Changing gender views

[lewisnotmiller]

I'm gonna start with a little background info, since hopefully it helps frame my topic. Bear with me, if you would.

I don't actually self-identify as a feminist. At least, not at this time. Perhaps in the future, which kinda leads me to my reason for posting here.

Not exactly sure why, but I have found myself considering gender equity a little more than I would normally of late. I haven't been able to exactly work out why, although I know Alceste's post about 'girl Lego' had something to do with it (my eldest daughter is currently obsessed with Lego Friends), as did some work situations.
(Yeah, I lurk here...just haven't posted here for the most part)

The very fact that I have two daughters does lead me to evaluate things a little differently, too, I suspect. Hard to be empathetic, live in a house with three females, and not start to look at the world at least a little differently.

Anyhows, that's the background.
Now for the question...

I have assumed for some time that the most appropriate way to treat people is to treat them equally. I'm in charge of a decent sized group, and I certainly don't treat them the same as each other, but I do try to treat them equally. I think I generally do a pretty good job too. But on a more generic level I started to wonder.

This isn't really a hypothetical, but I might set-up a slightly convoluted example to try and explain my thoughts;

Assume a company has 10 managers, and they're all male and 1000 employees, and they're a 50/50 mix of male and female.

Assume the managers are all 'fair'. They're not misogynists. They're not even mildly discriminatory. Also assume they have typically male personalities and interests. Yep, told ya it was convoluted. For the sake of argument, assume they are all interested in sports, politics and Sons of Anarchy, or something.

The 1000 employees are a broad mix of personality types, interests all over the shop. But the guys, on the whole, tend to like sports, politics, and Sons of Anarchy at a higher rate than the ladies do.

Over the course of a year, all thousand employees perform about the same. Not much real difference in their measureable performance.

At the end of the year, 50 get promotions to middle management.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, like I said, this isn't a hypothetical. My take has traditionally been that I would promote the person best for the job. If placed in that position, that's exactly what I would do. If there were 10 of me (10 managers) I wonder if the guys who like sports, or come for a beer after work, or whatever, might get a slightly higher chance of promotion, over a large sample size?

And if the ten managers were female, whether there would also be a slight skewing?

And what this means for my traditional viewpoint that treating everyone the same is the best way to ensure gender equality?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm a little tired, and that wasn't easy to explain, since I am kinda just thinking through things. Not like I have a formed premise to present. But I am hoping to get some different views on this, and in the process help further develop my own thinking.

Fire away. All viewpoints, or requests for clarification are welcome.

 

[LuisDantas]

If you will all indulge me (since I have no idea of whether I would qualify as a feminist and am in no hurry to find out), my take is that it is hardly ever possible to completely separate things.

the guys who like sports, or come for a beer after work, or whatever, might get a slightly higher chance of promotion, over a large sample size?

I'm not sure about the "slightly" part. And for good or worse, I am not sure that they would not be better persons for the job for that very reason, either. Ease of bonding with work partners (and the managers themselves) is by no means a factor to disregard while making those decisions.

Instead, it seems to me that we should simply let go of those purely numerical considerations and focus in the very significant fact that an active effort at respecting and integrating the whole workforce must always be made.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

I'm gonna start with a little background info, since hopefully it helps frame my topic. Bare with me, if you would.

I don't actually self-identify as a feminist. At least, not at this time. Perhaps in the future, which kinda leads me to my reason for posting here.

Not exactly sure why, but I have found myself considering gender equity a little more than I would normally of late. I haven't been able to exactly work out why, although I know Alceste's post about 'girl Lego' had something to do with it (my eldest daughter is currently obsessed with Lego Friends), as did some work situations.
(Yeah, I lurk here...just haven't posted here for the most part)

The very fact that I have two daughters does lead me to evaluate things a little differently, too, I suspect. Hard to be empathetic, live in a house with three females, and not start to look at the world at least a little differently.

Anyhows, that's the background.
Now for the question...

I have assumed for some time that the most appropriate way to treat people is to treat them equally. I'm in charge of a decent sized group, and I certainly don't treat them the same as each other, but I do try to treat them equally. I think I generally do a pretty good job too. But on a more generic level I started to wonder.

This isn't really a hypothetical, but I might set-up a slightly convoluted example to try and explain my thoughts;

Assume a company has 10 managers, and they're all male and 1000 employees, and they're a 50/50 mix of male and female.

