To be pissed off by comments from my boss?

[LyndorCake]

Ive been in my current role for around 6 months and I get paid an okay salary. My job is admin based but im sort of a jack of all trades and involved in many aspects of the business but the only person with my job role (very small company).
This industry is very much a "man's world" and as a result I am the only female in our company.
While chatting to my boss today, he made a throwaway comment about wages and said something about my wage being based on all my tasks being typically associated with "woman's work" (he used air quotes). I asked what he meant and he sort of brushed this off and was suddenly very busy. No one heard this other than he and I.
When I applied for the job the salary range had a £5k difference, and I was offered slightly above the minimum. I'm now wondering if I would have been offered higher if I were male? Am I over thinking this? I'm happy to be told that this is a non-event and I'm being over sensitive (I have been more sensitive recently). I'm not sure what to make of this.

Who knows about the salary.

Well done for challenging him on his woman’s work comments though.

That would really piss me off and i'd be passing the comment onto HR and querying if my salary had been lowered because they hired a woman. You know that's what happened; he has acxidwntly admitted it... You just need to decide if you're OK with it.

I'm hoping that I've just twisted this in my head into something sinister.

There is no HR. I am (sort of) the HR. One of my many hats. We do have connections to an external HR consultancy but not really someone to speak to.

I suspect in this situation that "HR department" is also "the boss"

It's not right and it's not fair but I suspect if you want to keep the job you'll have to just suck it up

Disclaimer - I work for a small company in a very male dominated industry so anyone talking about HR / union rep / company policies etc will not understand.

@Sweetheart

I run my small business so I am the boss and HR rolled into one, so I do understand not having dedicated departments. But having read a lot of posts on here, it seems like most people have union reps and HR reps so it was just a suggestion of what I would do in one of those situations.

I'd assume you're paid the lowest I'm sorry, and he sees the job you have as one for a woman.

So yes, he's a sexist pig. I doubt he would have paid a man more, because he was never going to employ a man in the role.

Love threads like this when people say speak to HR - these people have clearly never worked for a tiny company!

Regardless of what he meant, he has obviously embarrassed himself. It would be a good time to ask for a ride as he is probably wondering how he can haul his sorry arse into this century.

Do you work in construction?

Give it six months, remind him of all the "women's work" you do and ask to be put onto the max range now.

It would be a good time to ask for a ride

Sorry but howling at this typo.

Hi OP
I would give him the benefit of the doubt seeing as your the only female employee. It's good you asked him what he meant as he has probably realised it was a stupid comment to make.
I think if you like the job generally you should let this one go.

Obvs is he says anything else like this, you should be firm and say that to discriminate against you for being female is against the law.

That's a good point about them not hiring a man in my role. My predecessor was also female. Perhaps that's why he associated my tasks with "woman's work"? She was here since the company's conception. Think in just making up excuses for him now.
I'm a bit gutted as I really like him, but now I feel a bit uncomfortable.

It would be a good time to ask for a ride

Bound to give you a salary increase then,

In fairness, it would be a good time to ask for a rise. The man is a dinosaur.

😂 never ride your boss for a pay increase

Hmmmm, since it's a small company, rather than challenge his actual attitude I would be pretty forthright is asking to talk about promotion, pay rises, bonuses etc. Turn it round to him and ask him to tell you when you should expect a pay increase and what you need to do etc.

Thanks guys, now I'll never get that image out of my head...

I think you shouldn't read to much into it - when you get offered any job they offer the lower and you should if you want negotiate up to the higher - its just to attract applicants.

If anything if its a small business and you complain you'd just be making life harder for yourself.

more than 50% of all workers work in small to medium size business ( 1-249 people known as SME) with an average of 16 employees, when you remove large public sector employers NHS schools councils etc which account for most of the other 50% as only 1% of private sector business have more than 250 employees, this is from government stats not the DM
more than 99% of private sector jobs are in SME, and once in the private sector most companies like the OP's are just too small to have a HR department

I think there is a general misunderstanding on mumsnet that people either work for a huge company or the public sector but actually most people don't; most businesses are small, most of your local companies will be small, the plumbers, the electricians most independent retailers, the high street dentist, all sole traders or small family businesses; cleaners, most nurseries, all eateries except big chains, accountants, solicitors, the sort of builders that do extensions loft conversions etc, even mumsnet is a SME

That's what I was worried about. I want to do well here as it has a lot of potential and I am actually enjoying myself at work for the first time in years

@LyndorCake Truthfully I would forget about it, I'm sure he didn't mean it maliciously- just keep doing well at your job and enjoy it.

If any other major red flags come up in the future deal with that then!

Thanks for the advice.
I'll just leave it, prove I'm worth my merit and get as far as I can. Although I am now on the look for any other signs of sexism