My female boss actively seeking to recruit a man into a new role in the team...

Just read the chat and I have to say they it's just like the sexism shown in a Project Petra, the Blue Peter competition to find the 'best' spy's. The girls were way better but three boys won. There is still the sexist view that boys/men handle things better / part of a 'better' social mix etc. And here is the grown up example of it. Stay strong. It will change, hopefully within our lifetimes!

"And the fact we have more men called Dave in our company than technical women."

I have encountered this!

Still, in my industry, I have had men from other industries come to an event and ask where all the women are. I recognise what you say about law and accountancy in general; however, there are certain parts of accountancy where a male dominated team is very common.

My industry is small enough that I won't identify it here; the oldest firm in it is less than 80 years old though.

I'm still inclined to disagree with the OP here. All-male or all-female ghettos at work are bad, and if the boss is trying to break one up, that ought to be a good thing. But we haven't heard enough to be sure of how this is being done; prejudice against younger women would be dead wrong, for sure.

We have a male receptionist. The traditional secretary role is becoming less common but we have a couple of men who type and do general PA work.

Marketing teams didn't exist when I started work - we weren't allowed to advertise but since that restriction was lifted the marketing dept. in the firms I've worked in have been female dominated

Scallops - I am in a similar place. Mostly men. We have 3 women in the marketing team and are recruiting a 4th person. The temptation is very great to try to balance the team. Nothing to do with child bearing age. Just balance. It seems wrong in a company which is 80 % men to have an all female marketing team.

Don't even get me started on the lack of a male receptionist.

And the fact we have more men called Dave in our company than technical women.

No. Most STEM industries face similar. Some of them are even 'traditional'. And computer programming was originally female dominated. It then it got some prestige and lo the men arrived.

This is an interesting article about it: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

Ok thanks. I genuinely think the traditional professions are getting a lot better at gender balance. One might have hoped that a new profession like yours could at least start from the same point it's taken mine decades to achieve.

Are you getting an equal intake at junior level?

IT. Customer facing has more women (although not dominated by). Behind the scenes techies = very male dominated.

What sector are you in? I can only speak with experience of law and accountancy and that's not describing any office I've worked in or the firms I deal with regularly. Oh and know of course, that's just my work personal experience but I would genuinely like to know which sector is so male dominated?

So far as the racial mix Scotland is not, by %age of population, ethnically diverse but the mix in those professions is poor,although apparently according to the last Law Society stats isn't, at junior levels anyway, too far off the general population %age (I'm sceptical about that )

I lead a team of seven blokes . Both my other female peers lead teams full of blokes. All the rest of the people at my level are blokes (i.e. We are exceptions) Above us are all blokes apart from two women. And those women have only been in place within the last 18 months (signalling change I think). The are several male only teams. Not a single female only team. And the racial profile is even worse. Three black women in the whole department (about 170 staff). Until recently no one questioned this. It is frustrating. Meritocracy, my arse. 'Like me' is more like it.

Your TM has left herself (and the company) wide open to a discrimination claim, there. Very unwise.

Good for you to get out op.

And if you do point it out, they'll probably just say something like, "well, we're an IT department - of course there aren't any women," without ever questioning further or asking why that might be.

I imagine there are oodles of four person male teams, led by a man, where they haven't even noticed they don't have a woman.

I can see two sides to this. One is that hiring shouldn't be done with an eye on people's personal characteristics. But what evidence is there that the boss wants to avoid a "woman of childbearing age", or that the group is suffering by too many people out on leave, or about to quit?

On the other side, surely it's a good thing if every part of every enterprise has a mix of women and men (and in this case, there's a woman in charge). As long as plenty of women have their chance at a job in this firm, I wouldn't be too opposed to an attempt to recruit a man for this job--though if an obviously right woman came along, I hope she'd get the job and the boss would say, "Oh well, maybe next time". But on the other other hand, maybe in a big organisation there's room for an all-female section, as long as everyone respects those women. It would depend on how it works out in practice.

One of my male employees is just about to start his second period of parental leave. He'll be away for 4 months.

So far as believing or not believing the OP I suppose it depends on how one interprets "insinuation". Did the boss say this or did OP take 2 and 2 and make 5? Could be either.

Whydon't you believe it just? There are plenty of male bosses with this attitude to women of child-bearing age. You see it on the comments on news websites everywhere. Shared parental leave rules, yeah right, we'll see what the take-up is.

Unfortunately with an all-female team the arguments about widening the team's experience range are valid.

Lougle, there are oodles of all male teams in my line of work. OP may be in a regional office, or in the accounts team etc.

Just, if you don't believe, report.

I can see the argument for wanting more balance in the team, if you are all the same sex, and all around the same age, but if the team is less than 5, there are limits to what you can do. However, if her reasons are for avoiding women of childbearing age, then she's not aware of the new rules on shared parental leave, and even without that, she's being discriminatory. Not necessarily something you can challenge easily, though. Maybe the new man was the best person for the job - did you get to see the CVs, the qualifications and experience of the applicants, or sit in on the interviews? Unless you did, you can't know for sure, and you can't prove there was any discrimination, whatever you might suspect about her motives. Obviously if some mail or something exists which says, "yeah, we've got to get a bloke, no more ovulating women," then maybe you have got evidence, but surely no manager would be quite that daft...

Maybe you could think longer-term - say your manager has got a point about lack of diversity in the team, and suggest that everyone has training on unconscious bias and so on. Ask HR to consider blind CVs - i.e. identifying information such as names which might give away sex and cultural background is removed before hiring managers review the applications. (You might have HR like mine, who says it's not necessary, because all managers should be aware of bias. Well, yes, they should be, but should be is not are.)

Sorry OP but I don't believe you.

All the workplace advice books I've ever read say the opposite - that women are more likely to stick at a job out of a (possibly misguided) sense of loyalty, and this is something culturally encouraged in women, whereas men are more likely to be encouraged to go for other offers, climb the career mountain, put themselves first etc. She may come to regret that hire. And it would sort of serve her right.

No advice but that gives me the shits.

If you are an all female team, you have to wonder what processes led to that, also? Unless you are part of a majority female workforce, to have an all female team is just as imbalanced as an all male team.