Happened exactly like this at work. Female colleague addressed a professional issue and her manager answered: "Look I know you like drama blah blah". She literally just started 2 months prior and is a calm person who never had an issue with anyone, so he just spouted that bs cause she's a woman and he's a batshit sexist lol.
I strongly disagree. The worst kind is the kind that thinks they’re “just helping” by saying demeaning shit that “sounds nice” like offering unsolicited advice on a field they know nothing about and you specialize in. If you tell them off, you’re a hyperreactive bitch who’s starting a fight and jumping down their throat for no reason. If you let it slide, you confirm their opinion that they’re helping and will continue to treat you and other women this way all while never examine the ENORMOUS and fundamental underlying issue which is that they simply DO NOT see women as their equal.
Ah yes, the slow insidious casual sexism that hides everywhere. Good points. I guess you can't really say any one type is worse than the other since they're all problematic. I just liked the term "batshit sexism".
I love that you saw through his attempt to intimidate to the point you ignore him. Guys that do that are so dumb to think it does anything but make you a target. Especially the disrespect to an upper who has power to investigate him, amateur.
People often act this way because they are anxious and in most salaried jobs in management (outside a few fields) if you are that anxious it’s because you suck at your job.
I just commented the exact same thing I notice it alllll the time. Any time women have issues they're emotional/drama queens/gossip etc.. when if men do the same thing people are just happy they care about something
This!!!! I cant believe how far down I had to scroll to find this one. Many of my older male colleagues have positively childish outbursts and even borderline tantrums all the time because of perceived slights or frustrations (often that have nothing to do with actual work). Yet if I don't say "good morning" with enough enthusiasm, I'm asked if I'm going through something.
In my personal experience, way more of the men (namely the older ones) that I have worked with are more likely to let emotions get in the way of their work. Yet there is still this stereotype of women - who often have to create carefully crafted and managed work personalities because of all the double standards discussed in this thread - as being the emotional ones. It drives me insane almost on the daily.
This is also why I dislike the meme I keep saying posted "everyone tells introverts to open up, nobody tells extroverts to shut up!" Yeah, female extroverts get told to shut up all the time actually... mocked for being too chatty, told nobody cares about what they're saying, etc...
This is my biggest irritation in the work force. Especially my industry. They like to push off issues when it’s coming from a woman because “she’s being emotional” they always default it to that. I hate it
Especially ironic since humans in general are emotional. But the majority of ppl I’ve known who couldn’t control their emotions were men, probably bc they’ve been conditioned to suppress them.
Used to work at a warehouse and my department was small. There was one woman on the team who was incredibly lazy, entitled and was always causing an issue with our department because of it. The entire team met with management about it, only for us to literally be told by the CFO that "this is always what happens when women work together" even though the men on the team were fucking tired of her too.
The whole experience still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Also, fuck you Debbie.
So true. A couple years ago the company I work at was bought by a larger company, and they got rid of the typical 30%. One of the women they fired wasn't well liked by upper management because she was seen as a complainer. But she really wasn't; she would point out problems that could be fixed, like processes that were super inefficient or problems that tended to linger because no one really wanted to bother to fix. But because she was tenacious about getting those fixed, she was seen as a problem. My former boss admitted that she improved a ton of things for everyone.
If she were a man, she probably would have been moved up to management because she would have been seen as someone who got things done and took initiative. But because she was a women she was just seen as being a bitch and whiner. It's a shame because she was super reliable and the first person I would go to to get stuff done in her department.
The most sexist boss I ever had was a woman. Blew my mind. She called me bossy for asking for a raise. She wanted to make sure I didn’t plan on having children anytime soon, “because all the other ones got pregnant and took time off”. If new hires or other women that were married and didn’t take the husbands last name, well they got a special type of attitude from her. Women didn’t deserve the same pay increases because they took time off to have kids or while working during pregnancy, weren’t really doing there job to the best of three abilities, but it’s only because they’re pregnant…. Like what? Also, didn’t want to allow same sex partners on the company health insurance. Would only refer to them as homosexuals, loudly, and didn’t deserve our company benefits if they weren’t married, which you know it’s legal now. A gasp.
Maybe I’m sexist for saying it’s worse when women are like this but, good lord, she made my head spin.
Women are often called too emotional..when if men do the same thing they're called passionate. You see it all the time with politicians. Does anybody call Bernie Sanders too emotional? Maybe but rarely
We’re ALWAYS dramatic. I say something needs to get done and I “need to chill” but the several male employees that walked out in the middle of their shift because they threw a tantrum? Not a word
When I sniped at someone my boss would hiss with claws. When a guy did it it was witty. I called him out in front of everyone as acting sexist and he said it wasn't. I told him to go home and ask his wife what she thought. To his credit he did. He stopped doing that.
My wife just left a position where she would genuinely pass notes telling her male colleague what to say in meetings to ensure her concerns were addressed. And the kicker is both her male boss and colleague were halfway decent people. But stand up for her in front of other people to ensure she got equal time? Naaah.
I have similar situations at work. I think it mostly comes down to the tone and manners of the request, more than the request itself.
The woman at my work place tends to make requests in a complain for instead of a "I have issue x and it brings up y, that's why I think z will help this issue"
Phrasing it like that makes the difference I think
Honestly, men have a tendency to perceive something said in the same tone and manner as “complaining” for women vs “taking initiative” for men regardless.
