What likeability has to do with the way you're seen and heard

Before we begin, likeability is spelled likability in some parts of the English-speaking world. I’m Australian and we use British English so you’re going to see ‘likeability’ unless autocorrect intervenes without my noticing.

I was pretty quiet in my early primary school years. I had a small group of friends and I enjoyed learning, so I paid attention in class and focused on my education. 

In year five, I became more sociable. I found my voice and a new level of confidence. I felt filled with ideas and was excited to share them. Life felt full of opportunities, ideas, and joyful activities.

I was excited to participate. 

A year later, I was persona non grata in the schoolyard. In that short period, I had apparently taken things too far. I was doing well academically, I had been assigned one of the primary roles in the school musical, and I had attained the position of goal attack in the school’s netball team. Most importantly, the boy everyone thought of as ‘cute’, had declared that he ‘liked me’ and I thought he was nice too. 

My girlfriends could stand it no longer. 

Too much. Too ambitious. Too successful. 

That was me. 

Hell ensued. 

I was ostracised by friends, spat upon, tripped up when I walked through the playground, and shouted at in the street. People wrote horrible poems about me on the neighbourhood furniture. I was being punished for enjoying the life that had laid itself out before me. 

As a kid, it never occurred to me that anything about that experience was gender-related. I could see that girls were leading the rampage against me and I could see that this was somehow connected to power, but I didn’t yet understand how females wield power in a patriarchal system. I didn’t know that: 

1. My ambition, or enthusiasm for life, was being judged differently than it would have been, had I been a boy, or 

2. That aligning myself with a cute boy didn’t just spark jealousy, it was deemed threatening by those whose best hope for power was proximity to it.  

I’m sure my friends weren’t conscious of this either, but that didn’t stop them from reclaiming power in the only way available to them. They employed an old patriarchal tactic often used when women threaten power. They declared me unlikeable.

When you’re 11 years old, that’s the ultimate power move. 

Had I realised this early on, I would have saved myself years of wondering if there was something wrong with me. I can’t tell you the number of times I wondered whether they had seen something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. When I decided that they must be right; I did want too much and should pull back, ask for less, be less.

My heart feels heavy with just how much self-criticism was let into my life through that experience. 

On that note, let's pause and make a quick announcement; to all the young girls in the world, please know this; it’s not you, it’s the system.

Years later, as I was finding my way as a university student, with far less confidence than that grade five version of me, Hillary Clinton became First Lady of the United States. Studying law and feminist philosophy at the time, here was a living example of the kind of person I might be. Smart, articulate, making real change in the world. 

When I’d express this to others, though, it quickly became apparent that my views weren’t universally appreciated. Everyone had something to say about her appearance, some found it presumptuous that she might have a contribution to make to government policy (‘She’s just the wife’ is what I’d hear), and many found her feminist ideas problematic (such as her early decision to not take on Bill’s surname. A decision she eventually reversed due to voter pressure).  

In short, she was not living up to expectations. She wanted too much. She was too ambitious. She didn’t ‘know her place’. 

It was inevitable that she’d be labelled ‘unlikeable’ and that eventually, those threatened by her would try to ‘lock her up’. 

It took me a long time to connect Hillary’s likeability problem with my own and every other woman’s likeability problem.

That year of being bullied still felt very personal. In many ways, I was still reeling from it. Unconsciously and consciously curtailing my behaviour to be more likeable to the people around me, determined not to become a target again. 

Youthful attractiveness is a loophole

When I moved into the workforce, I started progressing nicely through my career. Promotions came my way which I thought to be entirely down to doing a good job. Of course, that was a significant part of it. What I wasn’t accounting for though, was that I was also functioning in a golden time for women in their careers. Particularly young, able-bodied, white women. 

There’s a golden era in your career when you’re young and attractive but don’t yet have enough power to be seen as a threat. 

Because you’re young and likely, at your most attractive, it can also be a phase of intense sexual harassment. So, perhaps labelling it as a ‘golden time’ might be overstating it. It’s more like a tarnished patina of gold. 

Assuming you survive any sexual harassment in one piece (and noting the enormous shifts created by the #metoo movement in this area), a good number of women can do well in that phase of their careers.

Patriarchy loves young, compliant women. Their sexual allure gets them over the likeability hurdle and onto the career track. 

So there is a window of sorts, but you have to act fast. You’re basically in a race to make it as high up the career ladder as you can before you hit 40 or have babies. 

Let’s pause then for a second announcement; please pass this information on to every woman you know in their 20s and 30s. Not to put them under pressure (noting that many women are also getting pressure at this time to have babies) but to be sure they understand the water in which they’re swimming.

Becoming a parent, progressing into more senior positions, or ageing into the middle years, signals a closing of that window. 

A very small number of women manage to run the gauntlet to the top; Jacinda Adern and Sanna Marin come to mind. Both ascending to the role of PM in their 30s. 

The more common trajectory is to make it to middle management. The boulders then show up, careers stall, and the infamous glass ceiling remains intact. 

The competence/likeability dilemma

Much of the stalling is linked to the competence/likeability dilemma. In January 2000, a study was conducted at Harvard Business School called the Heidi Roizen Case Study. Students were split into groups and given an identical case study about an entrepreneur building their career. The only change made to the text was the name. One group read about Heidi, the other about Howard. They were then asked about their assessment of the two. 

The students found that whilst the two were equally competent, Howard was more likeable and someone they would want to work for. Heidi was considered selfish and not a person they’d want to hire or work for. 

Robin Hauser lays this out in more detail in her Ted Talk ‘The likeability dilemma for women leaders’.

Likeability has tangible consequences for the amount of money we earn, the level of job satisfaction we experience, and the recognition we achieve. Knowing this, women are constantly editing their words, making up their faces, keeping ‘in shape’, adjusting the tone of their voices, smiling at mansplaining men, and judging their bodies. Because every woman knows - consciously or unconsciously - that every time we uphold the patriarchal ideal of womanhood, we’re rewarded. And every time we challenge it, we’re punished. 

We also know that the more visible we are when we challenge the system, the more vehemently people work to make us invisible.