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"

How to cope with public speaking when you are the only woman in the room - The same way I cope with it in all female or mixed company, I know my subject and how to deliver it.
How to prove that you are as capable as a man - Been there, done that, got the job title to prove it!
How to deal with sexist attitudes - I don't remember learning, I've just dealt with it. There are some situation where smile and nod works wonders though, especially when you know it's going to come back to bite them in short order ( I remember one sexist ass, who had spent much of the previous Friday evening being obnoxious about women in management, being shown into my office by my PA - the look on his face was priceless!).
How to network - That's what conferences and business functions are for.
How to cope with "the complexities of being a woman in business" - Can they get any more patronizing?

Reminds me of the course that used to run at my place 'Dealing with difficult people' and by people it didn't mean the organisation's punters, but other colleagues.

My mate and I devised our own course in response. It was called 'How not to be a c0ck'. Much better.

I got told to cancel my holiday to go on a motivational course! Happily the course leader intervened...

YANBU these courses are ridiculous and I doubt any successful female directors would be seen dead on them.

utreas, you're talking out of your backside. The world's most successful companies run these courses for the world's most successful executives.

In the interests of balance, here's an article about what HBS is doing on this very subject.

www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/education/harvard-case-study-gender-equity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Particularly of interest is what is said about who speaks up, and how, and the gender component to that, and what HBS did about it.

I think I did that actual US course some years ago.

It was presented by an Americal lady - all big hair and big jewellery.

I only remember 2 things - one was that she said any woman wearing heels over 1" high in the workplace is not taking her role seriously and will be considered a joke by her male colleagues [shocked]and secondly that we always use the other person's name in every sentence we speak to them

She also spent an enormous amout of time getting us to perfect our handshakes - she thought that was very important

For those who are being dismissive of this, another link you may wish to look at:
www.mckinsey.com/features/women_matter

McKinsey is not exactly notorious for wasting its or its clients' time on unimportant issues.

WTF?

The board is against having women as senior managers, and the company tries to send women on courses to change...

Uh-huh.

Presumably it was an email that went out to all women at your firm. They were not going to take out a few is my guess. And who would they choose to take out?

Run a course yourself for the men.

How to cope with women who are great at public speaking
Why it's unacceptable to be against female senior managers
How to prove that you're as capable as a woman
Why sexist attitudes are wrong
How to rid yourself of your outdated prejudice
How to fully respect the women in your workplace

Andro. But networking is much more than just occasional forays isnt it. It is sometimes daily.

Tantrums, you sound like a great role model, you could probably run the course.

I don't think the course is teaching women to be as capable as men, from the sounds of it, it's about exploring ways to confront sexism.

I think the MN feminism boards on here are amazing and I learnt the term benevolent sexism here. It was something I'd encountered in my career and it made me feel uncomfortable but reading up on benevolent sexism made me clear as to specifically what the issue was.

I also think that it is appropriate to offer it to all women. Women face specific issues in the workplace - regardless of their strength of character, successfulness or confidence. The problem of sexism is external to us.

I honestly wouldn't find it offensive or sexist being offered this. Quite the opposite.

The board are very much against female senior management apparently.

Oh bollocks, that'll teach me to RTFT. Ok, they're arses.

Golddigger - that depends on your environment, in my current role much of the initial networking contact is made at conferences and business functions. Further networking then moves along the lines of 'one of my colleagues had started working on xxx, it's become clear that it's going to need yyy and since that's your area, would you mind me passing on your contact info?'. Daily networking? Not in my area as it currently stands, some of the other divisions are a different matter though. The skills don't change much, but like most things the applications do (networking at my previous place of employment was much more intense and a far larger slice of my job even though I was significantly lower on the ladder).

I'm in a really specialised area though, so my reputation and credentials do a lot of my networking for me now.