What is hepeating?

The thing that's been annoying you for years finally has a name

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Hey ladies, you know that feeling when you come up with a really good idea?

Maybe you’ve just invented a bagel that toasts and butters itself, or you’ve finally figured out how to levitate your way through a pain-free PMS.

Naturally, you decide to begin drafting your Nobel Prize speech, but what if when you vocalise this idea, you’re simply ignored?

Worse still, what happens when your genius idea is stolen by a savvy eavesdropping male colleague moments later?

Well, not only have you just been humiliated and robbed of your chances at being the next Amelia Earheart, you’ve been hepeated.

Coined by astronomer and professor Nicole Gugliucci and her friends in September, the term has taken off on social media:

“My friends coined a word: hepeated. For when a woman suggests an idea and it's ignored, but then a guy says same thing and everyone loves it,” she wrote on Twitter.

When elaborating on usage of the term, Gugliucci used the workplace as an example of where “hepeating” may take place:

“Usage: ‘Ugh, I got hepeated in that meeting again.’ Or, ‘He totally hepeated me!’”

But before you start pipe up and cry that women pinch people's ideas too - which they obviously do - the notion of hepeating has been scientifically proven to be a predominantly male thing.

Yes, really. A recent study in the Academy of Management Journal found that getting credit for ideas at work is something men do more than women.

"We found that those who speak up can gain the respect and esteem of their peers, and that increase in status made people more likely to emerge as leaders of their groups,” explained lead author Sean R. Martin in the Harvard Business Review.

However, he added, this effect was only true for men, not women.

That's not to say that a hepeater is always male, as Gugliucci later added that she knows both men and women of colour who have been subjected to this kind of patronising treatment.

Plus, hepeating is something that HR manager Elaine Howell has encountered in multiple professional contexts, regardless of gender.

“I think its prevalence may vary according to industry and environment,” she told The Independent.

“In my experience, it is more commonly a case of individuals in positions of power with a considerable lack of self-awareness as opposed to direct sexism.

“As it is more common for men to be in positions of power, there are likely to be more cases of men behaving in this way towards women of course.”

As for how one can protect themselves from being hepeated – by a male colleague or otherwise – Howell suggests being assertive in the first instance, so as to avoid being unheard or ignored.

“Often people who are on the receiving end of this type of behaviour are more naturally introverted and may present their point in a roundabout way rather than being clear and presenting evidence to back it up, where appropriate,” she explained.

“If someone is persistently on the receiving end of this type of behaviour from the same individual, it can also be helpful to try to ensure the point is made in a public setting so that it is harder for the other person to take credit.”