Man oh man.
It’s Friday, I’ve had a helluva week, and I’m counting down the seconds till the weekend. I feel like Fred Flinstone, ready to jump into my feet-powered car when the bird screams to get me some big ole brontosaurus ribs or whatever the hell those were.
Remember when we talked about cartoon food and how I had a slight obsession with it? IT WAS TRUE.
Because I had such an insane week, I did not get to follow much in the news outside of the flying taxidermied cat and the death of Ray Bradbury. Needless to say, the news I did catch this week kind of left me happy to be out of the loop. But I did see something about a vote? About equal pay for women? Or something? And how it was VOTED DOWN?
I don’t know; I clearly didn’t do my research here. And for once, instead of actually reading up on it, I just charged into a conversation full of piss and vinegar and said I couldn’t believe that it would get voted down.
And a guy said, “Why is that vote even NECESSARY?”
And I said, “I know, right? IT’S 2012, Y’ALL.”
And he said, “No, I mean, why is it necessary because y’all already have it equal in the workplace.”
Then HAHAHA MY HEAD EXPLODED.
So I thought I’d start a catalogue here. Most of my readers are either working ladies .. not, like, Melanie Griffith working girls or anything, but WOMEN WITH EMPLOYMENT .. or moms who have been in the workplace at one point in time.
So let’s talk about how things are NOT QUITE EQUAL, wanna?
I have three stories that always come to memory first when I think of “women in the workplace”:
1) I had a guy bring me a bunch of bananas on a weekly basis. He said it was because he knew I was trying to eat more healthy, and I thought it was very sweet of him. Whenever I’d start to eat a banana, he’d come and find a reason to talk to me. IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME AND A HELL OF A LOT OF BANANAS TO FIGURE OUT WHY HE WANTED TO WATCH.
2) I worked for a manager who was very sweet. He was very much “above board” .. to the point that it almost hurt my feelings. He was so worried about the possible appearance of impropriety that he would not speak to me when I was alone. He would not allow me to close his office door behind me if it was just us in there. For my birthday, he offered to take me to lunch, but his wife would have to chaperone us. I could not be trusted, apparently. It was so odd. And it really did hurt my feelings, like I was suspect ALL THE TIME. (.. looking back, it could’ve been the bananas.)
3) When I came to work for the space side, we were a relatively small team. I was kind of a person who knew random bits of “how to”s in our office, and it wasn’t at all uncommon that something would malfunction and people came tearing through my office looking for me. One afternoon, a man came in, bellowing for me and me alone. He needed me NOW .. it was an EMERGENCY, he said .. and I needed to come right away. I left my lunch half-eaten and my project open and unfinished and left to go help. We passed about six other members of my staff – all men – on the way back to his meeting room. I hurried into the meeting room to about thirty men sitting in there. “Okay,” the gentleman said, “.. we can continue now that a girl is here to take minutes.” I SHIT YOU NOT. I still remember the flush and the fire that consumed my face when I realized that he had hunted me down because A) I had ovaries and B) that meant only I could take his minutes.
(#1 and #3 no longer work at my company.)
SO! What’s your story? We all have a couple, and I can’t WAIT to hear yours.
(Also – if you’re some random troll who wants to leave me insane ramblings that utilize the hell out of capital letters and exclamation points and articulated lists of grievances done to you by women in the work environment, I’M NOT PLAYING THAT GAME TODAY, DEAR.)
Boss told my coworker that women who are mothers couldn’t do my job.
Men who assume I’m a paralegal, not a lawyer, based solely on the fact that I’m a woman.
Do you know how many times I get asked to be the person in the conference room who dials into the conference call or sets up the slides or whatever because I’m the woman/most-like-a-secretary???? (Answer: it happens all the time, and I refuse to do it.)
Was I ever sexually harassed by a client? Yes. I don’t know a female lawyer who hasn’t been.
I have been treated SO differently than men I worked with. I don’t even know where to start. Well, besides all the stuff I’ve listed above.
