women experts get shit that men just don't

[BayesianBlues]

is that your experience?
when I weigh in and (if relevant) mention I have PhD in the area, I have been told (by men) that I'm narcissistic, insecure, don't know what I'm talking about (in my area of expertise), an opinionated drone, full of myself etc
is there something so challenging to some men as a qualified woman? Men don't deal with this shit do they? Although the disparaging of 'experts' seems to be a trend regardless of gender.

Oh its everywhere. Where men are assertive, women are "aggressive".

Yeah, it's established, isn't it? I'm stating the obvious.
Probably should rephrase this as a rant. I'm pissed off.

Oh, I forgot the time I was called 'intimidating'. That was a good one.

I drove coaches and large goods vehicles professionally for 10 years. The amount of nonsense I had to listen to because I was "a woman doing a man's job" was constant and exhausting (although, on a good day, hilarious). Basically, I had to drive twice as well as the men (admittedly not that hard) in order to get half the respect.

While women do have to work harder to prove themselves, if I was receiving that much negative feedback, I would be thinking about how I come across.

Dr Jessica Taylor addresses this quite often in her posts.

I have my own job (a largely female occupation) manspained quite often to me.

Mary Ann Sieghart has written a book about this called The Authority Gap. (I haven’t read it, am waiting to borrow dd’s copy).

@CorrBlimeyGG

While women do have to work harder to prove themselves, if I was receiving that much negative feedback, I would be thinking about how I come across.

Nah. I 100% know that if I had testicles then I wouldn't receive that feedback. Not changing to fit their gender stereotypes. Not happening. I suggest you look at the #immodestwomen campaign.

I'm anti-experts. Nobody cares if you have a PHD, you still need to argue your case and explain your reasoning and your views and people will make their mind up on their merits.

Some men take an argument less seriously if it is coming from a woman which is wrong but I wouldn't take self proclaimed experts seriously man or woman.

People who are genuinely great at what they do don't need to shout about their qualifications because people respect and listen to them anyway.

I should say that (thankfully) this is not the majority of my professional experience. But when you experience it, it's so blatant and shocking. There are some VERY insecure men out there (and without being ageist, I have only experienced this from men aged 55+ and not younger so hopefully change is happening)

Oh I used to work.at bnq and the amount of times people would ask me 'isn’t there a man to ask?'

9 times out of 10 the man they found didn't work on my dept anyway and had to ask me. It was mostly women who did this though! Used to really piss me off.

I used to get people all the time insisting that we sold things we hadn't had for years. One woman actually shouted at me that I was a silly girl and she'd bought it a few weeks ago.

The range had been discontinued and removed over 3 years ago (by me) and at that point I was the only one on my section due to short staffing so nothing went in or out of those shelves without me seeing it. She still insisted on speaking to a man.

@CorrBlimeyGG

While women do have to work harder to prove themselves, if I was receiving that much negative feedback, I would be thinking about how I come across.

See, I did that once. I asked a counsellor to consider various examples of just such behaviours, as described by myself. I asked her what I could to in order to not come across as a harpy, aggressive, intimidating, shrill, self centred, repetitive, challenging, under prepared, over prepared, in the wrong job, in a man's job, angry when challneged, hysterical when challenged and on and on.

Her answer? Become a man!

I've told this story here before I had an NQT lecturer work alongside me. We were discussing a specific health topic with other staff and students. He told me I was wrong. I was ourtdated, hadn't read some of the more recent, groundbreaking research. He even quoted that research out of a journal he was carrying.

Yep! The journal article and the book chapter he was referring to were written by me!

So, as far as he was concerned, in print I was an authority. In person? Not so much!

Was just reading this article in the Guardian
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/dec/10/pushy-gobby-rude-why-do-women-get-penalised-for-talking-loudly-at-work
An physics lecturer’s 30 year career destroyed because some of her (mostly male) colleagues felt she was too loud & passionate….

I wouldn't take self proclaimed experts seriously man or woman.

Having a PhD doesn't make you a self proclaimed expert. It makes you an actual expert, albeit in a very specific area.

@Winebottle

I'm anti-experts. Nobody cares if you have a PHD, you still need to argue your case and explain your reasoning and your views and people will make their mind up on their merits.

Some men take an argument less seriously if it is coming from a woman which is wrong but I wouldn't take self proclaimed experts seriously man or woman.

People who are genuinely great at what they do don't need to shout about their qualifications because people respect and listen to them anyway.

So if someone was, say, explaining cancer treatment to you, you wouldn't care if they were experts in cancer treatment and had been to medical school etc? You'd be equally happy with someone who had taught themselves on google? Personally, I prefer to know the credentials of who is presenting information to me. Certainly, I wouldn't seek to denigrate anyone for their qualifications which I would assume they worked hard to achieve.

@Winebottle

I'm anti-experts. Nobody cares if you have a PHD, you still need to argue your case and explain your reasoning and your views and people will make their mind up on their merits.

Some men take an argument less seriously if it is coming from a woman which is wrong but I wouldn't take self proclaimed experts seriously man or woman.

