone is saying. Especially if it is a complaint about bias or unfairness.
Instead, they attack the person’s character and may engage in name calling.
A Latinx woman tells her boss, “I should be paid more. I have more experience than my colleague, and he’s making 20K more than me.” He tells her, “You should stop being so angry and aggressive. It’s not good for your career.”
A white woman gets a performance review that says she is “abrasive” and “bossy.” Her male colleague is praised for his “initiative” and “passion.”
A Black woman says, “I didn’t get credit for my work on this project.” She is told, “You need to stop talking about ‘bias’ at work. You’re just playing the race card, and now no one wants to work with you.”
A common result? Unfair work assignments, unfair promotions, unfair pay. Good ideas that go unheard. Competent people who don’t rise to the right level. And angry and frustrated employees who give up and leave.
Another common result? The ultimate ad hominem attack: punishing or firing someone for advocating for themselves or other members of their group.
What can we do?
The clash between a Biased Frame and an Equitable Frame happens at work every day.
And there is no simple answer. But there are a few starting places.
Look for ad hominem attacks and name calling. These are common responses, but are the worst form of disagreement. When you find them, do what you can to shift the conversation to the content of what is being discussed, rather than the characteristics of the person discussing it.
Look for evidence of the Biased Frame and reframe things. For example, let’s say someone is being called “bossy.” (And note that it’s only female-presenting people who are called “bossy.”) You can say, “Oh, bossy isn’t a good word. It suggests she’s not supposed to speak with authority. But I think she knows a lot, and I like how she expresses herself.”
Find ways to get educated about gender bias at work. Gender bias is subtle, pervasive, and often invisible. The more you can see and identify, the more you can address.
Bias leads to bad outcomes. But if we can identify the bias and take action, we can improve outcomes and make things more fair.
*For ease of reading, I use “women” as a shorthand for “people who are perceived as female.” Research on non-binary and transgender experiences suggests that it is the perception of femaleness that affects how people are treated and evaluated.
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