I have a friend whose VP was chastised for sexually-harassing a female coworker at a networking event. After that, they just didn’t invite any women to the networking events. Only the men were permitted to network.
-R- wants you to read ..I’m Wondering
YES on the dialing/driving slides thing. Even if IT’S NOT MY MEETING, it’s assumed that I’ll do it. BLOWS. MY. MIND.
I am aghast on the networking thing. I have no doubt at all that it happens, but SHEESH.
I was an attorney working for a large, national law firm, and specialized in food and drug regulation; at the time, I was one of two FDA specialists within my firm. A client got itself into some hot water with the Texas Attorney General, mostly because Texas misinterpreted the FDA regulations that it had adopted as state law. I flew in from DC and met up with a colleague from our local office and reps from our client and the client’s parent company, and together we all went to meet with the assistant AG on the case. He was an older man, but certainly not old enough to excuse the b.s. that was about to ensue. Throughout the entire meeting, he was very charming and professional to my colleague and to the male rep from our client’s office, but would go all Mad Men when speaking to me or the female VP of our client’s parent company. Despite my having been introduced as the subject matter specialist, every single question was directed to my colleague. When my colleague would redirect to me, the assistant AG all but patted my head and then, in the most patronizing manner, proceeded to ask questions like he was a law professor dealing with a particularly dense student. The kicker was that, with every question, it became clearer that he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, yet he refused to listen to anything I had to say. That was definitely a first for me.
When the FDA published a guidance document a few months later stating exactly my position, a position that was so unclear to this guy for no other reason than the fact that I was trying to explain it to him while in possession of two X chromosomes, it took every possible ounce of self restraint not to print a copy, tie it up with a giant bow, and hand deliver it to that horse’s ass. Ugh…
Kate wants you to read ..Clean Out The Fridge Night: Barbeque Chicken Pizza
I was interviewing for a company which I had previously worked three years before. It was a management position in the department in which I had been a staff member. I had moved on to work at another company and finished my degree in the meantime. I asked the HR manager what he thought one of my biggest challenges would be if I were in that position and he said I would have a hard time getting the management team to take me seriously because I’m a woman. Why did they waste my time interviewing me then???
I know that there are lots of instances when things are not equal or right, but I have been lucky in my jobs to never experience that! But I am also pretty young and most likely will have a few other jobs in my lifetime. I just hope they are as decent.
Jessica wants you to read ..7 Days
Food orders. And this is a battle that goes back and forth, once in awhile we will belabor the point that anyone can order food, but it will soon come back to the wimminz doing it again.
The worst for me: Honestly, I’m still pretty pissed about this and it was years ago. So, my husband and I work together (I know, weird, it works OK for us though and isn’t strange at our company). We had a work function going on, required OT and I had ordered dinner for everyone. Took Steak Out orders, placed this big order, and I was waiting for it to be delivered. I got a cart and my husband went downstairs with me to wait for the Steak Out person and help me bring all the food upstairs. We had to wait in the lobby for a bit and when we come rolling the cart in the door, the entire room bursts into loud, hysterical laughter (the kind that you know is definitely laughing AT YOU) and someone makes some comment that made it abundantly clear they were all up there joking that we were off somewhere having a quickie when we were actually downstairs picking up everyone’s damn dinner. AND MY BOSS WAS IN THERE. He was in the middle of it. Sex jokes about me and then laughing in my face. Ew and awkward.
When I was in public accounting, the staff, seniors, and managers would routinely go to strip clubs with our PARTNER. Oh sure, I was invited, nay, ENCOURAGED to come along. I remember one time, almost giving in and going with them thinking “what would it hurt?” I am so glad I did not. I cannot express enough how very glad I did not. Pride and dignity is priceless and I would have handed mine over had I gone to that club with them.
cagey (Kelli Oliver George) wants you to read ..More Sensitivity Training….
