To wonder why the actual fuck I am being asked to go on a course about "women in business"

[TantrumsAndBalloons]

....when, I am in fact a woman who has been in this particular area of "business" for the last 16 years?

What exactly will it be teaching me?

Surely it would be more helpful for the cave men who work here to go on this particular course so they understand that, guess what? Being a woman in a male dominated office is actually ok. And that women are actually able to do the job just as well as you, a penis is not actually required to have a functioning mind.

I cannot believe people are actually still doing these courses, I thought it was generally accepted now that women are not so inferior that they need an entire days course to learn how to do a job they have been doing for 16 fucking years?

I have respectfully declined.
Well no I haven't. I sent my director an email saying "do you want me to actually give the "lesson" on how to be a woman? No? Then I fail to see why I would need to go and learn how to be one. Thanks anyway. There may be other people here who may find it useful"

Exactly abs
Where are the male only courses? Where are the courses for men to be as capable as women?
I believe they do not exist.

And peppi if you believe any woman that has made it further in her career is shouting "ner ner I'm better than you" than you are the one with an issue, maybe with a specific person. Or do you think any male who you work with who is higher up than you is doing the same thing?

why don't you offer to speak at this course? You obviously have unique insights into what it takes to make it to the top in your org.

I suspect it will be a course provided by consultants who wouldn't be keen to suggest to the company that they already have employees who could offer their service for nothing and possibly do the job better because they have inside knowledge.

That's if tantrums is being paid or recognised as being in training role, which she may not be, or even want.

I dont want

I certainley don't want to try and teach women how to "be as capable as men"
Or how to talk to a male audience.

I'm firmly in the patronizing bullshit camp. It's the whole idea that women need special treatment (the poor loves), but also that some deluded pillock thinks it's worth spending around £500 per day, per seat so that we have to listen to it. Screw that - give me half the money and I'll read a book instead.
Send workers on presentation skills, assertiveness, cost accounting 101 courses. You know - something bloody useful to all employees.
The problem is that there is now a vast industry which relies on the idea that there are 'issues' with sex (and race and loads of other things), and they are a powerful (and wealthy!)lobby. Oxygen thieves IMO.

you only have to look at pay to realise that women don't have equality.

but to me the fix is a greater understanding of what discrimination means in the workplace - the stuff that is covered in Delusions of Gender.

e.g. when a woman fails it widely perceived as saying something about women, when a man fails is just down to him.

so my ideal W in B course would explain the science behind discrimination and how to deal with it on a practical level.

Tantrums - it is insulting that your director didn't read the info re the course and think 'Nope, Tantrums definitely doesn't need to go on that course' File 13. It would make me feel pretty crap that he would think 'Oh look, here's a course for Tantrums to go on, poor little woman amongst all of us Big Men' He might as well have just asked you to go on the 'Office Junior Upskilling' course.... great and useful for OJ's, highly irrelevant to others. Idiot. Has he replied yet?

He replied straight away "sorry thought you might find it interesting"

Not. A. Clue.

YANBU. Indeed, management are being VU. Clearly this hasn't been thought through by upper management.

If you DO go, who will be left behind to make the tea? And will this training course be in a city centre? Where you might be distracted by gregaws and too busy shopping to get you some learning?

clutches pearls and faints

The men should be sent instead. What a huge relief it is not to have to work anymore and put up with this nonsense.

I was nearly sent on an anti-assertiveness course because my boss said I was not feminine enough.
He realised his mistake as he said it and backtracked before I ripped him limb from limb.

to be fair, any course called " in business" should be avoided by everyone at all costs.

N.B
short people in business
gingers in business
pretentious wankers in business
etc. etc.

I have been on a few 'women only' courses/programmes and I have got a huge amount out of them and I don't think any of them tried to make me a 'man'. They were aimed at women because rhe women in my organisation said they needed help with the things the courses were about. But if your organisation is running the course without any appetite for it then they're stupid.

I agree whoever said about men applying for jobs because they liked the look of the job whereas women apply for jobs they know they can do/have the skills for. I recently testedthis out and got a couple of male colleagues to suggest jobs for me to apply for - the jobs they suggested I wouldn't have even looked at and were a grade higher than I would've been comfortable applying for. Now I try something between their approach and mine.

I went on one of these once. It was set up and run by senior women in the industry and was very much a networking event. I'd been a bit before I went too, but with the benefit of hindsight am fully in support. I gained some very useful contacts and you could say it was discriminatory that men at the same grade did not get to participate.

Why don't you take a look at the delegate list before you write it off.

Men in busines .....
image-store.slidesharecdn.com/b7ace3c2-274d-11e3-9367-12313b087694-large.jpg

OP, you mention that you are the only female in senior management at your workplace, and also it comes across that you feel the diversity agenda is less than well-thought through there. Given how passionate you come across on this, I wonder if you have ever given any thought to how you can drive some change where you work and help some others who are earlier on in their careers to achieve what you have? That could be truly game-changing

I personally feel that the gender bias will not disappear unless we all take ownership of driving cultural change. This is something I personally am very involved in in my company.

I am trying mydelilah
The board are very much against female senior management apparently.
I am always looking to promote women that are management material. Sadly I can only do so much. It took me a long time to get to the position I am in now. Its a male dominated office in a male dominated industry.
What happens is that I will train someone, they will go as far as I personally can take them and then they will leave to take up a senior exec position elsewhere

Wouldn't it be worth going as a role model and inspiration for other women who aren't where you are?

You may only say one sentence during the whole day; it might be the sentence that launches another woman's career.

I'd be more receptive to these company-sponsored courses for women if they told you to ask for a pay rise at every opportunity like men do.

Strangely they don't do that. Wonder why...?

lougle why do you think it's a good use of company time for OP to be a role model for other women?

That's if OP wants to do that, which I think she doesn't.

It would be a good use of COMPANY time because companies need more women leaders, for all sorts of reasons including performance and reputation. Whether it would be a good use of the OP's time is for her to judge.

Yes friendlyladybird it would be a good idea for the company to assign someone willing and suitable to that role, put it in their job description, set aside work time and pay them for it.

This doesn't appear to be the case for OP.

Tantrums - YANBU

Given what you say the board is like it sounds like a tick box exercise and they are hoping it would just shut you up and keep them out of trouble. They should do more than issue an invitation for courses aimed at women starting out at business to someone who is in the SMT. It doesn't show the slightest respect to you. If they'd sent the invite to someone who'd just entered a junior role, then maybe.

As you have correctly shown, actions speaks so much louder than words in employment relations.

OP that is shocking - the board is against female senior management!

I do think having women in senior roles, being demonstrably capable, and providing role models for those coming up the chain is invaluable. I personally am benefitting in my career from exactly this right now, and I spend a lot of time myself mentoring and coaching female colleagues pre and post maternity leave, as this was a very difficult period for me when I went through it, with no support at the time.

In my company, blue chip, male-dominated field, a large programme training each and every senior manager on 'unconscious bias' is currently being rolled out - asking people to consider and address all sorts of bias, not just gender. This will be very effective I think, however it takes a Board that recognises writing off or alienating half the workforce is not good business practice to get to this point, and I wholeheartedly agree with OP that sending the women on the course she was invited to is just silly

Women do need the chance to network with other women though, this has been key for me, and I jump on any opportunity to attend events that will provide networking opportunity. So I do think female only events are positive

punch.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/PUNCH-Card-Range-Cartoons/G0000gvvVCVLxsd8/I0000eHEXGJ_wImQ

maybe its going to discuss how PMT effects women I work and how to deal with it appropriately ............

that was a joke by the way