How You Do It

I've seen this phenomenon play out in a coupla different ways in my experience. And in one very important instance, it came into very sharp focus for me.

I don't need to recount the details here, but it involved my sales-y struggles with a very powerful clinical academic who was always busting my chops about my product and my company's founder "trading on his standing in the medical community, trying to leverage money out of his colleagues..." 

My partner/assistant - a strong-willed woman - just looked at him with a slightly cocked eyebrow at the end of one of his rants, and said - "Oh c'mon, Steve". And that was kinda the end of the fight - actually it was the end of the war, as the good doctor became very cooperative thereafter.

She "mommed" him.

Sometimes, it's basically as "simple" as a woman just standing up and saying, "Stop - what you're doing is bullshit - get real".

Sometimes, it has to be pretty forceful.

And I don't know why it seems like it works for a woman when it almost never works for a man.

But I'll say it again: Women will help us save ourselves if we can figure out how to keep our mouths shut and stay the fuck outa their way.