Hey, remember that time when
- Reviewing a male IT candidate to hire, in the closed room meeting where someone said “Don’t hire him, he’s about the right age for having a baby”?
- Or that time in another closed room meeting someone else said “I’m going to remove points from that candidate because he’s a man“?
- Or that time someone else said “I don’t like his attitude, he’s bossy”?
- Or that time the women crowded around the one man in the room and talked over him? His idea was eventually the one that solve the problem but a week was wasted because he was a man. You remember that time, right?
- Or the time a women got in a man’s face at work and started screaming at him because in her native culture men don’t talk to women with authority?
- Or that time at work when women questioned a man’s sexual preferences behind his back because he was effective and managed his project well?
- Or that time when an extremely well qualified man with certifications, training and experience came to present his company’s product and all the women did was fawn over his looks? That meeting where the women could not even remember the product name or function?
- Or my favorite, where a man and all of his work was dismissed with a one syllable word that’s not ever used in polite company? You have to remember that time.
None of that ever happened, you have to replace all the above male references with female.
Once you’ve done that, then you have to realize that it happens all the time. I’ve seen it and I’ve almost always replied with “Stop and take that back. I’m not kidding, you will be reported to HR.” The one time I didn’t was when another two coworkers beat me to the punch.
The amount of bullshit professional women deal with is exhausting to look at. To. Look. At. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live with that nonsense day in and day out.
No actually, I can imagine it. I married the smartest woman I know. I do that weird thing where I like to listen to women and I talk to her all the time.
I’ve heard what it was like for her to be a professional with a) an MBA in International Business, b) a second MBA degree in Advanced Accounting, c) being a CPA and d) many years of experience in corporate america managing a department of 40 people. It wasn’t easy for her ever and the misogynistic nonsense was a constant drag. It was a real and tangible component of every work day.
How different would the world be if the playing field removed that nonsense? What else could women accomplish if they didn’t have to deal with the weight of this crap and microaggression?
*Re reads Lily’s education and experience*
Wow. Did I marry up.
I’m a man in an industry that caters to, coddle and promotes men. I get the benefit of that just by showing up. I’m not diminishing my accomplishments. But I have to acknowledge that another group has to work harder than I do to get to the same place. By default. That’s just stupid and stamping that out has to continue.
This whole post is because I read the comments. I do not think that a few vocal trolls replying in large volume indicates how a community is in reality. But it is the trolls that will cost any group of people members from joining or staying just to avoid that bullshit. That would be the worst and I do not ever want to see that in any community I associate with.
