I recently completed a half-semester-long project for my Marketing 201 class. The first day of class, we had to find our randomly assigned groups. When I found my group, Group 7, it was quickly apparent that the group consisted of four boys and one girl, me. When my female professor was walking around the class, she saw the dynamic of the group and jokingly said to me, “Oh! You’re the only girl? Well, trust me, you’ll be the voice of reason for the group!” I naively and politely smiled at her joke, not realizing how accurate her statement would become as we worked on this project.
On the first day of class, we had to self-assign ourselves roles. One of my group members appointed himself as the group leader. He seemed to be motivated and detail-oriented, so I was okay with that decision. I said I would be the editor, so I would revise the work of others where I saw fit. I am someone who likes to be in control of the work being submitted, and like for things to be detailed and organized, so I was fine taking this role on, as I thought it would allow me to have a hold on what was being submitted.
We had weekly submissions that would ultimately be put together to make up half of the final project. After the first two weekly submissions, I realized that my work was cut out for me. My other male group members would split up the work that had to be done that week and then send it all to me before it was due for final review. However, the work they would send to me was either copied and pasted notes from Chat GPT or general, not detailed, or research-based writing that did not follow what was supposed to be done. And not only were the assignments given to me with no detail, but they also used to send me their parts at 11:30 on Monday nights when the assignments were due Tuesday at 8:00 am.
Me, wanting to submit quality work that was along the lines of what was required, often found myself spending hours in the middle of the night completely rewriting each section, finding more details and data to put in short, general sections, and rewriting the copy and pasted information in a more original way. I would also spend my time comparing the work to sample work the professor had provided us with to make sure the content and style matched closely.
On multiple occasions, I had to reach out to my group and ask them to spend more time on improving the quality of their sections and research, and to to make sure that their sections were more like the samples we were provided because I was spending a lot of time reworking and adding to their sections. The group leader responded to me and apologized for not putting more work in, but the others ignored my message.
Then, as the project was finishing and all the weekly submissions were made mostly by me, since I was adding details and constantly redoing parts, my teacher told our group leader that our group was the best in the class. I took this as a great compliment because I knew it was mostly my work that was being submitted every week, but then I got frustrated because these men were getting the credit for being the “best group.” If it wasn’t for me tirelessly rewriting and adding to their sections, they would be so far from what they should be submitting.
As corny as it sounds, I finally saw for myself what being a “woman in business” actually was. As a future businesswoman, I was in this class with future businessmen. I was putting in hard work, finding detailed and genuine info, and working to make sure our work was as close to what we had to submit as possible, and they were just copying and pasting information or writing what they thought was right without looking into it further. The male group leader was getting the credit for leading the best group, and my male group members were getting the praise for making up the majority of this “quality” group, but it was me that was doing all the work and not getting special recognition from my professor or my group members.
I struggled with my group until the very end, and for our final submission, I ended up doing all the revisions and a great portion of the work. They ghosted me when I asked for assistance the day before it was due, and I had to complete the portions of the project that they were supposed to have finished and never did. I submitted that project knowing that it was my work that I was putting out there, and that I was going to get us our grade.
“We” ended up getting an A on the project. I can rationally hypothesize that behind every male lead corporation, there are hard working females who are covering the male’s faults and putting in detailed and careful efforts in their work. Along with marketing knowledge, I learned from this course that the future of business truly is female.