I'm not too impressed with this article. If we replaced women in this article with any other underrepresented group in the software business and asked that group to conform to a stereotype to get ahead, it would be considered offensive and rightly so.

Dave Thomas's keynote from Rubyconf comes to mind. http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote

I don't think that this should be about women flirting or not. It's more about women not behaving like feminine behavior is something to frown upon and the fact that men are generally cautious around 'prudish' women because they tend to attract harassment lawsuits like bees to pollen.

Let's be real, men will always congregate around the water cooler to talk about life, work, vices, and women. The woman that can integrate into the "workplace community" is generally of the more liberal type and come's of as friendly toward the male population. What the feminist girl-power types don't get is that a smile, a high five, and jokes of the 'horse walks into a jewish bar' kind get you a lot farther down the road of being likable by your male peers. This also has the effect of toning down our male tendency of vile language when referring to women, which is off course a plus.

This article drives me up a wall.

"The choices then are these--work within the stereotypes or be careful in situations to not activate gender stereotypes."

Really? Those are the only choices? Wow. Forget about changing attitudes or anything like that, I guess. It's like the Y-chromosome-exclusive version of "publish or perish."

And notice how it's incumbent on women to figure out what to do. Men shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about it. It's just too much to ask for men to maybe examine their biases, conscious or unconscious.

How about people make an effort not to judge other people according to stereotypes?

This article contains little information. Five minutes I will never get back.

Articles like this make me so glad to be in the software business...

Replace <anyBullshit> with "Does she ship?"

If anybody's interested, a paywall-free link to the paper is at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1397699.

And FWIW, I'm not exactly a fan of the article's conclusion ("work within stereotypes") that I should be flirting at work. In a work environment where you're one of two single women in a mostly married male environment, it's just not good form.

Anybody who isn't making meaningful contributions in favor of being self-serving is an asshole, regardless of gender. I expect collaboration from the people I work with, something that this article would consider "feminine." Fuck that.

And the most competent person I work with is a chick, but she's a freak of nature for her talent level.

This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode where the first officer goes in a 'personnel exchange' to a Klingon ship and the female Klingons try to flirt with him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrNVimz-F4

skip the first 3 minutes. bring your cringe goggles

Let's upgrade this concept: women should have sex at work. Sounds ridiculous/offensive/immoral etc.?

If the above doesn't sound good than women should just be competitive. It's equal opportunity. These articles take problems out of context.

Given how short and pointless this article is, all it can do is make FastCompany look like a bunch of chauvinists.

It's a secret story! Not about showing leg at the office! I get it!