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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To find this assumption about all-female workplaces irritating?

40 replies

PangolinPie · 18/02/2022 12:33

I work for a small charity which up until a few weeks ago was an all-female office. We now have a male finance worker, to which the manager said "I think we need a man in the office" 🙄 Lo and behold, next thing was, he was exempt from the bloody tea-towel rota (yes we have such a thing where I work) under the proviso he worked less hours than the rest of us. Until it was pointed out another woman in the office worked exactly the same hours as him.

As an office we are not "bitchy" or "emotional" or all those other clichés applied to all-female workforces so why would the manager make such a stupid statement?

OP posts:

owlinnahat · 18/02/2022 12:34

I would be murderous at the tea towel thing. There is just no good reason for it, unless the rest of you are washing up using your genitals! Total sexist bullshit.

Original poster

PangolinPie · 18/02/2022 12:35

Oh he's on the rota now, believe me!

OP posts:

BiggerBoat1 · 18/02/2022 12:36

What's a tea towel rota?

Original poster

PangolinPie · 18/02/2022 12:37

@BiggerBoat1

What's a tea towel rota?

Can you guess? 😉

OP posts:

x2boys · 18/02/2022 12:38

I dont really understand the tea towel thing ,but when I was a nurse my colleagues were predominantly female ,and ime it could be bitchy, and cliquey.

DickMabutt73962 · 18/02/2022 12:40

@BiggerBoat1

What's a tea towel rota?

I assume a washing up rota for mugs etc? Although I don't see if it's such a small place why people can't just wash their own stuff up and put away

Fimofriend · 18/02/2022 12:42

I have worked at female-dominated workplaces and I found them to be good places to work. People didn't gossip they mainly did normal small talk or talked about food. Diets in one workplace and cakes in the other.

I have found men to be more backstabbing and prone to take credit for other people's work. "It just didn't come up who had made the report" Sure it didn't. You made sure of that.

HardbackWriter · 18/02/2022 12:42

I think diversity is always a good thing in a workplace, so a single-sex workforce usually isn't ideal unless there's a specific reason for it - are your service users all female? But you can think that it's generally best that teams are mixed without thinking sexist bullshit about women being bitchy or whatever, so on that you're not being unreasonable - and the tea towel rota thing is outrageous!

PeeAche · 18/02/2022 12:42

Is the tea towel rota taking tea towels home to wash? Like football kits in a Sunday League?

I really hope it is!

Sweetmotherofallthatisholyabov · 18/02/2022 12:43

It's for washing the tea towel I assume.

TrippinEdBalls · 18/02/2022 12:43

@PeeAche

Is the tea towel rota taking tea towels home to wash? Like football kits in a Sunday League?

I really hope it is!

That's what I assumed - and if so I think it's excellent; the tea towels have been gross everywhere I've ever worked.

PeeAche · 18/02/2022 12:45

Yeah, love it. And love the thought of him sheepishly returning home to his wife with a load of dirty tea towels.

(I have leapt to an assumption here but so fucking what? He didn't even want in on the tea towel rota!)

melj1213 · 18/02/2022 12:46

I hate workplaces where there's some sort of rota or kitty for things like tea towels/washing up/tea and coffee etc bc it always ends up in arguments and I would rather not be involved, I just bring my own tea towels, wash up my own cup and bring my own tea/coffee.

As long as he isn't using your tea towels why does it matter that he's not in the tea towel rota?

Original poster

PangolinPie · 18/02/2022 12:46

@PeeAche

Is the tea towel rota taking tea towels home to wash? Like football kits in a Sunday League?

I really hope it is!

Yep that's exactly what it is. I should have known the tea towel rota idea would have generated more consternation than anything else

OP posts:

Original poster

PangolinPie · 18/02/2022 12:47

The reason we have it is that we run social events as part of the charity work we do, so they get used for that.

OP posts:

Moonface123 · 18/02/2022 12:51

I personally wouldn't get worked up about the comments or the tea towel duty, l think from reading lots of similar posts on here it would be easy to think women have never been so oppressed, when in actual fact the next generation have everything to play for if only they aren't encouraged to constantly view themselves as helpless victims.

Steelesauce · 18/02/2022 12:55

All work places have different vibes. I work in a predominantly female work force, we are bitchy and cliquey and emotional

Georgeskitchen · 18/02/2022 12:57

I have worked in all female environments and the bitching and backstabbing was off the scale. I moved into a mixed environment and tbh I find men far less complicated and dramatic as work colleagues. I have had female and male bosses and I'm.afarid the males were streets ahead in lack of dramatics and just getting things done!!
(Preparing to be flamed)

Lottapianos · 18/02/2022 12:58

I had a similar situation - all female team until recently. New male colleague, lovely, doing a great job. Colleague mentioned (to me, not in front of the team) that she thought it was a good thing as a male presence might 'calm things down a bit'. yes there often is conflict in the team but that's because of some people not pulling their weight, and other people not listening to others. It's NOT because we're all menstrual, menopausal or otherwise hysterical, you sexist muppet 🙄

EmmaH2022 · 18/02/2022 13:01

I spent six years working in an all female team

Best working years of my life by a mile.

Gardeningcreature · 18/02/2022 13:02

Of course he should be on the tea towel rota.
Bloody hell a place I worked at had to have a washing up/cleaning rota. We had a dishwasher but some folks were so lazy that it the pots were clean, instead if hand washing their cup etc they put their surety cup back in with the clean stuff! So it a had to be washed again. This happened most days. So everyone was put on a washing up: cleaning rota but the same staff who were too lazy to wash their stuff or empty the machine then moaned that they were too busy to clean up after everyone else.
Don’t get me started on the milk and coffee fund.

SillyLittleBiscuit · 18/02/2022 13:03

Quite agree OP. Hopefully the man doesn't hand the tea towel over to his wife for washing.

SnakeLinguine · 18/02/2022 13:03

My experience of all-female workplaces has been entirely positive. My experience as a younger female academic was that senior male academics were phenomenally gifted in sidestepping admin tasks, which disproportionately fell on junior women, thereby impeding their time for research and grant applications.

Ponoka7 · 18/02/2022 13:10

My DD works in the NHS, all women and patient care suffers because of cliques and backstabbing. It doesn't surprise me that in every midwife scandal that the ethos built up is always mentioned. But everyone should take each situation seperately. How did the manager respond to him being put in the rota and have there been any other incidents of sexism?

Latara · 18/02/2022 13:12

I've worked in 2 all male workplaces (private sector) as one of the only women before I worked for the NHS... believe me men together can not only be sexually inappropriate; they can also be bitchy, tell tales on each other, have cliques, bully each other Etc etc.
I prefer working in a public sector place where there's more women therefore low chance of sexual harassment although one male anaesthetist has tried it on. I should have reported him but it's too late now.

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