Wondering if there is a difference in how men and women are perceived in relation to marketing themselves

Dinah -

I can guarantee that there are gender perception biases related to self-promotion along with almost any other behavior, and the challenge is that once you have faced some negative feedback, will you be as willing to try again even though the context and company might be totally different?

I've never experienced any criticism for self-promotion other than from my wife who helps to keep me grounded but I don't go overboard either with "selling" myself.

Thankfully, I've had the privilege to work for a number of companies which tried to be as fair and egalitarian as possible but earlier in my career I did witness a few situations where there was clearly a different standard on self-promotion between the women who worked for the company and the men.

Being a visible minority, I grew up receiving the advice from my Dad about this in the context of race - I chose to ignore his (dated) advice and am thankful I did so as I've never experienced any type of race-driven double standard in the work place.

Kiron

Dinah,

My answer is YES. I do face the same exact comments: Don't be too aggressive, Try to listen before getting deffensive, and so on.

I believe there is no difference when it comes to marketing ourselves.

Something off topic: We have been looking for a long time to hire a Project Manager (Woman) to join our team but we could not find any who are interested in being a Project Management Consultant for Building Construction & Development. Many people wonder why we are all guys and some jump into conclusions but in reality, the effort is there but we can't find any.

Excellent topic! I was thinking of this recently.
In my experience men have the opposite experience you describe. Men are allowed and even expected to be aggressive when it comes to self-promotion to improve their careers. Men who act humble, don’t speak much and aren’t aggressive in the workplace are seen as ineffective and weak, and will nearly always earn the contempt of their bosses and colleagues – both male and female.

So, why are women told to do these things? You already know the answer: It’s a way for men to keep women in subservient positions. It is so effective because humility, quietness, being liked by others, etc. have long been associated with femininity, and from the day they are born women are directly and indirectly taught that nothing is worse than being perceived as unfeminine. Just look at all the TV shows and movies through the years that have depicted assertive women as strident harridans and troublemakers – bad people whose behavior should be avoided. When we consider that suffragettes a century ago were accused of being unfeminine for asking for the right to vote, we can see how men use the concept of femininity to control and manipulate women.
In the modern workplace femininity creates an emotional barrier that stops women from doing the things required to advance professionally. For example, women won’t promote themselves because they believe doing so would mean they lack humility, and they rarely complain due to their desire to be liked, and so forth. Most of the time men don’t need to say a word, for femininity’s strictures are powerful enough to keep women in place. However, if a woman begins to push past those barriers, men will explicitly mention the need to be humble, non-aggressive, etc. in an attempt to trigger a woman’s doubt so femininity can reassert its control over the woman. As a compromise, most women tell themselves if they quietly work hard their efforts will eventually be rewarded. This almost never happens. While the women are doing the work they make their male bosses look good, which leads to the boss’ promotion. Instead of the woman being promoted into their boss’ former job, another male is given the position. If the woman complains about being passed up for promotion, she’s told that she never displayed the assertiveness and drive required in a leader.

The concepts of femininity aren’t inherently wrong or bad, but they are often used to restrict women in the workplace. Unless a woman is working in a meritocratic organization, she needs to discard or redefine her concept of femininity in a way that enables her to grow to her full potential.