I’ve been mostly lucky, because I work in an industry that is very heavily skewed female (at least until you get to the upper echelons of the food chain) so a lot of that bullshit really REALLY doesn’t fly.
That being said, I worked for a while in a division headed up by this old school Italian machismo guy. He was in his 60′s, I’d say, and he was…oh he was so typical. All the women who worked for him were “sweetheart” or “babe” or “sweetie” (there were about…40 women who worked for him. Many VP’s & Directors included). He would go on and on and on about how gorgeous a few of our celebrity authors were, and how much he’d winkwinknudgenudge love to spend some TIME with them.
The eye rolling part was that we all called him out on it, even in meetings with lots of people around, and he’d still just keep on.
I’ll try not to take over your comment section, but here are two more doozies:
1) I was sexually harassed by a client. I complained to my manager (a woman) and her recommendation was to “wear longer skirts”. Finally, I went to the HR of my firm and filed a report under the conditions that the client NOT be told (because sadly, I knew it would reflect on ME with the client) and that no females from my area be assigned to that client. A few months later, the woman manager sorta apologized to me when the client harassed HER. sigh.
2) when I was a staff member, a senior in my group got caught surfing pr0n at a client site. The client was pissed and the senior was removed from the client. Later that year, that same senior got a fucking PROMOTION to manager. I took the first opportunity to get the hell out of that firm because when that guy got promoted, I knew I had no career opportunities at that firm.
cagey (Kelli Oliver George) wants you to read ..More Sensitivity Training….
I worked at a Bennigan’s one summer when I was in college, and right after I had turned 21. Bennigan’s closed at 2am on the weekends, so a lot of time you’d get done with cleaning up at 3 or 4 in the morning. One night, some of the closing employees decided to stay after we closed and drink a few beers in the parking lot, so I agreed to stay for a bit. I don’t remember all the exact details but, the general manager, who also stayed, hit on me. I do remember being terribly creeped out. (side note, I realize now, what a dumb, lame idea it was to drink in the parking lot. With people I didn’t even really like that much. But I guess I stayed because I felt I needed a few minutes to wind down before bed.)
Andrea wants you to read ..State of the garden – 2011 vs 2012
I think I am a first-time commenter here, but this is making me so mad (He said that to you????), I want to contribute.
I went to a work dinner a few years back with several other junior colleagues and my boss. All the other juniors were men, and my boss was going around the table asking each person what they were working on. He got to me and – instead of saying, like he’d said to every single person before me, “Tell me about your big projects right now.” or “What are you working on lately?” – he said, “Are you pregnant?”
Right there. In front of everyone. I was not – nor have I ever been – pregnant and I did NOT discuss my family plans with the boss. I was… flabbergasted. So I said, “No!” and then he moved on to the next guy: “What are you working on these days?”
I am still furious – at him, and at myself for letting him get away with it.
Considering I worked for an oilfield company in West Texas, I have surprisingly few of these stories. MOST of the guys I worked with were great. Possibly because I was the ONLY person in the office with an engineering degree.
However, about a week after I told my boss I was pregnant he came in to tell me my position “had been eliminated” and pushed me off on a different department. (That particular boss was one of the few not great guys.) It worked out way better for me in the end, but I know he just didn’t want to deal with a pregnant field engineer.
And here’s a non-work related story. When we bought our first house and were applying for a mortgage it was SO OBVIOUS that the agent assumed Brian was making the money. She kept directing the questions at him and her surprise at *my* salary was clear. (As an engineer I was making like four times what Brian was. It was definitely my salary buying the house.)
Elsha wants you to read ..Wide awake.
Ohh man. I work at a hotel (a nice, classy hotel) which makes it okay for people to treat me like I’m not human. I have been:
1. Hit on by people old enough to be my grandpa.
2. Sexually harassed by a coworker my mother’s age who later said it was a joke that I “misunderstood” and because he insisted it was a joke I couldn’t get management to stop scheduling me to work evening shifts alone with him.
