Professional Sexism

Dealing With Professional Sexism on A Daily Basis | Outfit Details

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Dealing With Professional Sexism on A Daily Basis | I'm Mad

I had zero intention of writing this post. I actually had another post that I was going to do today but after what has been going on at work this week, I decided I was done sitting in silence and I needed to get this out there. I first want to say that I get that while I am frustrated about this, others have it worse. Much worse. I am a white, upper middle class, woman. I have advantages others don't. My life could be SO MUCH WORSE. I know that. But that doesn't diminish my experience or lessen my frustration or make what happens ok. This happens to women regardless of age, race, job experience or even job title. And it needs to stop.

I have dealt with professional sexism from the moment I entered the professional workforce. Even when I worked retail, it was a problem. I filed a sexual harassment compliant against a manager when I worked at Disney World as a part of the Disney College program. Because what as going on was not ok. But even as I got older and gained more experience, I was still being treated like a child. By people who knew better. I have learned over time and experimenting, that it is 100% because I am a woman. And I'm over it.

Dealing With Professional Sexism on A Daily Basis | What It Looks Like

For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about, let's talk about what professional sexism looks like. It usually isn't overt. Your boss isn't usually telling you that you're useless or incapable because you are a woman. Mine doesn't at least. And yours shouldn't either. But there are other ways that men, usually, show professional sexism. Let's talk about some of those:

• Sexual Harrassment
• Ignoring emails until another male reaches out
• Only responding to the other men copied on the email
• Exclusion from meetings
• Dismissing ideas until someone else validates them
• Assuming a woman is an admin (nothing against admins!)
• Calling a woman and swearing at her because you don't like an email she sent
• Calling a woman a number of inappropriate names for doing her job.
• Dismissing any of the above as not sexism
• Saying a woman is overreacting when she gets upset about any of the above

I personally experience all of these things daily. Luckily not from my coworkers or bosses but from people I work with and interact with. Even sexual harassment. When I worked retail in college there was a manager that was terrible. He sexually harassed everyone. But no one was willing to report him. After one too many comments to me, I reported him. It was awkward and hard. But he was moved from our location.

Pretty much daily, I will send an email that will be ignored. I get everyone is busy and can take some time to respond to an email. But when I have sent 3 follow up emails in 2 weeks and you don't respond until my male colleague who is copied on the email follows up, something is wrong.

Or my favorite, when I send an email to someone and instead of responding to me, they direct their response to one of the men that I have copied on the email. Who in their right mind thinks that is ok? I asked the question, my colleague didn't. The only reason I copied him on the email was so you would see it and respond because you wouldn't otherwise.

What about when I send an email and instead of emailing me back, you call one of my business partners to find out who I am and ask why their admin is emailing you?

Dealing With Professional Sexism on A Daily Basis | One More Story

I felt like this story got its own section because it has stuck with me since it happened. Back when I was organizing conferences, one of my many jobs was to sell sponsorship packages and manage the sponsors. The first overseas conference I did, we had a sponsor that was a bit of a pain. But they were paying us so I dealt with it.

When the date of the conference got closer, I sent a message to all of our sponsors about them needing to have someone in their exhibition booth at all times during the conference. This was something the CEO of the company we had partnered with for the conference had requested. Most of the sponsors where coming to our conference to meet with this man so agreeing to do what he asked seemed reasonable. But not for the company I mentioned before. They were pissed. And instead of having an internal meeting about it or saying something in person at the water cooler to his colleague, my contact at this company sent an email back to me (meant to be an internal email to a friend) calling me a nasty British slang word. He tried to recall the email about 10 times after he realized he had sent it. But it was too late, the damage was done.

You may be wondering why I am including this story in this post. It's because I know he never would have done that to a man. He would have been mad about the email but he wouldn't have used that phrase or put it in an email. At the time, I thought it was funny. And I still do. He apologized via email and when he found out in person that I was running the conference and my dad was who he was, he was very apologetic in person as well. But the key thing is that he was apologetic because he found out who my dad was. Not because he was sorry. But because he had offended me and therefore risked future business because of my dad. It all came back to my dad. Not me. Making his apology empty. He didn't care what he said to me. And that's the problem.

Dealing With Professional Sexism on A Daily Basis | What You can Do Differently

That was a much longer post than I was intending but I did scale it back, I promise! I clearly needed to vent. But I want to talk about how you can change things and what you can do differently. If you are a woman who is experiencing these things, SPEAK UP. There are people out there who will advocate for you and bring you back into the conversation. If you are a woman who does any of these things, BE BETTER. You know better and you shouldn't be doing it.

If you are a man who has done or is doing any of these things, STOP NOW. I won't suggest apologizing but you can change your behaviors. Be inclusive. Respond to all of your emails in the same way. Assume everyone you speak to is the decision maker. Treat every person you encounter the same.

If you are a man who doesn't do any of these things, THANK YOU. Especially if you are actively trying to change things. You are the reason things are better. You do make a difference. Every day.