Hope this helps

My wife deals with million dollar accounts and is leaned on heavily by super ultra serious business men for information that is imperative for formulating their business intelligence.  She really is a brilliant woman and there is no doubt I am better for knowing her.

Having said all that, she constantly has to combat emotion in order to continue to make rational choices when dealing with clients.  Early on in our relationship she was constantly saying *Because I'm a woman...*   this and *Because I'm a woman...* that.

She had firmly planted in her head this victim complex, that every person she dealt with in these male dominated circles had a bias against her because she was a woman.  She observed that women populated support roles - *worker bees* - as she called it and men largely comprised the decision making roles.  If she tried to contribute substantive perspectives to decision makers she was often met with resistance.  She verbalized her frustration to me by saying *I'm being told "Just go stand in the corner with your skirt on and we'll tell you when you are needed".*

Obviously those words weren't being uttered to her, but that was her interpretation of the reactions she received.

I pointed out a local woman in her field who's a very successful business woman - and asked her why this woman is taken extremely seriously by her business peers despite this bias she says is pervasive.

*Well she's a real bitch* my wife said.  While this may or may not be true the perception among women is in order for them to break the glass ceiling they have to be cunts.

I told her she had to shed this victim complex.  *But it's not faa-iir!* She told me.  She had a bad case of solipsism and victimhood running.  Through the course of our intimate discussions, I told her basically that men experience professional difficulty and *lack of fairness* all the time.  Not every man gets promoted to management.  Not every man gets taken as seriously as they want to by managers.  I related many of my personal stories about being shit on by bosses.

Everyone gets shit on by bosses - it's called paying your dues.  It has nothing to do with gender.  What was holding her back was her personal victim complex - not bias.

Case in point - she has a client - biggest in the firm.  The owner is a wise old fox - a southern gentleman with largely a traditional view on life.  Over the years, he has by and large defaulted all *serious* business conversations with the senior partner in her firm - who is male - even though she does all the work for him.

For a long time, this outraged her.  Why wasn't she taken seriously?  She expressed to me that she no longer wanted to handle this account because the old guy was a sexist asshole.  This would have not been the wisest career move.

I remember speaking with her that night.  Basically I told her what the man's personal opinion was of women was non-consequential.  If he's sexist shitbag - who cares?  You smile and work the account.  You do what you have to do to keep the checks from his office continuing to roll in.  Then when you get paid...  You laugh all the way to the bank.  If he wants to have austere convos over lunch with the senior partner - who he's known for 30-40 years let him - after all he's writing the checks isn't he?

I was a waiter for many years.  Many, many customers treated me like shit.  I had an iron smile through it all and gained glorious satisfaction from people giving me 20-30% even though they shit on me during service.  It's not fucking personal - it's business.  The question always is *What do I need to do to keep getting paid in this situation?* - It's never *What does the customer/client need to do to make me happy?*

This concept was like a revelation to my wife.  *Is that how men think?*

Fuck yeah it is.

So the next day the senior partner calls her into his office and asked her what was up with the account and what was her temperature on it...

*I just have to do whatever it takes to keep him writing checks to us...*  She told him.

*I knew I could count on you*  The senior partner said.

That moment was like a break in my wife's mindset and her perspective dramatically changed.

Fast forward to now...  It's my wife going on these business lunches and talking shop with the guys from this company - not the senior partner.  Why?  Because my wife shed her victim complex and focused completely on the task at hand.  Even though old habits die hard, she's able to recognize when emotion is interfering with logic.

She'll bounce shit off me and I'll tell her my opinion and that has been a very successful formula for her.

I think this story ties in perfectly with what GLO is saying about women failing to recognize their personal agency.  Women are not categorically inferior to men intellectually.  They have all the ability in the world to be successful and achieve professionally and personally.

What holds them back is a lack of personal agency.  In the business world, this becomes a glass ceiling.  In the world of sexual strategy, dating and personal relationships - the vacuum of personal agency has to be filled by men, because men desire relationships with women.  This manifests in a myriad of ways - from biased family courts - to the moving goalpost of rape definition - to high divorce rates - and so on.  Men are reacting to this increasing lack of agency on the part of women, by treating relationships more casually.  Men are becoming more self-interested because their increased agency increases their risk.  Some men are *going their own way* and not engaging in male-female relationships at all.

GLO playfully (as usual) says the solution is to treat women like crying toddlers and look past their whining and seek out root cause (Greek yogurt and walk).  He's mocking women to get them to see their own folly (heh negging).  My solution was to have a series of well made points - exemplified by personal experience.  Once I convinced my wife to put what I was telling her into practice and she discovered the immediate success in it - she was a believer.  Then again, my wife is probably more pragmatic than most.

TL;DR: You won't be taken seriously without agency.  You can't have equality without agency.  Men will increasingly become self-interested in reaction to bearing the additional burden of added agency in compensation for women's decreasing agency.  Although the perks are sweet in the short run, diminishing agency will create more pervasive barriers for women.