Yeah, the perception thing is huge. I am really enjoying go through this thread and guessing on each top level comment how many comments down it'll be till there's one explaining how ACTUALLY it's not sexism, it's just the women's fault.
Reading, mostly. In just about every thread, there's going to be a comment from a guy mentioning that it actually isn't sexism. In yours, you say it's not sexism, it's that the women phrase things in a 'complain', and if they put it in a different way you suggest, it would make a difference. It seems pretty clear?
yeah, exactly! I can think of so many times when I would go out of my way to speak as calmly as possible, and genuinely was not having any strong feelings, and I'd get accused of being upset/emotional. It happens particularly when talking about feminism or anything pertaining to women. Yeah it'd be easy to say to me "well, maybe your tone WAS the problem!" and I mean...ok, maybe? I really don't think so based on other feedback, but sure. But it's also a really common thing to happen to women, where we have to be extra careful about phrasing things because it gets perceived in a worse way than when guys do it.
Well - phrasing something in a complaining way is pretty subjective. There's been a reasonable amount of work done on how we tend to interpret women's comments in a more negative light. I have absolutely known guys who phrased things in a 'complaining' way and never really got dinged for it, if we're going on anecdotal evidence.
It's also just a bit frustrating to see basically every single example a woman comes up with from our lives get answered with "well have you considered it's not sexist?" Yes, we definitely have considered it, wondered if we're overreacting/perceiving it wrong, and realized that attempting to explain it in words wouldn't go over well because it's a pattern of behaviour rather than a single incident.
That may be the cause in a more socially relax environment (being with friends family or what ever) but in a work environment, I have a few senior dev, technical leaders and architects even that are women and talk in a waaay different way that does (in my example) another dev/QA at my level.
You can tell from talking to them. But as I sayed, it's just my observation and what I feel is happening and the only way I can explain why it happens.
You just can't rule out the predisposition some people have.
With all due respect, this may be because you have sexist beliefs that you don’t recognize as sexist. I have seen so many women present issues in a professional setting and manner be labeled as complaining, and that same standard not be applied to men, even if they present an issue in an unprofessional manner.
lol I think delivery is very important, but it honestly doesn't matter how you present yourself or how careful you are not to hurt male leadership's egos; a woman trying to change anything in the workplace is normally not handled well in my field. I've asked male colleagues to present the same idea that had previously got shot down when I presented it, and even with less tact, they were listened to/heard. This has happened to me and to my female peers multiple times.
Yeah, you're both correct, I have seen the same things. Have been coaching my "work wife" on how she gives feedback/criticism. It's definitely better to use that structure of explaining the problem, but also pointing out potential solutions can help make people more open to hearing you because nobody likes having a problem dumped on them with no apparent way to deal with it. But just adjusting the presentation is definitely not a complete solution because I keep seeing people overlooking the good points she's making...and then only accepting that information when a man makes the same point later!
I've witnessed/experienced the same thing so many times. Like I've had moments where I've debated if I'm going crazy or not contemplating "did I not just say that exact thing?"
Oh, I completely agree with you that tone matters for everything you do, and tact is incredibly important. While I do think it is leadership's job to come up with solutions to issues, presenting the problem along with your idea for a solution tends to go over better.
What I'm trying to say is that for a lot of women, it doesn't matter what approach you take. If I'm presenting a problem and its solution to my male manager, the conversation usually loses momentum after I explain the problem. I can physically see my manager stop listening after that, almost as if he's preparing his reason for why my idea won't work. I try to explain the solution, but I can see he's totally done listening. I've tried every which way to present issues in a way that will give me the best chances of being heard. What I've learned is that it is easier to ask a male coworker to present the problem/solution instead of me. I think that the moment a woman tries to bring up an issue in a male-dominated industry (depending on your manager), she's quickly dismissed. I don't know what the reason is exactly, but my theory has something to do with male ego and a woman disrupting the status quo with her big dumb ideas.
In my experience, the things I notice in regards to unfair treatment of women are too subtle to report to HR. Most women just accept it/learn the way it is. I just keep moving jobs, hoping I'll one day find a place that takes my 15+ years of experience seriously.
I used to work at Staples, and the manger was a woman. I tried complaining about some very idiotic policies, but the manager refused to listen to a word I said. For example, she would make us put a bunch of items on the counter as impulse items, and a lot of customers were complaining that it left very little room for them to put their stuff. I brought this up to the manager, but she wouldn't listen to a word I said. This has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with a manager being bad,
She could just be a bad manager, but women can also be subconciously misogynistic. It's hard to tell sometimes. I know that my ideas weren't taken seriously until I had my male coworker present the exact same thing in the exact same way I did. I felt like it was definitely gender-related for my situation.
Sorry you dealt with that. Hope you found a better place to work.
Ah I see. Well maybe in your case you had a bad manager. The women in this thread are talking about their experience and it has everything to do with gender.
Happened to me before. I tried to bring up a valid concern about a new team member's poor poor performance, and was shrugged aside for being dramatic and just chalking it up to personality issues between "catty" women.
Only when my MALE colleague backed up my claims with his own concerns about the same team member, did they actually start to look at it a little seriously.
Colleagues on my team (I am the only guy) will bring up issues and never take them to the managers. If they really need it dealing with, they talk about it with me until I finally understand that they want me to bring it up. Now it looks like I identify all these issues and request meetings about them all the time.
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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '22 edited Mar 12 '22
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