Women and Men in the Workplace

A few weeks ago a well respected and successful friend of mine made the comment that Men made better work colleages than Women. She deemed Men to be more professional than Women and hence it was easier to deal with them. Trust me to have had an alternative experience …

Granted in my area of work, Women are a novelty and as such when we come across each other we practically embrace each other at the first meeting. But on the flipside, there can be the risk that Women in such an environment who have succeeded have done so with alot of effort and can in theory become harsh and difficult to deal with. Luckily I have not encountered this phenomena, but have heard from colleages that it exists. I have worked for and with Women in other fields of work, namely admin, and I do feel it involves different dynamics. I tend to become friendly with women alot quicker than I do with Men, and as a result work issues are dealt with in a similar manner to the way personal issues are dealt with… gently. However, this was not the case with one of my Women bosses, she kept her distance and we had a very much superior-junior professional relationship, she was assertive and great to work for.

My negative workplace experiences have been with Men. Naturally since I have worked with more Men than Women, it is statistically more likely for me to have experienced more negative and positive experiences with Men. I want to focus on the negatives. The danger with Men, when you are one of the token Women, is that sometimes assertiveness on my part is not taken too well. These Men are what I deem to be stuck in the toddler stage of their emotional development. They are ‘hurt’ easily and cannot handle even a hint that they have made a mistake. For example, a colleage of mine a while back did not attend a work engagement that he had to attend, I knew he had made a very lacklustre attempt at finding a replacment, but the the upshot was that I was forced to cover for him. I was advised to submit a formal complaint, but decided against this because 1) I dont want to be a ’snitch’ and 2) I did not want to make a mountain of a molehill. I decided that the next time I saw him, if I felt ok (i.e. not angry) I would approach him directly. The opprtunity arose, and finding myself in a good mood and hence in a position to bring up the event in a rational manner, I seized it. I caught him while he was away from people (no scene thank you very much) and said that I had noticed he had not shown up to the event and that in future he should arrange a replacement. He said he had tried (emailing people who were already going to be there), my response that he could email person X who is in charge of such events. At this point he has already broken eye contact and was looking to the side, he replied that he had received permission from the convener of the event. I repeated what I said before, and continued to explain that I had been left to deal with double the people I was supposed to deal with. He walked away mid-sentence.

I was angry with this, but calmly got my things and proceeded to a class I had. Upon returning to my office an hour later, I was surprised to find an email from him to the convener of the event, with all other members of staff who were there, essentially asking for clarification of what should be done in future so that he could avoid such ‘unpleasant’ statements that I made to him!!!! I had clearly hurt his ego, maybe because I am slightly junior to him, or maybe because of the gender thing, who knows? It was clear to me that his reaction was a rather feeble and childish attempt to intimidate me, ‘put me in my place’ and assert himself to other members of staff.

I have also been disrespected when attempting to give a short lecture to students, where other members of staff have continued talking to the students while I was talking. Clearly very rude of them. I have yet to tackle this issue, but somehow I have a fear that even a polite request that they wait till I finish to resume their conversation may result in a temper tantrum such as the one I mentioned above.

Another (possibly unfounded?) fear that I have is being labelled a ‘cow’ or ‘bitch’ if I am to stand up for myself. I have heard these terms levied at Women who assert themselves and do not take any rubbish from people, and stupidly I fear of having such statements made about me!

In summary, this post is a bit of a rant on my part and also to point out that in the workplace, Men too can be emotional, irrational and total git-faces.

The end.

* ok not quite the end, I really should mention that I received tremendous support from my colleages for the fall out of the event