Assume the managers are all 'fair'. They're not misogynists. They're not even mildly discriminatory. Also assume they have typically male personalities and interests. Yep, told ya it was convoluted. For the sake of argument, assume they are all interested in sports, politics and Sons of Anarchy, or something.

The 1000 employees are a broad mix of personality types, interests all over the shop. But the guys, on the whole, tend to like sports, politics, and Sons of Anarchy at a higher rate than the ladies do.

Over the course of a year, all thousand employees perform about the same. Not much real difference in their measureable performance.

At the end of the year, 50 get promotions to middle management.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, like I said, this isn't a hypothetical. My take has traditionally been that I would promote the person best for the job. If placed in that position, that's exactly what I would do. If there were 10 of me (10 managers) I wonder if the guys who like sports, or come for a beer after work, or whatever, might get a slightly higher chance of promotion, over a large sample size?

And if the ten managers were female, whether there would also be a slight skewing?

And what this means for my traditional viewpoint that treating everyone the same is the best way to ensure gender equality?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm a little tired, and that wasn't easy to explain, since I am kinda just thinking through things. Not like I have a formed premise to present. But I am hoping to get some different views on this, and in the process help further develop my own thinking.

Fire away. All viewpoints, or requests for clarification are welcome.

Welcome to the Feminist forum! *waves*

The first thing that comes to mind is that the Male Gaze is making its presence. It doesn't have to fear women or hate women or wish to control women, but it identifies with what goes on between the ears of a man according to what a man sees and favors. The Male Gaze also assumes this is what other men identify with and becomes a default view, while regarding the Female Gaze as either non-existent or unimportant.

The importance of identifying the existence of the Female Gaze is because women may by and large experience working at a company very differently, may regard customers or receive feedback differently, and may prioritize differently. It doesn't mean that men and women are inherently themselves wildly different, but the world as it is offers a variety of experiences between men and women. Regarding both gazes between the genders begins to widen the scope of what is possible for problem solving, quality control, and human resources.

That's my first thought after reading your OP. Hope you get some rest soon. :hug:

 

[Alceste]

It's well understood by women that if they want to get promoted, make more money and do well in their lives they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good as any men they are competing with. That's because the decision makers are very often men, and they have a tendency to default to the image of other men in positions of authority or responsibility. The ten managers at your company are, to varying degrees, grown up versions of the boy who could not even imagine a female firefighter without finding it hilarious.

So, in this company with its tightly knit, alpha male "manager" tribe, if a man and a woman are exactly equally qualified and competent, the man will be promoted. In many cases, he will still be chosen over a much more competent and qualified female candidate.

Men get to fall back on a great deal of assumed competence that has nothing to do with their job performance. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Anything they actually accomplish is just icing on the cake. Women have to prove every inch of their capabilities, fighting the pushback of assumed incompetence.

We (women) all know this - especially those of us who compete with men in male dominated industries - and your daughters will know it. Many women know it so well they don't even bother trying for promotions in companies like the one you describe, because unless you are two or three times better at everything than the men you are up against, it's just not gonna happen.

 

[Boyd]

It's well understood by women that if they want to get promoted, make more money and do well in their lives they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good as any men they are competing with. That's because the decision makers are very often men, and they have a tendency to default to the image of other men in positions of authority or responsibility. The ten managers at your company are, to varying degrees, grown up versions of the boy who could not even imagine a female firefighter without finding it hilarious.

So, in this company with its tightly knit, alpha male "manager" tribe, if a man and a woman are exactly equally qualified and competent, the man will be promoted. In many cases, he will still be chosen over a much more competent and qualified female candidate.

Men get to fall back on a great deal of assumed competence that has nothing to do with their job performance. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Anything they actually accomplish is just icing on the cake. Women have to prove every inch of their capabilities, fighting the pushback of assumed incompetence.

We (women) all know this - especially those of us who compete with men in male dominated industries - and your daughters will know it. Many women know it so well they don't even bother trying for promotions in companies like the one you describe, because unless you are two or three times better at everything than the men you are up against, it's just not gonna happen.

I second this. Men are seen differently. Often, they are seen as more competent, and thus some how more deserving. In the field of science, this is very well seen. It's not right.

For me though, I think I would over compensate and promote more females. If all or most is equal, I tend to favor women. Partly it's because I know they will work hard (and maybe even harder than a man), and partly it's because women often have had to work harder anyway to get to the position they are in. It shouldn't be, and they deserve more.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Welcome to the Feminist forum! *waves*

Thanks! I am continuing to very slowly develop the sophistication of my thinking in this area. Or trying to, anyway.

