The Gentlemanly Limp Hand
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Reader C has a great question about sexism disguised as gentlemanly behavior:
I am a woman in a male dominated field (architecture). Many times I am the only woman in a meeting. All of the guys shake hands upon introductions. When it's my turn, they hesitate or give me a lame shake the tips of my fingers.
This really bothers me. I don't have any desire to talk football with the guys, but I think it's rude not to offer the same courtesy. I don't think this topic has come up before on Corporette. I would be interested to see what other women think and have experienced.
I haaaaaaaaaaaate that limp handshake. I really, really do. It's always seemed based in notions of gentlemanly demeanor, as if our frail little hands might be crushed — or a forceful handshake might be too passionate. (Ladies, clutch your pearls — did you see that handshake he gave her?)
(Originally pictured: Untitled, originally uploaded to Flickr by ginnerobot.)
I suppose one way to look at this is that you're being too passive in waiting for him to take your hand. Thrust your hand out, offer a wide smile, and give ‘im a nice, hard handshake. Not too hard, of course — it's not a bone crushing competition. If he offers you a limp handshake, grasp his whole hand and shake it firmly.
Readers, how have you responded to limp handshakes? Are there other “gentlemanly” things men do that annoy the heck out of you?
(For example, does it bug you when men wait until you get off the elevator first? Or hold the door open for you? For my $.02 on those latter two things, I view it as an issue of efficiency. If 80% of men have been trained to wait until I get off an elevator first, I had best be ready to get off the elevator first thing to keep the whole system moving smoothly… and hey, I usually prefer to get where I'm going faster, anyway.
And I've talked before about how I've felt like I had to be the first person to swear in a meeting with male colleagues.)
2021 updated images via Deposit Photos / everett225.
Some must-read business books for women — update coming soon!
Have to say after reading through all the comments… our crowd seems rather sheltered in its daily exposure. If you end up working in global industries with business travel, or even just hosting diverse types in your office, you encounter a wide, wide range of physical practices daily in elevators, kissing, etc. If you were to get so bent out of shape and squeemish about this stuff in such situations, rather than laugh it off (and try to get it right, when in Rome) you’d have a rough time of it. I have touched upon work today with 5 continents and find the differences interesting- and don’t have time to sweat my own preferences/reactions to little decorum things. Unless they are coloring my strategy for how to work an issue of course.
Yeah, the main thing I got out of this thread is that the majority of readers on this blog don’t realize that not everyone is, or behaves like, an American from the northeast. Oh well.
agree
Well, I guess the cooler weather does make us new Englanders more awake.
The elevator thing bugs me, especially b/c I work on one of the top floors of my building. I’m usually in the back of the elevator by the time I get to the ground floor, so men in front of me are holding up everybody’s exits by waiting for ladies behind them (myself included) to squeeze past them. I always think it’s weird that the so-called gentlemanly “polite” thing to do is in reality the inconsiderate option.
I hate limp handshakes, which I mostly get from women. I also hate kisses on cheeks during business. But the worst are the bone-crushing handshakes from my male german colleagues. I literally want to cry afterwards but have to look strong. It hurts for days.
I also work in a male dominated field (Construction) and about 90% of the time the men shake all the other men’s hands and skip over me entirely! This is way more irritating than a limp handshake.
On a side note, I help out with my company’s recruiting, and get tons of limp handshakes (more often than not) and asked my male coworker if he got the same handshake (he did). So, at least it was not sexist… these kids just have terrible handshakes!
Interesting about the handshake/hold the door thing. I like it when a man holds the door for me, especially when I have my hands full of my purse, my lunch, my shoes, my briefcase, and donuts for the meeting. I’m soooo glad that most aren’t like my husband, who just opens the door and lets himself in, completely oblivious to *anyone* around him.
I agree with you, Mel.How absolutely fricking RUDE he is. Kick his selfish ass to the gutter, I say. I open doors for both sexes, all ages….it’s a gift to people, a matter of respect and consideration. I don’t do it for effect but enjoy how amazed so many people are. There is a general huge loss of public respect these days and i am glad that I was born in the 40s and don’t suffer from that malaise.
Hey ladies,
I am a male and I have attempted going back and forth from soft handshakes to firm ones and received mixed receptions. I agree they handshakes unisexual and the days of fingertip squeezing in the workplace died a long time ago. It took just one woman to grimace or start pulling back from a firm handshake that in my opinion wasn’t too much. She didn’t seem like a frail weakling who I should pat with a feather so I offered a normal firm handshake. Unfortunately I felt guilty and awkward so for a long time I was giving a weaker handshake which I suppose could be construed as unenthusiastic.
My point being there are a lot of women that want to be treated like women in this instance and don’t want to have their hands crushed so they count on men to treat them differently than their beefy handed male colleagues. Then the few come along that for the sake of equality challenge men to a nice firm handshake and they are uniquely remembered but the rule doesn’t change just an exception was encountered.
Next guy who bone-crushes my hand I’m going to shriek and fall to my knees. What is it with these men?
Shriek and kick him in the knee :-). Much more efficient, they’ll think twice about it the next time.
Although after reading this thread I’m sure going to protect my hands from any stray lady lawyers too :-).
Knee him in the groin, I say. That is sick.
I think how people shake hands is cultural. I am an African and never used to think much about handshakes until I moved to the west. Back home, our handshakes are mostly not firm and that’s the culture. After living in the U.S. I realized that people apparently judge you from your handshake and I tried changing to a firm one. The other thing is that western handshakes are very brief and at first I thought that people did not want to ‘touch’ me for too long. However, when I am back home I do our traditional handshakes. The interesting difference is that the western handshake between friends does not seem to convey warmth to me. In my home country, you can tell when two people shake hands whether or not they are friends because of the warmth in it. Different cultures at the end of the day….
I have a male friend/acquaintance of 15 years who has one of those limp fish handshakes and it creeps me out grossly,every time. I have withdrawn gradually from the relationship. He used to come over to visit me a lot and I’d make these fantastic meals which he would wolf down (he appreciated them) and then slump onto the couch and the whites of his eyes would, revoltingly, roll back as he dropped off to sleep. He would never bring anything over such as wine, a dessert.As a person he is very cheap with his knowledge (of antiques). He did ,recently, come over with his lady and bring me a some squash from his garden but he KNEW I really wanted some of his garlic. I gave them 2 quarts of dilly beans and a quart of chutney. His lady looked at him and said..”That’s not a fair trade is it ?” No response from him. I mentioned that I was looking forward to his garlic . Worst of all he’s very, very knowledgeable about antiques but cheap as all hell when you have bought something and want his advice. “There’s only one thing wrong with it…” he said recently, when I presented him with a find .”What’s that, I asked” gullibly. “I didn’t find it.” he responded. I think he is sick psychologically, depressive and that’s enough for me tohave stayed clear. The guy is a BRILLIANT musician too but refuses to do what it takes to step onto the national stage …cheap, cheap, cheap…