30· Sorry Is NOT The Hardest Word
Podcast show notes
Welcome to this week's episode!
This week, we're talking about apologies.
Specifically, we're exploring the common perception that women apologise more than men, why this is, and if it's even true.
Here are the highlights
(02:38) Gender differences
(03:12) Why do we apologise?
(06:10) Apology Study
(08:32) Weakness
Get my guide to being heard here
Why women apologize more than men: gender differences in thresholds for perceiving offensive behavior
Crossing gender stereotypes can make apologies more effective
Sorry, but it’s time for women to stop apologising so much
Connect with Ruth
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Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfil your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity, or your resilience.
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Thank you for being here with me today. I'm really sorry to Elton John but sorry is not the hardest word. We repeatedly hear women talking about how they over apologise, there's loads of stuff in the press. And we read things and hear things on courses as well. You know, I've been on courses where people have talked about this, about the fact that women say sorry too much, and that that kind of puts us in some kind of weak or perilous kind of situation. And I guess what we're going to explore today is whether that's actually true.
So first of all, why do we apologise? Well, generally, we're trying to maintain harmony, either, you know, maybe by pre-empting conflict, or we're trying to restore harmony. Generally, you know, there's been some sort of upset and we're apologising. It can show us taking responsibility for something, you know, it could be something quite serious. Or it could be just a social niceties, you know, oh sorry, I bumped your arm, that sort of sorry.
I remember being almost laughed out of a shop in China, when I first went over there, because I was constantly seeing sorry and thank you, which were, at that point probably about the only two words I knew in Mandarin. And it was just socially not something that was done in their culture, you know, someone who was working in a shop was there to serve you. And therefore, they, their perception was they should be thanking you for your custom and saying sorry if they weren't able to kind of meet your needs. And so you know, it can be a real cultural kind of difference in this sort of stuff.
But generally, in, in the Western world, we're led to believe that women apologise more than men. And there's a lot of stuff out there around that. And most of the research I've come across, I've done quite a lot of research during this episode and it's been really interesting. I kind of may have gone down the rabbit holes along the way. But most of the research I've come across suggests that, yes, actually, we do apologise more than men. But what's less well known is that in some of the most in depth studies, where researchers are actually observing behaviour, rather than people self reporting kind of what's happened, what they have witnessed is that women actually apologise more to other women than they do to men, which I found absolutely fascinating.
And some researchers believe that the purpose and the intent around women apologising is quite different to mens, you know, we tend to apologise more around, you know, touching offences, know you bump somebody or that sort of thing, those little social niceties that I've talked about, or talking
offences where you talk over someone and you stop yourself, you go sorry. Or someone talks over you, and somehow you find yourself apologising for that. That happens to let's face it.
It kind of left me wondering, a little bit, you know, is this because we are more aware of those offences because we suffer them more often, you know, being talked over by men or unwanted physical attention, usually also from men. You know, maybe it is that women suffered more offence in these areas, and therefore we're more aware of it. And therefore, we're more responsive if we are concerned that we might have offended other people.
I didn't find anything actually, that answered that question. So I kind of, it's just something that I'm wondering about about a bit. But where does power and authority can come into this because this is where we can hear a lot about it. You know, the popular perception is that somehow women apologise more because they are more deferential and timid somehow, and that that's the way that the power dynamic can it can sit. But I'm not convinced actually, that that's the whole of it.
The more that I've read around this I don't think it's nearly as simple as that. The research that I've been reading shows actually that women are more motivated to apologise out of concern for the feelings of others. And certainly, that's probably because we’re expected, you know, in society to be more caring, more alert to the feelings and the way of being of other people and how they may experience things. But somehow that's kind of coming out as that's a bad thing. Or in some way, a weakness, and so kind of women apologising is seen as something that makes us weak. But really, is that really true? I'm not convinced, I'm really genuinely not convinced by that.
Caring for other people should be a positive thing. And, you know, in the workplace, being able to show care and understanding of other people and their potential experience of you, you have to be aware of when you might cause someone offence is surely, surely, that can't be a bad thing. It was a really interesting study about pretty much exactly that. But what they did was they took it a little bit further, and they they did some work around how people respond to a manager or a leader apologising. And this study showed, fascinatingly that when a woman apologised in the workplace, she was given credit for it. But it was expected that she would apologise. Whereas when a man apologised, he was given more credit, because it was unexpected.
People don't expect men to be apologetic. And so, you know, it was like, oh wow, you know, the boss apologised to me, that's amazing. But if it was a female manager, or leader who did apologised, it was expected that she would do that. And I kind of find that really interesting because, well, number one, I'm betting that you just rolled your eyes because I think I did when I read it, but also what we're actually seeing when we see that if we think about the fact that apologising to someone is taking responsibility for their own behaviour, I mean how fascinating is that?
We therefore we expect women, not necessarily to be deferential, but we can look at it as we expect women to take responsibility for their behaviour. And for their impact on others. We expect them to apologise if offence has been given. But we don't expect that of men. So this just really left me kind of thinking, well, maybe actually, the answer to this is not about women apologising less. You know, we're continually hearing this, I read somewhere that Google Chrome had an extension, not that long ago, that you could plug into your email that would show you when they felt that you were writing a female email and make suggestions that so that you could tone down the female language that you were using, so as not to appear weak.
What is that all about? Since when do we believe that taking responsibility for your behaviour and being aware of the behaviour, the impact of your behaviour on other people is weakness? You know, these things are obviously much more subtle, you know, in our language and our behaviour. But when you think about what the underlying belief is that that shows, what are we doing? So to me, maybe the answer to this is not about us apologising less, maybe what we need to be doing is normalising men apologising more, that actually, that's what needs to become the norm. That apology doesn't mean weakness, that us saying sorry to somebody for something doesn't give away power. That actually we have the right to expect an apology if we have suffered kind of some sort of offence.
Now, this isn't the episode that I thought I was going to record. I mean, I genuinely when I kind of thought about you this
thing about saying sorry. I really expected to do the research and have the usual we need to say sorry less mantra kind of that we hear confirmed. But actually now I find myself thinking well maybe what we need to be doing is expecting, expecting other people to take responsibility and to be apologising a bit more. And, you know, maybe that means creating an atmosphere in which everybody feels able to do that.
Maybe what women need to do is just be really clear with ourselves about why we're seeing sorry, what we're saying sorry for and to who, and is that appropriate? Do we feel actually that that's right, that that is something that we need to be responsible for, and that that's the person to whom we should be apologising. Other than that, actually, maybe we're the ones that got it sorted.
I'd really love to know what you think because this genuinely was something where I've kind of gone into this and really sort of had my my perceptions challenged, and my expectations challenged. And it's been a really fascinating read. I'll put some links that I found really helpful in the show notes so you can have a bit more of a read. And if you want to think a bit more about how you get your voice heard in the workplace I've got a free download on exactly that. You'll find the link in the show notes. Have a great week. Take care, speak to you next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram @resonate leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood. I’d absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
