Dee

I work in a majority female profession at a university and have not really had to deal with daily, repeated sexist behavior before. I have not had a problem with any of my male colleagues. But now I have a new boss’s boss that is sexist – examples of soft/subtle sexism happen multiple times every day. My male colleagues are also seeing it for what it is and together we are trying to navigate how to handle it. Here are a few examples of what I have experienced:

1) I was in a conference room at work waiting for people to show up to a committee meeting. My new boss’s boss (male) and a male colleague were already in the room. I had my laptop open as I was trying to meet a deadline and needed to keep an eye on email as I was watching for an update from a student employee. I was also opening documents to reference during the meeting as I had a number of items I wanted to discuss. The boss’s boss looks at my male colleague and then over at me and then asks me to take notes. I gave him a cold stare but agreed (in hindsight, I have a lot of things I wish I had said instead). I took the shittiest notes because (a) I was trying to be an active member of the meeting (taking notes gets in the way of participation), (b) I had important topics I wanted to discuss (with documents that I needed to reference up at on my laptop screen…no room for the doc to take notes on that screen), (c) I was trying to meet a deadline, (d) I needed to assist a student employee via email and, (e) his request told me that he did not see me as an equally valued member of this committee. Sure, someone needs to take notes at the meetings. This should be handled by asking for a volunteer at the start of the meeting with the understanding that this duty will be rotated among the group. Don’t just ask the woman in the room. I’m not your damn secretary! I have two master’s degrees.

2) I was reporting about a donation at a meeting the other day and he cut me off, laughed a little in amusement, and said “that was cute.” WTF? I was just stating a fact about this donor in order to provide him with some background information. Would he interrupt my male colleague to say what he reported “was cute”?!?

3) Near the beginning of a dept. meeting, a male colleague mentioned that he needed to leave our meeting early to meet with a professor so we saved agenda items that did not concern him for the end of the meeting. When we got to that point in the agenda, the male colleague quietly got up to leave. This is when my female boss was in the middle of asking my boss’s boss about our work priorities on a project I am involved with. Boss’s boss doesn’t even acknowledge my boss is speaking – he just jumps up and hurriedly follows out after our male colleague while asking a question about football. Another female colleague and I stared at each other in disbelief, told our boss what just happened (because she was referencing items on her computer screen and didn’t see how he ignored her and left), I yelled out the conference room at our boss’s boss “The meeting isn’t over!” while my female colleague yells “[Boss’s name] was in the middle of an important question!” Boss’s boss barely acknowledged us… just waved his hand at us saying “oh yeah..in a minute” while continuing to speak with our male colleague about football…

I have lost all respect for this man as a professional, as a leader, and as a human being. All of my interactions with him are now seen through this lens. I am getting tired of having to amplify my voice so that he won’t interrupt me (he still does but I just keep speaking loudly to finish my thought) while male colleagues can finish their thoughts. Then whatever boss’s boss says in “response” to me proves to me that he was still not listening to a word I said. I just leave meetings frustrated instead of ready to tackle a project.

There are more examples that I could add. I am fortunate that I have my boss as an ally. We are unlucky because my boss’s boss constantly ignores us, interrupts us, disregards our experiences and opinions, and clearly does not value us as much as our dept’s male colleague (the male colleague is fully aware of what is happening, is an ally, and is also trying to help us figure out how to navigate it. It’s his boss’s boss as well. We recognize the uncomfortable positions we are both in when dealing with a superior. We reflect about these experiences of soft sexism and try to figure out how we can handle it better next time…)