Banner day for Rand, I was just coming in here to say that. My dad is a senior vice president of a very large national bank, and they looked at the whole 15% thing, and it really came down to the fact that the bank paid salary based on years of experience, and many of the women in managment had taken time off of their careers, usually to have kids or something, so the years didn’t add up as high.
As a dude that has worked above and below women, and if you want to be taken seriously, its not that hard.
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Quit pointing out that you are the only woman or you are whatever, even to yourself. You are already putting other people above you and self confidence without being a douche is good.
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Maintain an even strain when it comes to your emotions. I have worked for a boss that used to PMS and get bitchy/emotional/etc. That shit doesn’t fly in the real world to a dude, and you won’t get a free pass because “your hormones are off.” I have been through that and it isn’t fair to anyone.
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Do your job, but don’t do anything in Comic Sans or whatever. Be professional, and it sounds like you already are so no problem there.
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Have a sense of humor, and don’t take things personally. A lot of guys use humor as a way to vent. It works.
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If you have kids, do your best not to pull the “gotta leave early because little Timmy has baseball/football/whatever” on a regular basis. This is the constant fear that a lot of men keep with them when they start working with a woman in my experience. Its not the fact that you are a woman, its the fact that you could be a mommy, and your work that isn’t getting done because you are trying to balance two worlds at the same time gets shoved onto them, in addition to the work they have to do. We all have to take time off for family crap, but don’t do it the most often. They won’t say anything to you about it, but they will remember having to cover for you.
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Grow a mullet.
Jeez, I didn’t say you had to slink away in a corner and die. I said I hope you’re good at projecting confidence, because I do hope that. Ostensible confidence may boost how seriously other people take you, while appearing nervous will likely have the opposite effect. I also think you’d be less nervous if you realized people’s perceptions of you have far more to do with your abilities and behaviors than they do your being 29 years old and equipped with a vagina. Well, you might still be nervous, but probably for different reasons.
Oh, and you should probably grow a mullet.
Be yourself. If you try to act a certain way that comes unnaturally to you because you think your gender is a liability, they may respect you, but also consider the possibility that you won’t respect yourself. And who is the more important entity?
If there’s nothing wrong with you, don’t fix it. If there’s something you need to fix, do it to improve yourself. Don’t do it to fit in with some hazy notion of what the boys are.
Sorry, Ima have to *strenously *disagree with the sentiment expressed in both these paragraphs. “Boys can be boys” while women are supposed to smile, shut up, and not be “girlie”? Really? Even when this “boys being boys” behavior means deliberately goading other people until they cry? Uh, yeah, okay. Maybe this is just crazy talk, but I don’t expect grown men to act like boys (stereotypical ones or otherwise). I’d have a problem working at your job, not because I’m girlie (what does “don’t retaliate by being ‘girlie’” even mean?), but because your coworkers sound like they’re stuck in the third grade. And trust me, I know how to roll with the punches with the best with them.
The idea that a woman loses respect in the workplace if she has one too many pink schotskies on her desk, but a man can go around acting like a frat house bully and still be on the beam…well, hopefully you’ve figured out by now what I think about that double standard, OP.
Being professional and respectful towards others is how you should conduct yourself at work. If someone fails to do that, it’s not because they are male or female (“and that’s just what they do”), it’s because they are an unprofessional or disrespectful person.
Show that you can do as half-assed a job as the men?
The fight against ignorance sometimes demands that I resist my natural impulses toward pleasantness and getting along with others.
Speaking of that fight, have you found a cite for your claim that is not susceptible to the arguments I raised? If not, you can just admit to believing BS–happens to the best of us from time to time.
I defy anyone to compile all the advice in this thread into a nice, neat document and send it to the Canadian Association of Women in Construction. It’s more confusing than most dating thread advice!
I don’t envy the OP. She is being treated differently, clearly, for the simple fact that she possesses a womb. I don’t think that’s even debatable, unless the boss regularly asks her male coworkers about their own potential offspring and how much time they’ll be taking off. I’m not sure about Calgary, but in parts of Canada parental leave can be divided up any way the parents want.
Deciding when/if to speak up in a meeting may come with time and experience, too. I never used to talk in meetings. At my old job I only spoke when I had a presentation to give. At my current job, for the first ~18 months I never spoke and was very nervous. And I’m in a pretty evenly male-female company. And then somewhere between ~18 months and now (almost 4 years), I became the “expert” in my area, people started looking to me for answers, and I started giving them. With confidence. The nervousness is gone, and I can and will speak up any time I have an idea, comment, or question. (This still doesn’t go for the occasional 300+ all employee meetings, but for our small group/department meetings.)
