No, I Don’t Want to Turn My Video On

We are all watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, right? (And if you aren’t, add it to your self-quarantine list right now.) Early in character development in Season 1, Midge wakes up quietly before her husband every morning to “put on her face” and slips back in bed so as to appear #wokeuplikethis each and every day. She performs the reverse every evening, staying awake longer so that she can wash off her makeup and pin up her hair each night. In the show, it is a history lesson, harkening in a cautionary “look how far we have come” way to the quaint 1950’s. That we left far behind…

Today, working as an executive in technology, if I am not traveling, I am working from home. And, as of the most recent weeks, I am definitely not traveling. We are all working hard to flatten the curve, and companies everywhere are enforcing work from home policies due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. The demand on video meetings has been dialed up. Suddenly, I find myself in a situation where I am hair wet from a quick shower I squeezed in, in the same sweatpants I’ve been wearing for days, juggling my daughter unexpectedly out of school and trying to manage my life while also an exponential increase in work meetings… and hear a colleague, “Let’s all turn on our video! Stephanie, don’t be shy!”

Um, hell no.

Any time I find myself experiencing a primal reaction, like I have to this video-on pressure, I pause and examine it with a little subject-object distance.

Are video meetings sexist?

Here is what I have determined:

• Video meetings themselves are not sexist, though they may reflect a gender biased society. Like most of technology, the video meeting itself is neutral, and is imbued with whatever bias is coded into the system or its usage.
• The discomfort you might feel being asked to be on video is directly proportional to the delta between your “at home” and “professional” appearance.
• At a broad brush stroke, the demands on “professional” appearance are still greater for women than for men.
• This has ALWAYS been an issue; however, the increased focus on video collaboration has created a new kind of pressure.
• It is a well-intentioned pressure, stemming from the desire to recreate the sense of community you can get from our in-person experiences.

I have often joked that when I travel for work, I have to put on my “costume” — doing my hair, makeup, wearing heels. Because I am not Midge Maisel, I am not spending time putting on my professional appearance on the days I work from home. Wet hair bun, tank top, no makeup. That is the at-home me. So my delta is large. Hence, my discomfort is large.

For better or worse, my career image is one I have polished and built into a part of my brand, and the expectations of who I am and what I look like from my bio pictures does not match what you would see if you unexpectedly turned a camera on me in a random moment at home. For the colleague who is inadvertently pressuring everyone on the meeting of 8 men and 1 woman (it is tech industry after all) to turn on their camera, it is more likely the males look nearly identical in their at-home appearance as they do in their professional appearance. Small or no delta. I have a friend who worked on video collaboration software who actually left a button-up shirt slit up the back at his desk at home so he could simply slip his arms in, and be “camera ready.” I, unfortunately, do not have a wig and face mask slit up the back I can simply put on for the camera.

After my self-examination, I went in search of corroboration. I mentioned this to a fellow highly accomplished woman in technology, and she replied, “Wow, you just explained how I have been feeling.” This is real, y’all. I chatted with a male colleague who genuinely wanted to understand how to ensure he wasn’t putting pressure on his team, but still wanted to create that kind of in-person community video meetings should facilitate.

What should we do?

Here are some tips I have collected from my discussions:

• Formal meetings and informal meetings follow different rules on video as in-person. I once was introduced to an important client on a day I was wearing yoga clothes in my office because I was not prepared for a formal meeting that day. Video meetings are not different. If I plan to address a large group, or meeting with a client, I will set aside the time I need to comfortable, confident and professional on camera. If you are meeting internally, don’t pressure people to unexpectedly turn on the camera.
• Become self-aware of trust levels. How we behave with the people we are close to, and trust, is very different than the people we don’t know well. Looser rules and more informal settings with people we know more intimately lend themselves to using video to create camaraderie and team building.
• Understand the purpose of the medium. If we are having a meeting to discuss content, and someone is sharing their screen, why do we all need to be distracted looking at the videos of each other looking at the screen? If we were sitting in a room together in a working session, wouldn’t it be odd for me to stare at your face the entire time instead of what you were drawing on the whiteboard? There are times seeing each other’s faces in a dialog and discussion makes sense, and video technology is an asset. There are times when it is a distraction.
• Respect your own boundaries. If you aren’t comfortable, don’t be pressured. I have watched people pull their cars over because they were driving when asked to turn on video. If you need an excuse, bring up bandwidth. It is a real consideration. Not all video streaming is necessary, and it can distort the audio which is the more important element of the meeting.
• We are in weird times. Be gentle with one another. We are struggling to balance letting our dogs out, home schooling our children, finding healthy ways to fend off the loneliness and health challenges we are all facing. We are likely multitasking. While I can be productive on a phone call and also load the laundry, I certainly can’t if you ask me to turn on video.

And the last lesson is one I am teaching myself — blur the lines. I truly believe in being my authentic self in all situations — the me that values a polished appearance in professional settings and the me that wears leggings nearly all of the other time is the same authentic me. If I shifted my standards a bit, I bet it would do some good. As evidence, Instead of putting on a work shirt for a webinar last week, I put on a t-shirt. It felt good, and I don’t think anything I said was less credible.

Video meetings are supporting the very fabric of our families, communities, and businesses right now. Like every other technology that becomes predominant we have to learn how to normalize usage. My hope is that as we make the most of these platforms, we accelerate our right-sizing of our expectations of ourselves and each other in the professional video environment.

So, raise your glass in a self-quarantine toast to not recreating the trials of dear Mrs. Maisel. And, if you have other tips, would love for you to share them!

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.