The first thing that comes to mind is that the Male Gaze is making its presence. It doesn't have to fear women or hate women or wish to control women, but it identifies with what goes on between the ears of a man according to what a man sees and favors. The Male Gaze also assumes this is what other men identify with and becomes a default view, while regarding the Female Gaze as either non-existent or unimportant.

Okay...this makes some sense to me. As an addition to non-existent or unimportant, I would also suggest the Female Gaze could be seen as incomprehensible or threatening (assuming I am understanding the concept correctly).

The importance of identifying the existence of the Female Gaze is because women may by and large experience working at a company very differently, may regard customers or receive feedback differently, and may prioritize differently. It doesn't mean that men and women are inherently themselves wildly different, but the world as it is offers a variety of experiences between men and women. Regarding both gazes between the genders begins to widen the scope of what is possible for problem solving, quality control, and human resources.

That's my first thought after reading your OP. Hope you get some rest soon. :hug:

Great...that's really given me something to think on.
I appreciate it.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

It's well understood by women that if they want to get promoted, make more money and do well in their lives they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good as any men they are competing with.

Speaking only for the industry l work in, that's simply not true. I'm not suggesting an even playing field. But the field is too demanding. It would not physically be possible to work 'twice as hard' and there are a lot of smart people, so I'd question 'twice as good' too.

That's because the decision makers are very often men, and they have a tendency to default to the image of other men in positions of authority or responsibility.

I think this is a good point. It is the crux of what Iam trying to better understand, I think. I'm not convinced that simple awareness is an answer though. I suspect I have a lot more thinking to do before my brain begins working through this to my satisfaction.

The ten managers at your company are, to varying degrees, grown up versions of the boy who could not even imagine a female firefighter without finding it hilarious.

Nope. This I completely reject, although I suspect it's my shoddy example causing the issue.
If a real company had 10 male managers in 10 positions it would speak to likely bias, although even then I would argue it says more about upper management and Company culture than the 10 managers themselves. But, (very) likely bias.

However, I understand there are misogynists, red-necks and various manner of chauvinists around. What I'm trying to think through is the impact of overwhelmingly male leadership even if every one of those males professes an honest and even view of gender equality.

Men get to fall back on a great deal of assumed competence that has nothing to do with their job performance. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Anything they actually accomplish is just icing on the cake. Women have to prove every inch of their capabilities, fighting the pushback of assumed incompetence.

One of the reasons I wouldn't self-describe as a feminist is that I think it can lead to dualistic thinking. So, whilst I think you definitely hare a point here, age and (in particular) ethnicity also impact here. In my industry, I'd prefer to be an Anglo woman than a Sri Lankan man going for a promotion, I think. Of course, that's debateable, and clearly an Anglo man is in the box seat.

Out of curiosity, what do you think the end result would be if there were 10 female managers?

 

[Alceste]

Speaking only for the industry l work in, that's simply not true. I'm not suggesting an even playing field. But the field is too demanding. It would not physically be possible to work 'twice as hard' and there are a lot of smart people, so I'd question 'twice as good' too.

I thought you already mentioned that a total of zero women in this company had been promoted to upper management? If it's impossible to be twice as good as a man in that company, then it would make sense that they're not being promoted.

Nope. This I completely reject, although I suspect it's my shoddy example causing the issue.
If a real company had 10 male managers in 10 positions it would speak to likely bias, although even then I would argue it says more about upper management and Company culture than the 10 managers themselves. But, (very) likely bias.

However, I understand there are misogynists, red-necks and various manner of chauvinists around. What I'm trying to think through is the impact of overwhelmingly male leadership even if every one of those males professes an honest and even view of gender equality.

One of the reasons I wouldn't self-describe as a feminist is that I think it can lead to dualistic thinking. So, whilst I think you definitely hare a point here, age and (in particular) ethnicity also impact here. In my industry, I'd prefer to be an Anglo woman than a Sri Lankan man going for a promotion, I think. Of course, that's debateable, and clearly an Anglo man is in the box seat.

Out of curiosity, what do you think the end result would be if there were 10 female managers?

I imagine an office culture with ten female managers would probably tend to promote women, and men would have to work harder. But to whatever extent that patriarchy influences our society, they may also have an easier time viewing men in a position of authority. Being female doesn't make you immune to the influence of a patriarchal paradigm.