3. And my personal favorite, all of the men that call me up to their rooms to fix the TV or show them how to log onto the internet or bring towels or whatever and answer the door in their underwear or wearing a robe and nothing under it.
That stuff doesn’t happen to my male coworkers!
Rachel wants you to read ..Conversations with Cat
I work at a small company and (thankfully) my manager is great. Granted he doesn’t totally “get” women and his religious views lead him to the “men and women are irrevocably different” school of thinking BUT at a work level? He’s been nothing but supportive and has taken my coworkers to task when they’ve tried (unintentionally or not) to pull crap.
With coworkers and clients though I get plenty of eye rollers–mostly minor stuff. Like the director who told me I was too pretty to be smart, or the coworker who refused to carpool (literally) 2 miles with me because I was “a married woman” and it would be inappropriate. The list of asinine comments gets pretty long, people share their surprise that I can recognize a particular piece of hardware or that I handle the finances for my husband and I,
There are the disparaging remarks about their wives that get generalized to me (Like the client who said he was going to “be a woman” and change his mind, then awkwardly tried to recover my saying his wife changed her mind a lot.) The assumptions that at my Society of Women Engineers meetings that all we do is sit around and talk shoes…
The gentleman who refused to follow me up the stairs because he apparently cannot avert his eyes and would then be Forced to look at my ass. …
I’ve had interviewees and salespeople alike be visible surprised that I was an engineer and in one notable case, try to start a discussion about wether or not it actually was hard to be a female engineer because his wife was one and she was always going on about how terrible it was. WTF.
I really think sexism is so much more subtle and insidious today. It still exists but (most) people have learned that the blatant stuff won’t fly. Just the same, I am thankful not to have encountered anything so awful that I felt unsafe or threatened.
MrsDragon wants you to read ..Ted’s BBQ [4/5]
Apologizes for the blatant typos.
MrsDragon wants you to read ..Ted’s BBQ [4/5]
Simply look at the number of female teachers vs male teachers. THEN look at the number of male administrators vs. female. And of those men- how many do you think entered teaching for the kids vs. to coach the kids in a sport, then figured out that if they became an admin it would make more money which is the only way they could support their family???? UGH. Education. UGH.
For me, it’s the opposite. When we get a guy in a grooming salon, it is automatically assumed that he is gay. But we also have customers that think that just because we are female, we can’t launch your 90 lb overweight golden retriever onto our table, then fight it for it toenail trim. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve out lifted grown men getting a big dog onto a table and doing it’s nails.
I wish I was surprised.
Because I worked in social services for most of my career before kids, I was in a woman dominated field. As a result, I only encountered issues when dealing with higher ups in some agencies (because somehow they were always men while the women did the lower run jobs – huh, go figure). Definitely got some attitude here and there but more than the woman thing, I got slapped down because of my age. A lot. It made me insane. I was smart, capable, educated, and yes, YOUNG. I got figuratively patted on the head more times than I count while the person dismissing me commented on how he/she had children my age. It infuriated me. I ended up always wearing my hair up, over dressing for my positions, and wearing heels in an attempt to look older and be taken seriously. Ridiculous.
Michelle Smiles wants you to read ..Summer status
THE COFFEE. It was always the coffee for me. Apparently if you don’t have a penis that automatically makes you an expert and making the freaking coffee for a meeting. Every time.
I had a coworker tell me my first week at one of my early post-graduate jobs that we needed to dress down the next day for some work that needed to be done. You know, jeans and teeshirts, even though it was a professional environment. I did. He didn’t. He told me he had an unexpected conflict. so sorry, we’d do it the next day. I dressed down the next day. He didn’t. I finally caught on he was not exactly my mentor. Asshat.
But here’s my favorite. I was the PR person for a bigwig who introduced a new female top leader at the company. During the announcement, he told a roomful of employees he was especially proud to have chosen a women for the job because “you gals need a role model.”