to wish I'd thought of a better response to the men who addressed only my male colleague

[squishedup]

I did a presentation recently. It was to a very senior group of people, almost all of whom were men, who are our clients. I was with a male colleague, no real difference in seniority, I am older than him though.

During and after the presentation (on a subject on which I am quite expert, not to blow my own trumpet) they addressed all their questions to my male colleague. When I made a comment, they acted as if they were faintly surprised to see that I was still there. They congratulated my colleague on things he had said and points he had made, when in fact I had said them. Etc.

It was really extraordinary. I have experienced something like this previously, but never to this extent. My colleague apologized afterwards and said he was embarrassed by it.

AIBU to think that one of the men there should have made an effort to call this out .. or just not do it? AIBU to think there was very little that I could do - or should I have called it out? But if so how? What would you have done?

Tried that Pengggwn. I would make my point and they would then ask my colleague what he thought. It was awful / slightly hilarious. I kept wondering what I could do to make them take me seriously but genuinely, short of acquiring a penis, I don't think there was.

Oh wow

With clients it's not going to go down well to point out however subtly that they are a bunch of sexists with freakily extreme behaviour

It's very strange when this happens - I've only noticed it really obviously at a few car showrooms although it does happen at my work it's less blatent than that

I'll take this one Stuart is a great approach, it's hard to think on the spot though if it's not something you've come prepared for!

Ooh, that's awful!

I've had similar with contractors turning to checking things with the nearest man when I'm the more senior person and been introduced as such. Eventually I just left them to it and went back to my office, as the man they were checking with then had to check with his manager, who had to check with his manager, who brought them to my office as I was next up the chain and able to give the ok.

Difficult when it's clients. How very 1930s of them. I don't think one of the men should have called them out necessarily, they either didn't notice, didn't care or didn't want to compound the issue by fighting your battle. At least Stuart apologised even though it wasn't his fault.

Was the job done well apart from their boorish behaviour? I mean could Stuart answer the questions well enough? If so, you can chalk it up to sexist cr@p and, well, not a lot else you can do without causing waves as they were clients. If not, if you were the best person to answer and didn't get the chance, they (clients) ought to be told that you are the expert and they need to address their questions to you in future.

In this case, Stuart's also responsible.

he should have been saying "that's for @squishedup to answer" and repeating that a variety of ways each time.

What was he doing there - just watching, helping, doing another preso?

Your colleague accepted praise for something he didn't do and he didn't say anything at the time.
Can you refuse to do joint presentations?

Yes, Stuart could answer the questions .... although I think I tend to be more forthright, less corporate. So maybe I was not just a woman, I was a scary woman!

No, he didn't really accept praise on my behalf. He did redirect questions to me and I guess he did what he could in some senses.

I can see how Stuart could have been as put on the spot as OP, and I can see plenty of people also being mortified to be in that situation and not handle it as well as they could.

In the future he needs to provide a united front with you and not let them get away with it, or you ought to take meetings alone as pengggwin suggests. Can you raise this with your own manager? If my junior colleague brought this to me I would let her lead with her preferences as to working with Stuart again, taking meetings alone or having me sit in to steer things back to her each time someone directed a question elsewhere.