Minorities have similar problems, yes. In my job, there are only a handful of people who are not white men. Talking to the Asian guys, they seem to have a similar experience to mine. IOW, there is no assumed competence, and we are constantly being watched for any sign of incompetence. None of us can coast along without being particularly good at it.

 

[Penumbra]

Now for the question...

I have assumed for some time that the most appropriate way to treat people is to treat them equally. I'm in charge of a decent sized group, and I certainly don't treat them the same as each other, but I do try to treat them equally. I think I generally do a pretty good job too. But on a more generic level I started to wonder.

This isn't really a hypothetical, but I might set-up a slightly convoluted example to try and explain my thoughts;

Assume a company has 10 managers, and they're all male and 1000 employees, and they're a 50/50 mix of male and female.

Assume the managers are all 'fair'. They're not misogynists. They're not even mildly discriminatory. Also assume they have typically male personalities and interests. Yep, told ya it was convoluted. For the sake of argument, assume they are all interested in sports, politics and Sons of Anarchy, or something.

The 1000 employees are a broad mix of personality types, interests all over the shop. But the guys, on the whole, tend to like sports, politics, and Sons of Anarchy at a higher rate than the ladies do.

Over the course of a year, all thousand employees perform about the same. Not much real difference in their measureable performance.

At the end of the year, 50 get promotions to middle management.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, like I said, this isn't a hypothetical. My take has traditionally been that I would promote the person best for the job. If placed in that position, that's exactly what I would do. If there were 10 of me (10 managers) I wonder if the guys who like sports, or come for a beer after work, or whatever, might get a slightly higher chance of promotion, over a large sample size?

And if the ten managers were female, whether there would also be a slight skewing?

And what this means for my traditional viewpoint that treating everyone the same is the best way to ensure gender equality?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm a little tired, and that wasn't easy to explain, since I am kinda just thinking through things. Not like I have a formed premise to present. But I am hoping to get some different views on this, and in the process help further develop my own thinking.

Fire away. All viewpoints, or requests for clarification are welcome.

I think it's important for those managers to watch out for subconscious sexist thoughts. Everyone has their own little internal biases, whether they recognize them or not.

As a general rule in virtually any type of large business or political hierarchy, the higher up the hierarchy you go, the smaller and smaller the percentage of women. And yet, oddly, it has been presented that, for example, corporations in the Fortune 500 with female CEOs as a group statistically outperform the rest of the Fortune 500, and corporations with at least 3 female board members outperform those that do not have at least 3, as a group. So I'm not aware of any good information that women are less competent at high positions, and yet the ratio of top positions heavily favor men compared to the lower and middle areas (like if you compare professors to PhD graduates, or executives to middle managers to MBA graduates).

Those 10 top managers in your example might all be genuinely good people that consciously have no opposition to women, but subconsciously, might have all manner of bias that they're not aware of. It can be as simple as realizing that we're probably more likely to endorse people that are more like ourselves, like being slightly more likely to overlook flaws and exaggerate strengths, because their overall "vibe" seems right, even if people aren't being so sexist as saying, "I think a man would be better for this position."

As to your question of what would happen if the organization had 10 top female managers, I do not think it would swing in the opposite direction, or at least not to the same extent. You're Australian rather than American, but as evidence, I link here to a gallup poll in 2013 that asked Americans whether they would prefer having a male boss or female boss.

In short, more people prefer a male boss than a female boss, but not nearly as much as 60 years ago. Most relevant here, is that females also prefer a male boss, statistically. Your scenario is a bit different, with top managers hiring middle managers to lead others rather than themselves, but I think this data is highly relevant. Even women preferring men as bosses.

The chart keeps gradually getting better over time (although it's been rather flat lately), and fortunately, those in the poll that actually have a female boss are statistically completely balanced on their preference for a male or female boss.

The point is, that even your hypothetical example of a company with all top female managers, exists in a patriarchal world. It exists in the world where lego toys show men going to work and getting stuff done and women staying home, or little kids with bias that female firefighters would be incompetent. Even women still statistically have bias towards male leadership.