For the confidence in meetings, it’ll come. Just work hard, gain experience, become an expert in your area, and that part will be fine. The rest… well, hopefully the industry will move into the 21st century soon!
Always a bad idea to focus on being a minority in a majority world; whether you’re there identifying yourself as a Woman in a room full of men, or the only black person in a room full of white people, or the only tatooed ambidextrous hermaphrodite in a room full of ‘normals’. It distracts you from your true role and job in the situation.
When people ask, question or imply you may not belong there, the correct response is not anger (which shows vulnerability and undesirable traits and places the focus firmly on your negative behavior), but to calmly turn it around and ask/question WHY the other person thinks you don’t belong there. This removes the idea that you have to prove yourself and puts the onus on the other person to explain or defend their thoughts instead. If they have a legitimate question, then you have the opening to provide an answer to everyone present. If they don’t have a legitimate concern, then there is not only no requirement that you defend yourself against it, it is actually counter productive if you do. Acknowledge that they raised it, then change the subject and move on. People will get the message that you’re not interested in legitimizing the bias being indicated and that you’re not going to waste your time and energy fighting it.
Of course, each situation is unique, and it depends entirely on the power relationships involved and who is pushing their bias.
So I should go ahead and grow a mullet then?
Seriously, thanks for the advice guys. I plan on starting to retrain my thinking to focus on gaining experience and confidence in the field just because I want to do a good job, not because I feel I have to prove myself as a woman. I have come to realize through your responses that a lot of my issues are more related to lack of confidence in my knowledge in general (which I can change), not because I am a woman (which I can not). I’m sure as I get older and more experienced I will feel much more confident. I suppose some of this comes from feeling like I don’t really feel like I’ve moved up in the world enough for my age, considering I’ve been working for 10 years so far.
Thanks for the link! I was hoping there was an event near me but it appears that it mostly takes place in TO. Bah. Maybe I can get my boss to spring for one trip out this year.
If the women in the company were held back because of sex, then it is illegal, and they would have sued. Probably, they have other irons in the fire, partying, etc… more important than advancement.
To get ahead, quit worrying about your friend’s being let go. That is one thing that people that advance take care of FIRST THING. They don’t worry about other people.
Next, quit thinking about loopholes. Everybody has them, everybody uses them. They are there for a reason. That is one of the perogatives of rules makers. If you want fair, join Homes for Humanity, or the Anti-Defamation league, or some other company. Ben and Jerry’s, maybe.
Finally, make yourself valuable/irreplacable/profitable to the company.
These things are what make good employees…good employees.
Best wishes,
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Lots of good advice here. I’m generally impressed.
Let me add some of my own thoughts here, though. I’ve been an executive for the past 13 years (including the CTO for a public company), and spent a good amount of time as a consulting project manager before that. Most of this advice is generally for anyone who wants to get ahead in management.
In meetings, listen very well. Speak little. Try to master the skill of asking pointed questions, and leading the discussion in the direction you think it should go. Done well, this can give the impression of wisdom and insightfulness. The person bubbling over with ideas that they can’t wait to get out of their mouths is rarely the one who climbs the ladder.
Become an expert in your field. If you manage a department, make damn sure you know more than anyone else about it, and what it does. Whatever your responsibility, make sure that you are the authoritative source for information about that topic. No one likes a know-it-all who contradicts everyone, but if you can be tactful and (going back to the previous point) ask the right questions about a proposed direction, people will remember.
Manage expectations. This is actually one of the things that I try to impress on everyone who works for me. Communicate, communicate, communicate. If you think something with a deadline is going to go sideways and miss the date, let people know. Obviously, you don’t want to be an alarmist, but the fewer things that come as a shock to people when they occur, the better you’re going to look.
I don’t think there is any one recipe for a woman to be successful against prejudice. I’ve had women bosses who got there by sleeping with the CEO, and others who just deserved it more than any other candidate. Generally speaking, a woman in a male-dominated environment will be singled out, often unfavourably. There’s nothing really that can be done about it, except not to live up to the label. I can think of at least one example of a woman executive who confessed to me that she was such a hardass because she felt she had to be tougher than the men who gossipped that she was “bitchy.” It didn’t work out for her in the long run.
In fact, the single most effective woman executive that I can remember, and one of the two best VP+ level executives I’ve ever worked with, demonstrated much of what has been advised in this thread. She was not terribly vocal most of the time, but when she was, she was firm, direct and nobody every questioned her position. She knew more about the clients, more about the business and more about the ramifications of every decision she was asked to weigh in on.
Couple other thoughts. Try to find one of these good ol’ boys who is close to retirement and figure out a way that he will be your professional mentor. It would make a huge difference.
