'Big Girls Don't Cry'

article by STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM here.

 

WHEN women first joined the executive ranks of corporate America a generation ago, they donned sober slacks and button-down shirts. They carried standard-issue briefcases and adopted their male colleagues' stoicism.

More than two decades later, women have stopped trying to behave like men, trading in drab briefcases for handbags and embracing men's wear only if it is tailored to their curves. Yet there is one taboo from the earlier, prefeminist workplace that endures: women are not allowed to cry at the office. It is a potentially career-marring mistake that continues to be seen as a sign of weakness or irrationality, no less by women themselves than by men.