As a caveat, I'd point out that while an all-male leadership team would not be unusual in this world, an all-female leadership team would be highly unusual to begin with. So, applying statistics might not work, because probably some unusual forces put that company together that way. For example, I just looked up the leadership of the Susan G Komen foundation, which is the largest breast cancer organization in the United States, which I picked because it's mainly about women, and we might expect it to be an odd example of women overwhelmingly in leadership roles. For them, 4 out of 6 executives are women, and 8 out of 10 board members are women, so it sort of looks like the reverse of a typical corporation, that often might have 1-2 female board members and maybe one female executive for human resources or something. But I bet a huge portion of that in this example has to do with women just being far more active in that organization as a whole rather than having a 50/50 gender split of employees, because unlike a company that's about, say, selling televisions or IT services or t-shirts, it's (mostly) about women's bodies.

So overall, what I'm saying is that evidence suggests that the problem does not exist symmetrically as a whole in this world. Both males and females statistically prefer male leadership in hierarchies, without evidence that male leadership is more successful.

 

[Sunstone]

The OP puts me in mind of something the CEO of a very large corporation once said about promoting people to senior management. He said the corporation had so much talented and skilled people qualified for the available jobs that he no longer could make a decision based on whether someone would do well in a particular job.

That is, he had, say, twelve people, all of whom were equally qualified for a senior vice president slot. So the CEO said that he was making his final decision based on how well the candidates played golf! Why?

Because the golf course was where the corporation cut most of its largest business deals. If he promoted a candidate who couldn't or wouldn't play golf, he was effectively promoting a candidate who would not be present at some of the company's most important negotiations.

Beyond that, one of the key factors for many bosses when hiring and promoting people is how well they get along with others. If you can avoid it, you don't want to hire or promote someone no one else wants to associate with, let alone work with.

I think for the above reasons, and for other reasons, it's legitimate for management to take into account a person's interests and such when hiring and promoting people.

The question then becomes one of how important is it to hire people who have the same interests as the current managers? Would someone who doesn't like sports fit in well with people who do like sports? And so forth.

I tend to think that women who display job competency should be promoted into management even if they wouldn't entirely fit in with their peers. It will change the corporate culture in some ways, but a healthy corporation will adapt to such changes.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I thought you already mentioned that a total of zero women in this company had been promoted to upper management? If it's impossible to be twice as good as a man in that company, then it would make sense that they're not being promoted.

Sure, but it's not a real company. What I'm attempting to do is propose a question based around what happens when the predominant management team in a company is male, despite a lack of deliberate bias on the part of those males.
I'm clearly doing it clumsily, but what I'm interested in trying to do is explore my thoughts, and get feedback from others, on the effects of unintentional biases which occur when a gender is over-represented amongst decision makers.

To be clear, I understand there are very real issues of bias in the workplace. The particular bias I want to explore is the bias which occurs when exactly zero percent of the company is misogynistic, sexist, etc.

I imagine an office culture with ten female managers would probably tend to promote women, and men would have to work harder. But to whatever extent that patriarchy influences our society, they may also have an easier time viewing men in a position of authority. Being female doesn't make you immune to the influence of a patriarchal paradigm.

It's a guess, but I tend to agree with you here. My guess is being a man in a company with ten female managers who are all non-sexist would not cause too many difficulties for the man.

Minorities have similar problems, yes. In my job, there are only a handful of people who are not white men. Talking to the Asian guys, they seem to have a similar experience to mine. IOW, there is no assumed competence, and we are constantly being watched for any sign of incompetence. None of us can coast along without being particularly good at it.

Yeah. I suspect it's similar in my industry. Assumed competence is an interesting concept for me, and I think it's a pretty good term of reference for me. Any mistake is highlighted rather than forgiven, and skill weaknesses (such as an inability to command a room) are assumed to be harder to correct than might otherwise be the case.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I think it's important for those managers to watch out for subconscious sexist thoughts. Everyone has their own little internal biases, whether they recognize them or not.

As a general rule in virtually any type of large business or political hierarchy, the higher up the hierarchy you go, the smaller and smaller the percentage of women. And yet, oddly, it has been presented that, for example, corporations in the Fortune 500 with female CEOs as a group statistically outperform the rest of the Fortune 500, and corporations with at least 3 female board members outperform those that do not have at least 3, as a group. So I'm not aware of any good information that women are less competent at high positions, and yet the ratio of top positions heavily favor men compared to the lower and middle areas (like if you compare professors to PhD graduates, or executives to middle managers to MBA graduates).