Second, some of the stuff you’re being asked to do is often asked of newbies or someone that is stand out junior in the group (like the management meeting). I’m just sayin’ it may not be because you’re a woman. Although from your description it very well could be gender stereotypes.
Something I learned in business, is that more often than not, the worst explanation is usually not the correct one. There’s always time to go nuclear later rather than earlier.
Third, if you’re going to draw a line in the sand, don’t do it over taking meeting minutes. (s)he who writes the minutes, also wields enormous power over filtering those minutes, passing action items off on other people, cherry picking the action items that you can knock out of the park/get visibility/are easy to do, etc. I’ve been the meeting minute taker for a couple of decades because I learned early on, that for me, it was an extremely useful tool to get what I want. Obviously, YMMV.
Also, reiterate the documentation of the “so you planning to have kids thing.” Put down the person, time, date, place, etc. It may not help, but it might when you need it. You could also tactfully point out in an email (so you have a trail that will also help you) that you had an acquitance somewhere else that was let go during maternity leave and you learned a lot about the process second hand, and that maybe boss you can dodge a trainwreck/law suit/career limiting decision by getting some competent legal/HR advice before making a final decision. This is very sensitive and MUST be done right, but it will also protect you.
Holding employees back because of gender is indeed illegal in Alberta (where EmAnJ and I both live), but I believe her when she says it happens at her company because, as I posted earlier, my husband works in the same field and I hear about how his company treats female employees. From what I understand of his company, the women who don’t like the glass ceiling just quit and move on.
Yes, I agree that it is unfortunately true. And it’s never as simple as ‘it’s illegal and they should sue.’ Smart companies can ALWAYS find a way to phrase it in a different, legal, way. “It wasn’t because she’s female, it’s because she just didn’t quite put in the hours / get along with her coworkers / have the work ethic”.
Another story that happened recently - a woman in HR (yup) applied for a job one level above the role she was currently in (Manager to Director) and is absolutely a good fit for this new role, both in education and experience. They even told her that. The reason she wasn’t hired? The previous two Directors had been female and they both had gone on Mat leave within a year and a half. Because they didn’t want to face this again, they weren’t going to hire a woman, even if she was the best fit for the role (and she’s past average childbearing age, though there is still a chance). So, she didn’t get the job. She’s still in the company but is moving to a different division in Vancouver instead.
Is that illegal? Probably. Is anything being done about it? No way. People like their jobs, especially in these times.
Absolutely do not let people convince you it’s all in your head. We all come with cultural baggage, and for as much as we’d like to think we live in an egalitarian society, we’re not there yet. As someone in a similar position (actually a few years younger) I can’t offer a whole lot of advice. I did read a book that I found interesting and may be of help to your situation.
http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Boardroom-Secrets-Transform-Career/dp/0743262271
Naked in the Boardroom (SFW) is about the career of a female CEO in the publishing industry. Yeah it’s not construction, but a lot of the issues faced are the same. Another thing that might help would be to get involved in an organization for women in your industry. If you are an environmental engineer, the Society of Women Engineers has a lot of good resources, and you could ask members for advice.
That’s why it’s so crucially important to document things.
Bear in mind the courts are FLOODED with people claiming they were fired/held back/not hired because of any manner of discrimination, poor business practice, or assholery you could possibly imagine. Quite a lot of it is simple BS where the complainant is either lying to the court or, quite often, lying to themselves.
Document everything. I mean, I hope you don’t need it, but your current employer frankly makes it sound like it’s a good idea to assume you might.
It’s too bad to hear that things have not changed much. I worked in an all male field and it is tough. You have to do twice the work in half the time in order to get respect. I would go with the flow for a while before trying to make suggestions. One guy told me if a woman can do this job then it isn’t much of a job! Your Dad gave you excellent advice. Be smart and be ready to be tested. They will push you as far as you let them. They will try and set you up so be on top of everything. Carry mace or one of those key chain stun guns from Cabelas. I’m serious as a heart attack that you need to be able to protect yourself. if you are walking to your car have it in your hand.
I used to wear clothing that wasn’t tight or suggestive. There will also be men hitting on you so you need to have a nice come back ready and stick to it. I saw one woman fall for this and after he slept with her all her private details were discussed by the men. This is what I mean by set up.
Don’t give out your number or tell anyone where you live. Get an unlisted phone number and keep your address private. I had a colleague stop by my home one night and he looked me up in the phone book. I didn’t open the door.
The first six months is the hardest and if you stick to your guns you should be getting some respect by then. If you prove yourself then they will lay off. There will always be a few that are just womans haters and just ignore them.
Good Luck!
And bring a gun, light a cigarette with your burned bra, and show them who’s boss.
Maybe I read the OP wrong, but it didn’t seem to call for much millitancy and defense.