"Men Help. Women Don't."

So says Susannah Breslin, and if you had had her experience you would be hard put not to draw the same conclusion. Link here.

Even if you are totally committed to a world where gender has passed into desuetude.

Here’s the story: Writer and blogger Susannah Breslin lost her editorial job at a website called: The Frisky. If you don’t know The Frisky, it is dedicated to women’s issues. It’s subtitle is: Love. Life. Stars. Style.

Meaning that Breslin has an audience that contains a large number of women. Breslin also blogs at Forbes, and there she undoubtedly has a goodly number of male readers.

Upon being fired Breslin wrote a post called “Hire Me” for her blog. In it she presented a brief synopsis of her experience and qualifications.

Here’s what happened, in her words: “After my post went live, I linked to it on Facebook and Twitter. I emailed the link to men and women. Men responded by introducing me to someone who was in a position to hire me, by sending me links to job listings that could be a fit, or by directing me to opportunities that resulted in paying work.

“Women responded emotionally — with support or sympathy. Men responded proactively. Women responded passively — or not at all. Every response that led to paying work was from a man.”

We should all be struck by the disparity. In truth, we should all be gobsmacked.

But how could it happen that the responses should be so stereotypically male and female. Were all of those years of gender bending for naught?

And how did happen that men are the more eager to help a woman find gainful employment? Weren’t we all told that men are threatened by working women? What happened to sisterhood solidarity?

Men read of Breslin’s plight and offered to help; they sent her concrete proposals, including one from a man who helped her find her new job as a copywriter.

Women, however, did not even think to address the real issue. They believed that they were being called on to offer sympathy and empathy. Neither of which are of very much help in finding a new job.

As it happens there is nothing wrong with sympathy, or, even empathy, because there are times when sympathy is the only thing you can offer.

We express our sympathies when a friend has lost a loved one. The expression of sympathy implies that there is nothing we can do to change reality, so, we share our feelings and stand among the mourners.

When a person has a real problem, one that might be solved by better management, it is better to offer more than sympathy.

When you limit yourself to an expression of sympathy, you are telling the person that the problem is insoluble, that it is like a death, and that there is nothing that anyone can do.

Unfortunately, expressing sympathy for a problem that might be solved is demoralizing. It feeds depression.

You see where I am going with this, so I will not leave you in suspense. Nowadays sympathy and empathy are the stock-in-trade of the therapy business.

More and more women have been entering the field, and as therapy becomes a woman’s profession, the emphasis has shifted on to more maternal, more empathic, more sympathetic skills. Or, at least, to skills that women are supposed to have in abundance.

At times it helps to have someone who is going to feel you pain. At times you suffer a grievous loss and there really is nothing you can do to bring back your loved one.

But if a therapist applies the same balm to any problem, she is also telling you that your problems cannot be addressed and that reality cannot be changed.

By now most people have gotten the message and they are turning away from therapists and toward coaches. Coaching is more practical in its approach and more positive in its outlook. A coach sees you as a competent person who can manage your problems constructively.

A good coach will help you to expand, to reach out into the world. A therapist will be telling you to pull back and to pull in.

In her job search Susannah Breslin happened to discover someone who was willing to provide some brief coaching. The man recommended that she apply for a job as a copywriter.

Breslin had never thought of herself as a copywriter. She did not even know what the job entailed. Yet, she applied and got the job.

Here is her description of her new job: “Now, I write Facebook and Twitter posts for an inanimate object. You are probably familiar with this inanimate object because it is an iconic American brand. I pretend to be the inanimate object while crafting the Facebook and Twitter posts that are supposed to be from the mind of the inanimate object.

“As it turns out, I am very good at channeling the inner-thoughts of an inanimate object. Or at least this particular one. This part-time, paid-by-the hour job pays more per hour than any job I have ever had.”

Has she found her true calling? Is she now following her passion? Not exactly.

Does she seem to be happy with her new job? I would say Yes. If I may speculate, she is happy because she has found a job doing something that she is good at.

If you are not good at what you are doing you are not going to be happy doing it… regardless of how much passion you have for it or how often you have dreamed of it.

As you read Breslin and quietly rejoice in her good fortune, you are left with a nagging question: what happened to the sisterhood? Why are women so passive, even inert, so unwilling or unable to help another woman?

Haven’t we been on a gender bender for all these many years? Hasn’t the purpose of this gender bender been to disembarrass women of the feminine mystique, the better to help them to work more effectively in the marketplace?

How does it happen that women reacted to Breslin with such utter passivity, with behavior that is almost a caricature of femininity?

It almost seems that women have been induced to deny their femininity, to the point where it can only show itself in a caricatured form, as weakness and disengagement from the real world of work. And even then, only when they are taken by surprise.

If women had known that their reactions would be published as an informal survey, I am sure that they would have offered much more practical advice.

It seems somewhat absurd, to me at least, to think that women cannot offer practical advice when need be. You will not convince me that a woman cannot function effectively in a world where plans need to be made or where guidance needs to be offered.

The problem is, women seem to have absorbed the lesson that such work is masculine and that they cannot do it and remain truly women. When it comes to their femininity, they have been thrown into a state of denial.

They seem to believe that they have to choose between acting like a woman and being an executive, as though there is an inherent contradiction between the two.

They also seem to believe that in order to gain access to the boardroom they must deny something essential about themselves, their femininity. Like the crazy aunt in the attic, this femininity can only show itself when it thinks that no one else is around.

Other parts of the culture have been trying to offer as role models women executives who are both womanly and decisive. Think Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Sarah Palin, and Nicki Haley.

So, if I were to offer an explanation for why only men were willing to help Susannah Breslin, I would say that the fault lies in our culture’s denial of the value of femininity and its failure to allow women to become women in full.