Those 10 top managers in your example might all be genuinely good people that consciously have no opposition to women, but subconsciously, might have all manner of bias that they're not aware of. It can be as simple as realizing that we're probably more likely to endorse people that are more like ourselves, like being slightly more likely to overlook flaws and exaggerate strengths, because their overall "vibe" seems right, even if people aren't being so sexist as saying, "I think a man would be better for this position."

As to your question of what would happen if the organization had 10 top female managers, I do not think it would swing in the opposite direction, or at least not to the same extent. You're Australian rather than American, but as evidence, I link here to a gallup poll in 2013 that asked Americans whether they would prefer having a male boss or female boss.

In short, more people prefer a male boss than a female boss, but not nearly as much as 60 years ago. Most relevant here, is that females also prefer a male boss, statistically. Your scenario is a bit different, with top managers hiring middle managers to lead others rather than themselves, but I think this data is highly relevant. Even women preferring men as bosses.

The chart keeps gradually getting better over time (although it's been rather flat lately), and fortunately, those in the poll that actually have a female boss are statistically completely balanced on their preference for a male or female boss.

The point is, that even your hypothetical example of a company with all top female managers, exists in a patriarchal world. It exists in the world where lego toys show men going to work and getting stuff done and women staying home, or little kids with bias that female firefighters would be incompetent. Even women still statistically have bias towards male leadership.

As a caveat, I'd point out that while an all-male leadership team would not be unusual in this world, an all-female leadership team would be highly unusual to begin with. So, applying statistics might not work, because probably some unusual forces put that company together that way. For example, I just looked up the leadership of the Susan G Komen foundation, which is the largest breast cancer organization in the United States, which I picked because it's mainly about women, and we might expect it to be an odd example of women overwhelmingly in leadership roles. For them, 4 out of 6 executives are women, and 8 out of 10 board members are women, so it sort of looks like the reverse of a typical corporation, that often might have 1-2 female board members and maybe one female executive for human resources or something. But I bet a huge portion of that in this example has to do with women just being far more active in that organization as a whole rather than having a 50/50 gender split of employees, because unlike a company that's about, say, selling televisions or IT services or t-shirts, it's (mostly) about women's bodies.

So overall, what I'm saying is that evidence suggests that the problem does not exist symmetrically as a whole in this world. Both males and females statistically prefer male leadership in hierarchies, without evidence that male leadership is more successful.

This all makes a lot of sense to me, actually.
Some of the points had been mentioned by posters already, but this really resonates.

I'm appreciating the input from you all to this point, since I kinda feel like an intruder in your DIR, I gotta say.

 

[Alceste]

Sure, but it's not a real company. What I'm attempting to do is propose a question based around what happens when the predominant management team in a company is male, despite a lack of deliberate bias on the part of those males.
I'm clearly doing it clumsily, but what I'm interested in trying to do is explore my thoughts, and get feedback from others, on the effects of unintentional biases which occur when a gender is over-represented amongst decision makers.

To be clear, I understand there are very real issues of bias in the workplace. The particular bias I want to explore is the bias which occurs when exactly zero percent of the company is misogynistic, sexist, etc.



It's a guess, but I tend to agree with you here. My guess is being a man in a company with ten female managers who are all non-sexist would not cause too many difficulties for the man.



Yeah. I suspect it's similar in my industry. Assumed competence is an interesting concept for me, and I think it's a pretty good term of reference for me. Any mistake is highlighted rather than forgiven, and skill weaknesses (such as an inability to command a room) are assumed to be harder to correct than might otherwise be the case.

I'm glad the concept of assumed competence makes sense to you. It's never really occurred to me before this thread, but certainly seems to sum up my experience working in an all male crew. I'm working with guys who have been doing it for years and really suck at the job, but their mistakes seem to be forgiven or unnoticed. Meanwhile if I were to make a mistake I understand it would be taken as an affirmation that women in general should not be riggers. I know we are watched all the time because guys who work with me for the first time often tell me about encounters with the other women they've worked with in spectacular detail, right down to what they were wearing and every word that was exchanged. The Asian guys tell me similar stories.

Since this is a physical job with lots of interaction, the fact that all the minorities are working much harder than white guys is very obvious. For example, a white guy stood and watched me load up a truck completely by myself and didn't lift a finger to help, and seemed to feel no shame about it. Another guy I work with actually said the women work twice as hard, but in the context that it was unfair because it makes the guys look bad. That guy was always badgering me to slow down.

