Stop Smiling At Work ASAP: Cheerful Women Are Considered Less 'Professional'

[x] Let the river run.

[x] Let all the dreamers wake the nation.

[ ] Be really perky at work.

Fuck what every career advisor ever told you in college about having a cheerful professional attitude. A study out of Germany’s Technische Universitat Munchen (it would be the home of Austen Powers’ Frau) has determined that women with super-:DDDDD workplace demeanors are perceived as less likely to perform well in leadership roles. Because when the uterus bone is attached to the smile-bone… wait, nope, doesn’t make any sense. Just your garden-variety sexism.

As awesome as it is to have an excuse not to put on a happy face in the overly-air conditioned bullshit that is Your Hellish Office (doesn’t it always feel like the corporate version of horrible guys on the street yelling “Smile!” at you?), this is obviously biased and silly, considering that dominating, distinctively un-smiley female bosses are often encouraged to “soften” their images to endear themselves to their employees. It’s basically a lose-lose situation — especially since another element of the study shows that participants expected a better performance from employees who were led by a man.

As if all this wasn’t vaguely depressing enough, the study leader says: “There is still the belief that men in leadership positions show more assertiveness towards their staff. The surprising thing is that some female stereotypes are more reinforced in the minds of women themselves — for example their tendency to accept a dominant leadership style in men.”