to be filled with rage that this still happens in this day and age.

[AnathemaPulsifer]

Yes, I know The Poke isn't 'news', but still:

www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/03/10/man-swapped-names-wife-two-weeks-results-fascinating/

In short, a woman (recruiter) was always working slower than her male colleague. He discovered why when he accidentally started an email conversation using her name from a shared inbox and didn't notice his mistake until what should have been a simple conversation became intensely slow and frustrating. The candidate was questioning his every suggestion because he thought he was talking to a woman. His attitude changed completely when he was aware he was talking to a man.

So. Frustrating. Nasty, low-grade undermining of women :(

Has it ever happened to you? I've been patronised by men, but thankfully not in a work context. I did get quite snappy with a salesman recently who didn't seem to think my tiny female brain would cope with the 'technical stuff' I was asking about.

My old boss was a man in his 60s, he was CEO and I was Operations Manager. If we very went to an event/meeting together it was always assumed I was his PA

Feeling very naive now. And lucky.

My favourite was when I was 38 wks pregnant with breech DS1 and the dr was discussing an elective caesarean. He completely ignored me, talking only to DH. When I asked questions or expressed an opinion, he answered DH. I could have been invisible. It was weird. DH was and kept directing him back to me.

I'm in advertising and get this a LOT. My boss is female and the VP of our company is female. My boss had a particularly difficult client who said 'could anyone else sit in on this meeting? You know, someone who knows a bit more about it?' She was in shock because she'd offered the VP's presence but he wasn't buying it. Eventually she twigged what he was asking and brought in her male colleague who works on the tech side (nothing to do with this client) and that swung it for him.

Not a lone incident either. It doesn't surprise me.

I've just remembered another one. I carried out some process design business analysis for a particular department, wrote up the requirements and passed it to one of the developers to start working on the systems analysis. He was new into the organisation and when I handed him the document he flicked through it and said in tones of surprise "oh, you're quite good at this aren't you?" I gave him the Hard Stare and the raised eyebrow and said "of course I'm good at it. That's why I'm head of my department."

There was a thread last year on here a bit similar to this. A complete tosser at work was deliberating ignoring a woman, then denying he did it, blaming her...it was horrible. Her boss wasn't really interested until she started cc ing him in to email correspondence, once he could see the evidence that the guy was deliberately being a shite he gave him a talking to and that was that.
But the mentality behind it was awful-just why?!

Also this has just reminded me, DH came home in an absolute rage one day. Showed me an email some guy had written to a girl in the office, its DH's company.
The tone of the email was disgusting, so condescending, patronising and down right rude. Plus he was completely in the wrong. DH went mental, rang him up and asked him if he would have sent that email to him, or did he just reserve it for women? The guy tried to deny it was because it was to a woman, but DH told him if he ever sent an email like that again to someone in his office he would go down there in person and sort it- DH is 6'4" ex rugby guy soft as butter but scares the poop out of people.
He was so cross because he knew the guy would never have sent it to a man.

It's massively wrong and I did experience it when working. I was recruiting, went to greet an applicant who answered my polite general chat with a look of barely disguised disinterest. Took him to conference room, sat down and he looked confused. Then he confessed he thought I was a secretary and suddenly became fascinated with what I had been chatting about on our short walk. Too little too late.

But it happens with the disabled too.

Friend and I went into shop to buy a new telephone. Found a member of staff, I asked my question and she completely ignored me, replying instead to my friend over my head - I was sitting on a disability scooter. It was like I was invisible. I wheeled straight out of the shop. My friend didn't know why I had left until I explained to her.

On another occasion I was at an airport with my sister. We decided it would be easier for me to be pushed in a wheelchair rather than shuffle along using my walking frame. Having collected our luggage, a woman stood in front of the wheelchair, looked straight over my head and said to my DS 'shall I push her'? So fucking rude.

It's a bit like the BBC radio programme entitled 'Does he take sugar'. So you get a double whammy - female and disabled and you have no chance of being treated like an adult human being

It took me to read this story in the papers to realise this has happened to me.