Since I'm doing day calls and the need for crew fluctuates, I'm being dropped from crews regularly. In most cases, the male decision maker has a choice in who to drop, and I'm often being dropped while men with less experience who are lazy and / or incompetent are kept on. These guys are coasting entirely on assumed competence: Nobody has been watching them. All they have to do is avoid screwing it up. Me, I have to floor them with a spectacular job performance or I know I will be dropped. Simple, right? Even doing that right from the beginning, it took me nine shows before I encountered a department head who recognized my value and fought to keep me on instead of much less competent, lazier guys with less experience.

These guys don't hate women, by the way. Whatever is influencing the behavior and decisions I observe seems entirely subconscious. In fact, they often make favorable comments like "it's nice having a woman on the crew - everything is so tidy". But then at the end of the day they will let me go and keep a guy that stood by and did nothing all day while I organized all the equipment. They're not keeping him because they hate women, it's because it's subconsciously assumed he's a better fit for the job because of his gender, regardless of his performance.

When I say men are grown up versions of the kid who thought the idea of a female firefighter was hilarious, I mean that those playground views of gender do remain influential to some degree for anyone - male or female - who has not bothered to take the time to rationally reflect on them, as you are doing now.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I'm glad the concept of assumed competence makes sense to you. It's never really occurred to me before this thread, but certainly seems to sum up my experience working in an all male crew. I'm working with guys who have been doing it for years and really suck at the job, but their mistakes seem to be forgiven or unnoticed. Meanwhile if I were to make a mistake I understand it would be taken as an affirmation that women in general should not be riggers. I know we are watched all the time because guys who work with me for the first time often tell me about encounters with the other women they've worked with in spectacular detail, right down to what they were wearing and every word that was exchanged. The Asian guys tell me similar stories.

Yeah, it makes sense to me, absolutely.

Looking at it from the other angle I can think of a couple of explicit instances where my competence was assumed, despite the person having no idea whether I was competent. I don't know exactly what the mix is in terms of what led them to that conclusion (luckily I WAS competent, but there was simply no way they could know that), but I figure the following had a lot to do with it;

Male
White
Reasonably well-spoken (I use long words, but my accent is fairly common...people seem to read into that that I'm smart, but I'm a doer rather than pompous...)
Deep voice (the newsreader effect...lol)

Nothing to do with my skills. On one occasion I can remember, it was purely to do with me being male. My assumption is that if there are explicit occasions I can remember, there are a whole bunch of occasions it wasn't as clear, but still had impact.

Since this is a physical job with lots of interaction, the fact that all the minorities are working much harder than white guys is very obvious. For example, a white guy stood and watched me load up a truck completely by myself and didn't lift a finger to help, and seemed to feel no shame about it. Another guy I work with actually said the women work twice as hard, but in the context that it was unfair because it makes the guys look bad. That guy was always badgering me to slow down.

Slacker. My old man used to get into arguments with guys who slowed down and cruised like that. He figured you were paid to work, so work. Old-school work ethic, I guess. Suffice to say I've seen the sort of attitude you're describing here. It can be turned against a white male, as well. Conform. It would only be harder if you weren't a majority.

These guys don't hate women, by the way. Whatever is influencing the behavior and decisions I observe seems entirely subconscious. In fact, they often make favorable comments like "it's nice having a woman on the crew - everything is so tidy". But then at the end of the day they will let me go and keep a guy that stood by and did nothing all day while I organized all the equipment. They're not keeping him because they hate women, it's because it's subconsciously assumed he's a better fit for the job because of his gender, regardless of his performance.

Yep. This is pretty much the topic I'm trying to get my head around, in terms of the larger implications of it for my worldview.

When I say men are grown up versions of the kid who thought the idea of a female firefighter was hilarious, I mean that those playground views of gender do remain influential to some degree for anyone - male or female - who has not bothered to take the time to rationally reflect on them, as you are doing now.

Well, it's just a development thing for me. I have questions, and bugger all answers at this point, and I'm not the sort to take answers from others. But certainly talking with people who have thought more about these issues than I have is a start for me, and will plant the seed of more developed thought.

I've also started gently questioning some of the women I'm managing about their experiences and thoughts re: gender roles, etc.
Have to be careful with that, since I'm an external consultant who's been put in charge of a lot of people pretty suddenly, but I'm pretty keen to use the resources at hand to learn, and thereby better understand the (human) resources at hand.

Even baby steps are steps...lol