Laura Danger

And if you can make room for each other and encourage each other to take part, that's really the foundation of it is this approach that this is something we are doing together.

Thank you.

Oh, 100%.

And I'll tell you that this is where in my own personal experience, I have experienced it the most.

Absolutely.

And again, there's research on this that a lot of times women are doing a lot of the non-promotable tasks, a lot of the planning of the office parties, of doing all of that connection work that happens in the workplace, even taking notes, the sort of stuff that you're thinking, oh, didn't we leave this 50, 70, 100 years ago, this gendered labor?

But a lot of times they call it it's the failing on purpose, but also failing at the menial tasks or the things that are really annoying to do.

And I'm sure as I say this, there are going to be so many people nodding along.

But think about how many bosses do not know how to open a PDF.

Like it's always the upper management who doesn't know how to manage their own schedule or do the tiny things that really make their workplace run.

Right.

Well, you actually did something really interesting there, which is you talked to that person about it and you laughed.

That is a huge, hugely important part of this.

If we are overly defensive, if you are making an emotional environment where another person can't come to you to talk about or problem-solve something—

That's when weaponized incompetence really becomes very harmful because you're making it a hostile environment and discouraging actual problem solving.

You are putting the other person in a place of not wanting to ask for help or not expressing how the harm is actually harming them.

That is where relationships erode and fall apart and where it becomes really damaging.

You really want to own your part of it and, yeah, take responsibility not only for problem solving, the actual skill or the task you're doing, but the emotional part.

I it's as simple as a household that reflects who you are.

It is a household that doesn't subscribe to outside pressures for it to look a certain way or be divided a certain way.