People who are genuinely great at what they do don't need to shout about their qualifications because people respect and listen to them anyway.

Mmm! I doubt that is a global decison though.

Or would you take you car to be repaired by a window cleaner?

Have your spleen removed by a car salesman?

Some of those people 'shouting' about their area of expertise are doing their jobs - research, teaching, lecturing, fund raising, awareness raising.

Some without PhDs are expert in their fields - like car mechanics. Do you deny them their expertise too?

Being anti experts leave you wide open to well argued nonsense. Like flat earth, no moon landings etc. And, frankly, that is risible!

@HoardingSamphireSaurus please say you pointed out that the journal was written by you, and if you did what was his reaction? I bet he didnt apologise.

I didn't say anything. There was a silence. Some of the students gsped and giggled and he looked entirely unconcerned (apparently he thought they were amazed by his sharpness of mind) and carried on repeating my own research back to me to refute me.

He was spoken to afterwards, by his mentor. He spent the next 2 years trying to undermine me. Half of the campus thought he was amusing, the other half thought he was an idiot. And no, never did apologise for announcing his daftness.

He shot himself in the foot in many ways. As far as I know he no longer works in HE but is now safely tucked away in quite a posh prep school!

I should explain, it was an informal meeting, where we met with students just to discuss new stuff, talked about our specialist subjects and helped them decide who they would like as subject mentors, additional support for their theses.

He was there ostensiby to chose me as his subject mentor. His academic mentor advised against this

I also think other women attack us for it also. But if we are discussing patriarchy, this isn't so surprising. I have witnessed plenty unpleasant retorts on MN when someone attempts to share knowledge and expertise. It is a deep, suspicious defence system against women who exhibit power or intellectual strength.
Sort of like not being allowed to 'get above ourselves', knowing our place.
I have also noticed on AIBU and S&B that if a woman shows certainty and confidence in her posts/opinions, she will be readily attacked, often it would seem, just for the sake of it. However, if someone appears under-confident, shy or uncertain, she will garner immediate assistance and encouragement.

It's endemic isnt it?

@Winebottle

I'm anti-experts. Nobody cares if you have a PHD, you still need to argue your case and explain your reasoning and your views and people will make their mind up on their merits.

Some men take an argument less seriously if it is coming from a woman which is wrong but I wouldn't take self proclaimed experts seriously man or woman.

People who are genuinely great at what they do don't need to shout about their qualifications because people respect and listen to them anyway.

I'm guessing you don't have a PHD. Or even a PhD. Do you know what one involves and how long it takes? Given that you think it only makes someone a 'self proclaimed' expert I'm guessing not.

It's not just expertise. A couple of years back, in my annual review, I talked about how I had driven a particular project and my then manager started on about, "well, it wasn't just you was it?" And no of course it wasn't, because no group project is, but I did lead it and push people to achieve more than they might otherwise have, and men are allowed to run projects without acknowledging every single person who ever facilitated them. (Fortunately, I don't report to that manager any more.)

Example: i am well educated and a working 'professional', but in a much derided creative/academic area, so not science/medical, etc.
And over the years I have certainly received hostility and suspicion due to being able to articulate myself (thankfully not with clients or in interviews).
I have witnessed this hostility from neighbours, friends of friends, online, from the council, NHS and so on. From both men and women. And I am not bolshy or self important! There is definitely an insidious, unchecked prejudice and fear of well articulated or professional women in all areas of society.
I would go so far as to suggest 'professional woman' has become a pejorative term.

Yep. I've experienced this both professionally and personally. Just as a couple of examples:

• At work, (ex)boss yelled at me publicly for (privately) 'challenging his authority' when I politely pointed out that something he wanted to include in a report was factually incorrect. It related to an area in which I have specialist qualifications and he doesn't, and he was fully aware of that (what with it being part of the reason I was recruited). When I held my ground, he checked with another male colleague who also did not have my expertise.
• Personally- Volunteering for a community project and offered to get involved in an area related to my professional expertise. Group of middle aged male volunteers ignored my advice in favour of asking 'Bob' down the road who worked on a similar project 20 years ago but has no actual expertise in the area. Then congratulated me on being 'about right' when Bob agreed with most of what I told them and was completely out of date on the bits he disagreed with
• Male family member, who knows my area of professional expertise asked for my advice. Told me I must have got it wrong because Dave at work knows a bloke down the pub who says so. The when he followed Dave's advice and got in a mess, came back to me to ask why I didn't tell him!

There are many more examples.

Ah yes! You may drive it dear, but that just means you took notes at the meetings and handed out the To Do lists.

I was told much the same after winning a very prestigious award. One that was awarded on merit, not as a yearly thing, just if something was unusal an innnovative.

It had my name on it as lead design/researcher. My male colleagues were thrilled to have been involved and received their own mentions in the award.

One of them had a male boss who had wanted to lay claim to having been the impetus for the work, but couldn't if I was always being mentioned as the project lead. My boss just laughed. The funding was all in my name. Nobody ever thought it was anything other than my project, my team