"You're in administration are you?"

[ImJustMadAboutSaffron]

Waiting for a train and a guy started chatting to me to pass the time. Told me he had a 51 year old son so he must be in his 70s. When he discovered I work at a university he asked me the question in the subject line.

I asked him what made him say that and he just shrugged. I didn't say so, but I suspect it's because I'm a woman and also his generation.

Unreasonable to be wryly amused/slightly miffed? Not the first time it's happened and always men that say it.

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with working in administration either btw.

Your posts have really made me think.

People make assumptions based on sex, age, gender, 'status' etc all the time.
I work in a doctor's surgery. Last week, (male) patient speaks to (female) doctor on the phone. Tells her (in aggressive tone): "What the .... do you know? You're not even a doctor'.
Doc replies that she is in fact a qualified and experienced GP.
Patient (dropping aggression in favour of humility): "Oh, I'm really sorry doctor, I thought you were a receptionist."

I am a receptionist. We frequently get spoken to you like dirt by female and male patients alike. Then, when they get through to the doctor (as long as they know it's a doctor) they're as nice as pie.

Even amongst my colleagues I observe the habit referred to an in an earlier post, of addressing male patients as 'Sir' and females as 'love' 'my lovely' etc.

Think all you can do is challenge it. I hope our female GP did. She was certainly shocked, but I don't know how she handled the situation with the patient. People need to made to think.

What evidence is there that women don’t enter academia because they do not think it is a woman’s role? Or is it other issues holding them back?

There is a lot of evidence that shows that's it's more challenging for women to establish an academic career and then then to get promoted to a senior academic position such as reader or professor.
Hence why initiatives such as Athena Swan were established.
Issues include:
-The need to take up short term contracts and move around the county ( lots of evidence to show that women are less likely to take fixed term contracts and move frequently, mainly due to to family commitments)

• success is based on research output and publications. women are often behind their male counterparts due to maternity leave and the fact that women tend to take in more pastoral roles/committee roles than their male colleagues.
• as women are more likely to work part time this impacts research output too.
• as women are more likely to take in caring responsibilities at home this can also impact research and international travel.

Does the Government literature focus much on encouraging men into nursing, social care, childcare or primary school teaching?
It refers to all stereotypes- that includes sex, ethnicity and social class.
Yes there have been more initiatives around getting more women into male dominated professions but this is equally matched by initiatives dealing with social class and ethnicity.
There are projects around encouraging more males into female dominated professions (there could be more though) but the biggest barrier is pay. Men don't choose these jobs because they don't pay as well.
Which is another debate altogether!

@brookstar - I don’t think pay is another debate altogether, I think pay, power, status and respect are right at the very centre of it all and this is a structural issue that society has failed abysmally to tackle. We have retained all the worst attitudes of the patriarchy and merely tried to change the faces at the top. As a woman, the message I have received loud and clear over the years is that caring and nurturing puts you in a vulnerable, weak, poorly protected, low status position, which is in no way an advert to persuade more men to get involved in it. Another loud and clear message I have received over the years is that men are frequently controlling, domineering, condescending, sexist and predatory and can’t be trusted in roles that potentially give them power over those more vulnerable than them, which is also no way to persuade more men to get involved in roles where they are particularly vulnerable to these accusations. Basically, merely trying to change who gets dumped on doesn’t seem such a noble project when you view it that way.

I don't understand why you care enough about a flippant comment made by a stranger to go on to make a post online whinging about it to a bunch of other strangers. Do you want an "oh well done you and your great big brain, how dare that man assume you're no more than a lowly secretary with no brains" get over yourself

While I don't disagree that pay, power, status and respect are part of this issue (we know that once more men enter a sector the wages go up) I don't agree with your suggestion that it's just about changing the faces at the top.

I don't think there is anything wrong with telling women and girls they can be ambitious. For me it's about choice. It's about making informed decisions and making sure your choices aren't restricted due to your sex, ethnicity or social class.

Well aren't you a treat?

Sorry I didn't pander to your faux "woe is me" and give you the ego boost you feel you deserve

You've given me a laugh on a Sunday afternoon. Thanks for that.

Another person who hasn't bothered reading the full thread yet couldn't wait to say something nasty 🙄

I know. Absolutely ridiculous.

I wasn't being nasty, what else could the op originally be for if it wasn't an attempt to gather a bunch of sympathetic responses lamenting the treatment of women and how its "offensive" to be thought of as nothing but Admin staff because of your gender?

Maybe read the thread?
That point was addressed a number of times yesterday.

@brookstar - what do you mean by ambitious? And what do you mean by choice? Are all our choices not restricted due to our society?

