If I was a Man…

If you hadn’t picked up on some of my own subtle Easter eggs within this blog, I am a Swiftie, and I think about her song “The Man” quite often. So today, for the holiday weekend, we are keeping things light…any one up for discussing gender biases? But really…! Maybe not super light, but it’s definitely something we all deal with, so stick with me and I’m sure we can find some shared humor…or at least you’ll have “The Man” stuck in your head.

I find this topic both interesting and somewhat depressing. As a female, I’ve seen the gender biased blatantly play out many times in my life, and sometimes there’s not much you can do about it. But at what point, do you fight back? How do you fight back? Is there a point that you just have to accept it? And is there a way to do that without being a victim? So yeah, I have many thoughts and questions; maybe not a ton of solid answers, but we’ll see how far we get.

“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can.” My career path has been somewhat interesting, and my earlier working years consisted of jobs in mostly female-dominated industries, so I was lucky enough to not really experience much gender bias (or at least not that I realized) until I received a position of power within a small community theatre. And although there is a lot of female energy within theatre, theatre boards, at least in my experience, mostly consist of older white men. So when I, a young white women in her 20’s, became president of a small, but established community theatre, and my best friend became publicity director, our ideas (any and all of them really) were met with much conflict. My “career” with the theatre is a long drawn-out dramatic tale of it’s own that definitely deserves it’s own post, but for the purposes of this post, we’re just using is as an example. Jen and I went into our new positions with plans, the simplest of which took months longer to implement than we ever would have imagined just because they were questioned, challenged and “red taped” to hell and back. I think they hoped to just exhaust us, but we’re pretty stubborn too. :p

Those experiences within the theatre opened my eyes to gender biases in other areas of my life as well. At that time, I worked for the same company I do now, but I held a different position in earlier years; a position that, stereotypically, a women would be hired for. Not saying there was anything wrong with it, but it was very much customer service based. I did inside sales, admin, and worked very closely with our office manager at the time doing a variety of “office things” that really weren’t in my job description; but again, I think as women we are programmed to “people-please” from a young age, so I was still very much in my “yes” phase.

“When everyone believes ya; what’s that like?” A few years ago, I read a post from a male (let’s call him Joe) who shared an experience that transpired in his work place. I come across the story every now and again on social media and reshare it every time I do. Basically, “Joe” was a manager of a female (we’ll call her Emma) and always thought she was a fine worker, but Joe’s manager always complained about Emma being slow. One day, Joe was emailing back and forth with a client, who should have been a simple case, but the client was being completely unreasonably. He was questioning everything Joe suggested and continuously arguing with him. Several emails into this exchange Joe realized he had been using a shared inbox and all the exchanges had been signed with Emma’s name. He then emailed the client saying he would be taking over the case for Emma and signed his name. The client suddenly became a model client, excepted all the suggestions he had previously put forth (only with Emma’s name) and the case was soon finished. He spoke with Emma and they continued this experiment for a week, completely exchanging email signatures. She experienced her most productive week while Joe was in hell. He realized that it was not that she was actually any slower, it was just that she had to justify every decision or suggestion she made.

“They’d say I hustled. Put in the work. They wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve.” At this point in my career, on paper, I’m still on the sales team, but most of my workday is spent within the project world; and in a construction-based business, that means a mostly male-dominated world. As I approach my mid-thirties, I am also aware that my attitude has shifted. I know what I’m expected to do, and I will do it (mostly with a good attitude), but I’m not taking as much b.s. anymore (I mean some is inevitable, but I’ve also found my “fight back” voice). So before at my job, I answered to a woman, worked hard to stay on her good side, and did EVERYTHING with a smile and a “what else” attitude. I was praised for my excellent work and highly valued. Now, I answer to several men; one who is in his mid-sixties with a very “boomer” mentality, one who is my age and is more reasonable, but still a man, and then two men, who are in no way in charge of me, but have some of the biggest egos I have seen and fully believe they are over me. I find joy in taking them down a notch or two almost daily, but it doesn’t seem to have much effect and is, quite frankly, utterly exhausting. I’m constantly thrown under the bus and have to argue my position to simply keep my job. I am doing no less work than I was before (actually more), but I’m looked at like I’m not doing enough. I also, am actually working most all of the day while my male counterparts will just be completely off the grid for hours of the workday and never questioned about it. I’ve had to negotiate my pay more times than I can count; the last time took almost a year before they made good on their promise, and, honestly, I just don’t think I’m up for that fight again with these people at least, especially when we are supposed to receive an annual review, but usually do not.

“Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.” As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been looking for a new job on and off for over a year. I’ve reworked my resume several times, received advice from a career coach and put in countless applications. Granted some have been long shots, but I’d say over 80% of the positions I’ve applied for I am totally qualified to do, but nothing. I’ve expressed to several friends that I would be interested in doing an experiment. I want to change the name on my resume to a male name and submit both that resume and my own for some positions just see what happens. Maybe even expanding the experiment further by taking a few of the credits off the male resume. I haven’t done this just yet because I would have to set up a new email address that didn’t consist of my name and I haven’t had the time. But I would be interested to see the results.

“I’m so sick of them coming at me again.” All this being said, I am determined to not be a victim or operate with a “victim mentality.” I will fight against it as much as I can and hope that we, as a whole, will not become complacent in the fact that “things are better than they were.” Because yes, I think we are in a better place than we have ever been with this particular issue, but it is still very much a problem. There is still very much a pay gap. There are still defined gender roles in families and in workplaces. And though it may be years, I still think things are not completely beyond fixing. Maybe I’m just naïve, but I hope not.

“Cause if I were the man, I’d be the man.”

Well thank you again for listening to my thoughts and I’d love to hear some of yours too!

Much love,

Brittney