Ok, let me say straight off that I am not complaining about the way I am treated, just wondering if anyone else deals with the same stuff.
I work in a department where I am the only woman. It is a small department, with only 6 people. In the past, I have worked with almost all women, so this is a new experience for me.
I have noticed that if me and anyone else from the department are approaching a door, they will rush ahead to open it. Not holding it open for me after they go through, as I tend to do, but opening it and holding their hand out for me to pass through.The same thing happens at an elevator-I always have to go first. I find this quite odd, because I was under the impression that this rarely happened before.
This job also requires some travel. While at a meal, I always have to order first(this does annoy me sometimes, because I may not be sure what I want to eat, and want to hear the other choices before I decide-something else may sound good :P). Is there some reason behind this that I don’t know about???
-Lsura
""Is there some reason behind this that I don’t know about??? “”
In the old days we called it “Good Manners”. In today’s oh so PC world, it’s probably something bad.
rushing past me, which can be quite disconcerting, if not hazardous, to get to the bloomin’ door just so you can extend your arm in a position so that I have to pass quite close to you in order to “open the door” for me is not good manners. I open the door whenever I’m there first and hold it open for the person behind me. THAT is good manners. If some one else gets there first, so be it. but I’ve had it happen that some guy, trying to be, what? gallant? rushes past me, nearly knocking me down, holds door one open, then shoves me aside so he can do the same for door number 2. t’aint gallentry.
The merely practical and polite thing to do is for whoever gets there first, open the door. gender shouldn’t enter into it. now, if some one has a situation which requires more care (pushing a stoller/cart, carrying lots of stuff, using a walker etc etc) WHOEVER is around should help them through the door, gender issues not an issue.
I wouldn’t sweat it, however odd it is. the making you order first is bizarre, tho’. have you tried saying “Oh, I’m not ready yet, how about you, Joe?” or something like that. I suspect once the guys get used to having a woman around they’ll stop some of this, and start treating you like the co-worker you are.
Lsura: I work in a department which is not as small as yours but is still mostly men and at first I saw some similar behavior. But at the same time I noticed my own weird behavior: when I was with a group of guys and we approached a door I’d hang back and let one of them get the door! (I’m not saying you or anyone else do this; I think it was just a weird habit of mine.)
Once I stopped hanging back and forcing them to get the door, it sort of equalized.
I had dinner with an interview candidate from Latin America a few months ago who told me she’d had the opposite problem from you. During her interview here, she kept expecting the (male) interviewers to open the door for her. Although in that case (IMO) they probably should have been in front of her anyway and should have reached the door first.
Since I’m in a computer field it is mostly men as well. In my building there is probly 800-100 men, and 250 women. Now I have noticed that if I dress up well, or wear my hair down, or have any type of heels on all men go out of htere way to get doors for me. It oges so far as a man at the far end of the hallway stood there holding the door until I made it to the door.
I love this behaviour. I reminds me I’m a women and SHOULD have my doors open for me. These rules apply for siblings, lovers, and co-workers. This female thing also applies to ordering first. A waitress expects it so I follow suit. And what about when you were growing up. A boy was NEVER to hit a girl. Even your sister.
Miss Gretchen’s workplace ratio: 165 men and…myself!
I dig it, quite frankly.
One thing though, whenever the guys are swearing and they realize that I’m in the room, they get all aplogetic. Now, when ever I’m around a man who swears (outside of work) I keep waiting for the apology. Hmmmppph.
I’m with tubagirl, any time somebody treats you as someone special just for being a girl is A-OK.
I also hold doors for anyone, male or female. I think that’s just called politeness. ('Cause we Canadians are so gosh darn polite and all)
Interestingly, many fancy European resaurants do not give the women menus with prices on them, so the man can sit there horrified as the woman orders the most expensicve thing on the menu–he can see the price.
I hold doors, but not gratuitously. Just one of those things you do on instinct (well, it wasn’t instinct until my mother stopped going through a door if I didn’t hold it. Course, it would be worse–she made me pay money if I left the toilet seat up).
I almost always hold the door open to let chicks go through first. When else can you position yourself for a real good look at their ass and have it counted as good manners?
My workplace ratio: in my dept, of about 14 to 16 people at a time, usually no more than 2 are female, myself included. (We just hired 2 more! Yay!) We are computer geek people and we just pretty much all treat each other with common courtesy. I have noticed that men will open doors for me if it is a natural and convenient action, but I will do the same. What is nice is when they offer to carry something heavy for me. I can carry heavy things, but it’s nice not to have to when there is a big strong guy around. We all have to watch our language because our company is really big on “diversity” issues and not making the work environment “hostile” so there is not much difference there. 'Course I bet when there aren’t any females present, the guys talk however they want, just like us women do.
I was a research chemist, and the last two places I worked were mostly employed physicists. Not hard to be outnumbered as a woman in that kind of crowd, even now. And THEN, both of those jobs were usually filled with PhDs, though they were my first out-of-undergrad jobs. Given my extreme comparative youth and gender, I actually expected far greater differences in treatment. What I noticed was that it was actually more class dependent than anything else. The guys who had worked their way up from dirt-poor, mostly illiterate backgrounds were much more likely to feel like they needed to rush ahead and open the door. At the beginning, before they got to know me, they always seemed vaguely worried that they were violating some PC rule they’d heard about but hadn’t understood; however, they couldn’t bring themselves to stop. The ones with more middle-class backgrounds and the younger ones were pretty sure they’d be violating a rule, not that they thought they’d understand it any better, and didn’t bother.
And then there were my favorites, the loveable science dorks who didn’t think to open the door because they were reading while they walked and couldn’t navigate so well anyway.
I don’t really care either way - I admit it’s nice to feel pampered when Para-boy opens doors, but otherwise I like to open doors for people with a smiley, being a nurturing warm-fuzzy type.
As for ordering…well, doors are more likely to open themselves than I am to be the first to have made a decision about what to order.
Yep, happens to me too (KimKatt, the female computer geek who works with about a dozen male computer geeks). The door, the elevator, the restaurant ordering. I have been here about 8 months now, and they have mostly gotten over the “eek! there’s a woman in the room!” thing, thankfully. We can all talk normally (one still occasionally apologizes to me for swearing - I tell him to fuck off whenever he does), and act normally now - except those three things. It’s not all of the time, and it’s not all of the guys. One who is oh-my-god polite to everyone always does it; the other who always does is a notorious flirt. The others only do the door/elevator bit if it’s convenient.
I don’t have a problem with it. I consider it polite, and that is all. I also don’t have a problem with it if they don’t do it.
Myrr: Hate to split hairs… actually I LOVE to split hairs, and I bet you do too. Why else would we be here at the SDMB?
That being said, your post that " …resaurants do not give the women menus with prices on them… " is terminologically (is there such a word? Dunno.) incorrect.
What women get (food list, no prices) is in fact a “menu.”
What men get (food list w/ prices) is, technically, a “bill of fare.”
It is a charming distinction of terminology that is going the way of those darn passenger pigeons.