I have worked in my specific field for my employer for ten years. I am the only person with my skill set in my team. Yet on numerous occasions, male clients have insisted on dealing with my male colleague on a project that that falls into my remit, even though he works in a very different field (think advertising vs. logistics, or text vs. audio/visual).

Interestingly, it's always been younger men that have done this (20s to early 40s). I've never had a problem with men over 50.

Standing in a queue at a builders merchant as I wanted to order three packs of 7n blocks. It was obvious that I wasn't with any of the blokes in the queue as I was careful to distance myself IYSWIM. I was utterly ignored by the three blokes serving and when they had served the men the three men serving went and sat down at their computers. Not one of them made eye contact with me at all. A woman had been watching this and loudly walked over and said, "Can I help you madam?" and looked at them. They looked shamefaced. I bellowed, " Yes I want to order some concrete blocks, pink ones with glitter to match my chuffin' nails" I was so angry I actually wrote to head office about it. Never got a reply though!

Unfortunately sexism is often largely invisible. Well done to this bloke for making the effort to support his colleague. Can't imagine his boss was happy!

And idiots question why we still need international women's day

I was chairing a hearing, only woman on a panel of three. The person we were investigating and his lawyer both insisted on addressing one of my colleagues as chair, the middle-aged bloke who was new and had no more than a basic understand of what we were doing. I corrected them and our lawyer corrected them, so they switched to referring to the other male on the panel as chair.

It took our lawyer threatening to eject the lawyer on the other side of the table before he would agree to refer to 'the girl' as chair.

In my old job we were looking to introduce a new IT system for my specific area of work. I knew my area like the back of my hand and had been involved with technical meetings with the software company so knew how the system worked. During testing of the new system, a man from our IT department came to query my test results. He wouldn't accept my answers and insisted on waiting until a male colleague in our data team returned from lunch to ask him the same questions. Not even the female member of the data team was good enough to ask, it had to be the male. When my colleague returned from lunch the IT guy asked him the questions and my colleague replied "i don't know, this is mummabearof2's area, why don't you ask her". It was infuriating.

Also, a male in another department always used to email or phone my male colleague who sat opposite me questions meant for me. It was ridiculous and makes me so cross thinking about it again!

Not a work example but twice in recent years I've gone with DH to buy a vacuum cleaner. I don't do vacuuming so I generally leave it to him to pick.

Both times he has asked a salesman about a particular model and they answer ME. I don't care! I've ended up walking off so they will answer him instead. It's so rude.

Some ridiculous bloke tried to mansplain offside to me at the rugby. I am a qualified coach and played

You could see my dad doing obvious "nooooooooooo" gestures. I then ripped said guy such a new one he went and sat elsewhere for the match I wasn't abusive. Just quietly cutting.

Oh the irony. People are getting excited that women aren't believed in the same way men are. Only they need a man to say it because they don't believe it when women say it....

It was the same with the Bill Cosby allegations, wasn't it?

Women had been shouting for years, but it wasn't a (black) male comedian made a joke about it on stage that the whole thing kicked off.

I am MD of our small construction company. We have been trading 10 years. We have had every bullshit excuse for not paying on time. DP leaves me to chase it.

The amount of times I have had some bloke try and mansplain a problem to me about banking issues is unreal. And call me sweetheart or darling. Or say they will sort it with dp. I worked in banking so I can always suggest an alternative method for them to get funds to us. And when they say they will speak to dp I always ask why as I am the MD and I decide anything important especially to do with money.

The most infuriating conversation I have had was with a female contracts manager though. 'I know you are busy with the kids and housework so I will discuss it with DP'. Told her it wouldn't be necessary, kids were at school and I was halfway through my corporation tax return and welcomed the light relief of a conversation about why we were underpaid again.

I read this earlier. And was promptly reminded of the bloke that will stand in front of me agreeing to whatever it is I need but has never ever done it. Won't respond to emails. Ever. I have literally never had an email from him.

Dickhead.