In what way can people have genuine choices if they cannot afford to live on the consequences of their choices, given the way society is set up? Is the status quo currently working? Are we, eg, attracting a sufficient calibre and number of ambitious childcare workers, carers and teachers to these professions, or is society basically telling us that you are insufficiently ambitious and not capable of doing something better paid if you choose this? Are you only ambitious if you pursue work in a field in which you are a minority? Or only pursue work that attracts high pay, influence and status? Is it only possible to be ambitious if you have an underbelly of society doing the work you want to free yourself from who have to be forced into those low status, low paid positions for want of having been able to find themselves something “better” to do - and who then still find themselves to be considered to be “too expensive?” How many people complain about unaffordable childcare, despite admitting the pay of childcare workers is atrocious?

what do you mean by ambitious? And what do you mean by choice? Are all our choices not restricted due to our society?
You talk about ambition like it's a dirty word. Ambition is very individual and we should respect that - it doesn't automatically mean striving for high paid work. It comes down to how you define the word career really.

Yes, choices are restricted. They are more restricted for certain people and certain groups. Part of my work is to remove barriers to choice. That's not to suggest that everyone should be aiming for university or high paid professions but it means thru should be able to if that's what they want.

In what way can people have genuine choices if they cannot afford to live on the consequences of their choices, given the way society is set up?

Exactly the points I've been making. I just think we're looking at from different perspectives.

Is the status quo currently working? Are we, eg, attracting a sufficient calibre and number of ambitious childcare workers, carers and teachers to these professions,
No we're not, but it's something that is being worked on. I have colleagues working on the issues in the early years sector.

or is society basically telling us that you are insufficiently ambitious and not capable of doing something better paid if you choose this?
No, I don't think this is the case at all.

Are you only ambitious if you pursue work in a field in which you are a minority?
This is a big of a ridiculous comment tbh. It's about making sure underrepresented group can access university, professions etc that previously haven't been something people from that group have traditionally accessed.

Or only pursue work that attracts high pay, influence and status?
Again, no. That's not my definition of ambition.

Is it only possible to be ambitious if you have an underbelly of society doing the work you want to free yourself from who have to be forced into those low status, low paid positions for want of having been able to find themselves something “better” to do - and who then still find themselves to be considered to be “too expensive?” How many people complain about unaffordable childcare, despite admitting the pay of childcare workers is atrocious?

If I'm perfectly honest, while I see the point you are trying to make I don't think this is the biggest issue.
I do think that as a society we need to value care more more but I think this will only happen if women have equal relationships with men. If more men stepped up to their childcare responsibilities, worked part time or flexibly to accommodate the fact they have a family then we'd really see a difference.
That's my personal view anyway

The simple thing is to ask what someone does - male or female. Avoid assumptions. In this case I would assume sexism because for his generation that is what most women would have done. My DB, now in his 80s, insisted 50 years ago that I take 'secretarial studies' at school because 'you will always have a job'! I did, but have never been a secretary - though it taught me valuable keyboard skills!

@brookstar - so we basically agree that women and men need to be considered as equals. We appear to disagree to a certain extent on how that can be achieved and what it means. To what extent are we equal but different and to what extent are we equal and the same? Would differences in proportions of men and women in different sectors matter quite so much in the first place, or be quite so significant, if we didn’t value different types of work and skill unfairly and unevenly, and from a patriarchal perspective?

We also disagree on how we should go about persuading more men to step up to childcare responsibilities. You seem to think this can happen before we have started to value care more, whereas I don’t think it will happen until we value care more - and I don’t mean just from a monetary perspective, I mean by truly recognising the skills and attributes required to enable others to thrive and reach their full potential in their turn, rather than to merely survive.

I think there is also still a major issue with flexibility and part time work - it is still something we do not do very well as a society, which will inevitably put a lot of people off pursuing it if they want to progress in their career. We all (well, a lot of us) say we want it for ourselves, but we also don’t always appreciate its consequences or the way it actually works out versus the theory - we might, for example, complain if the solicitor working on our case doesn’t work on Thursdays and Fridays, or if we have to speak to two different people about the same thing, or if we have three different midwives assisting with our childbirth. A lot of women don’t even like it if their children have different childcare workers looking after them each day, or job-share teachers, because they fret that their children will be made to feel insecure or will not be known well enough to be properly understood as a person. And the idea of having job-share prime ministers is an interesting one. To truly get a better work-life balance and a more fair division of labour, rather than inadequate attempts to achieve it, we need everyone on board before we redesign our society around it, rather than expecting everyone to end up on board eventually when we clearly aren’t all pulling in the same direction at all and a lot of us are scared or unwilling to change the status quo, anyway.

Hmm, and there you are suggesting that a secretarial role doesn't require skill or knowledge :/