AIBU to be sick of privileged, older white men - join my tiny rant!

inertpotatoI didn’t say it was a great win for women?!

It’s similar because of the inequality that impacts on flexibility to work putting UK workers at a disadvantage compared to say Indian peers. It’s different because it is about different cultures not genders.

Meh. I "buy in help" to make me a coffee on the way to work, to grind the flour & bake my bread, to pick out veg and deliver them to me, to put heels on my shoes, change my baby's nappy, etc. Paying someone else to do stuff so you don't have to is not some big crime against women. (Expecting people to work in shitty conditions, yes. But not simply doing stuff that theoretically I could do myself but find it worth paying for.)

I am sorry to hear about those of you who have quit tech. (Not in the slightest bit surprised, mind.) This year has been the closest I've come to quitting, but I am hanging on in there. There was an HR investigation earlier this year, which triggered my manager to ask if there was any sexism or racism in the department - last time I tried to point out instances of everyday sexism, I was told I was being too sensitive and there was no sexism. He claimed he'd never noticed when I pointed out how white the department is. They simply do not see it, and it's so draining, all the time.

cucumber it's not quite the same though, is it?

We're not talking about it on a personal level, but on a wider, social, political one.

If it was an even split, 50/50, men and women in the boardroom, in middle management, and on the shop floor, yes, it wouldn't be an issue. But it's not like that by a longshot.

Yes. Even more disappointing is when the misogyny is actively denied by women.

“Help” isn’t always women. My window cleaner, my odd job man, the online supermarket delivery driver, the Amazon delivery driver, the firewood delivery person... they are all men!

Paying someone else to do stuff so you don't have to is not some big crime against women.

It's not a crime against women, neither is it a solution to the problem as described here if the outsourcing is going to generally low-paid women. Which it is.

Help” isn’t always women. My window cleaner, my odd job man, the online supermarket delivery driver, the Amazon delivery driver, the firewood delivery person... they are all men!

Sure, but they're paid better than a nursery worker, for example (delivery drivers, I'm not sure).

I am optimistic. Things are graduatlly changing. I have worked full time for 35 years despite babies and have done pretty well although I had to set up my own firm to do it in the end. I cannot say that was necessarily due to gender, but I would like to see instead of about 20/80 female/male ratios of the highest earners we were at 50/50.

I do realise there are two separate issues - that some people white black male female earn a lot and are in high paid careers and a lot of people aren't and that is often more of a class and education issue in the UK than gender. However that does not mean we should say forget about the high paid and only try to get income equality across classes. Just because a lot of men have low paid jobs does not mean we should not be cross that women hold about 20% only of positions of power and high pay in the UK.

One of my daughters was saying she likes working with men who have full time working wives most as they tend to be a lot less sexist than men with a non working wife at home.

One of my daughters was saying she likes working with men who have full time working wives most as they tend to be a lot less sexist than men with a non working wife at home.

Really, how could they not be? All the diversity training in the world is not going to accomplish what a single vomit alert phone call from the school will in one fell swoop.

cucumbergin, lisasimpsonssaxophone, EBearHug, thanks for the empathy. I have been made to feel so bad by so many people who insisted that the problem was me: that I'm too loud, that I am too reactive, that I'm too conflictive...funny that the white men never get that kind of feedback or if they do, it doesn't matter.

Hisaishi Yes. But part of that wider context is that women, successful professional women, are often attacked for "outsourcing" their "womanly duties" to "poor women" - as if there is some moral advantage in mopping your own bathroom, booking your own meetings/flights etc. Yes, there are definitely class issues around who gets to be a barista and who gets a chance to be a lawyer. And how we as a society treat people in low paid service roles. But there is also a definite strand of misogyny in the expectation that women must not merely overcome all the other structural disadvantages to get senior roles, but that they must also forgo any of the outsourcing of labour that anyone in an industrialised society does, and bake their own fucking bread!

Inert - I don’t know what my window cleaner gets paid as I use a big firm. But it’s really hard work cleaning windows and much more skilled than being a delivery driver.

I'm not sure if understand the problem with the skin colour ? Would it be ok if they were brown men ? I can understand wanting to see a better share of power with females.

I wonder if Brexit will stop the demographic changes here that will happen in Europe. Already in 100 years time countries that were "built by white men" will not be white majority countries anymore. I don't know how that will be play out, but i see it lead to the rise of the far right across Europe today, let's hope things don't escalate.

I fear there is an agenda to get rid of white male control of western countries and businesses by any means. It's already been done, you just need to wait for the generational demographic changes.

I outsource my ironing. It’s done at my local dry cleaning shop, to a very high standard, by trained professionals with good working conditions and proper terms of employment. I am happy to support the economy in this way.

WriteSpeakCode Yes. Holding women (and minorities) to higher, impossible standards is one way to keep lucrative professions white, male, and middle class. It's gaslighting par excellence - hard to argue against "too loud" "too conflictive" when it's "what I say is too loud is too loud". (And it fecking hurts!)

Holding outsiders to impossible standards - I was once marked down in a performance review because my English wasn’t Belgian enough...

user, I was marked down because my also Mediterranean colleague and I spoke to each other in a way that others interpreted as arguing (you know, lots of arm waving and flair)

Yes.

I was also reprimanded for speaking English to an American female colleague in a casual, private conversation (of no consequence - hi how are you sort of stuff). We were working in a European office of an American company and half our work was done in English...

In two offices I’ve worked in where partners were earning squillions, junior female employees were criticised for not maintaining the standards of grooming and sartorial elegance that were only compatible with huge amounts of spare cash.

As a more senior female colleague I was asked to give junior colleagues instruction about the expected standards of self-presentation. Which they couldn’t afford (and didn’t have time for).

You called?

I think it's a bad idea to start declaring that you dislike any group of people, be it those of a specific age, ethnicity, gender, religion or any other characteristic. It's stereotyping and for that I think YABU.

However, YANBU to be fed up of your specific colleagues, or the attitudes that some of them hold.

I'm too loud, that I am too reactive, that I'm too conflictive
Too aggressive, not grateful enough...

I think it's a bad idea to start declaring that you dislike any group of people, be it those of a specific age, ethnicity, gender, religion or any other characteristic. It's stereotyping and for that I think YABU.

I am very fond of many of my male colleagues. We've worked together for a long time. But as a class, they do have privilege and there is still a lot of unconscious bias in the way different people are treated as groups. Blatant sexism, while it does still happen, is easier to call out, and there are more legal protections than 40 years ago, but it is a lot harder to combat the unconscious stuff, mostly because it tends to be systemic and not overt. "He's great, he had 3 papers published last year," vs "She's not great, she only had 3 papers published last year." Being judged differently for the same behaviours, bossy vs managerial, that sort of thing. The power structures are there and they mostly support the status quo. Which means men.