Being mistaken for the PA

[BingBoings]

Twice this week I have been in email chains, where I have been asked to supply dates for a meeting.

The reason for this has in both cases, I assume, is that I am the only female name in the thread.

Both situations have seen large numbers of clients and colleagues copied in on emails where… I am asked if I can help give times when my male colleagues are free. I am usually senior to them.

Am I the only person this happens to? I find it half hilarious, and half embarrassing… A few months ago I was asked in a meeting if I could do coffees when I walked in…

i have no issue with managing my own diary nor is there any issue with being a PA… it’s more that I don’t see men having this issue…!

I can’t imagine why you did this instead of suggest his legs still worked perfectly, so he could go himself.

20 years ago I had a manager who thought the two women in an IT team of 7 should make the coffee. I told him when he could fix the production issues I would make him coffee, and when his boss was screaming at him while I did the troubleshooting we could discuss it further.

Well, there had to be one! Dont you recognise sexism? Noone else is asked she is! She is because she's a woman.

I suspect you're a man so wind your neck in and use your brain!

@ItchyBillco - I've seen both men and women get tetchy about their perceived status. In every case, the truth was they actually commanded very little respect. I've also seen very high-powered men and women in action. In every case, they didn't appear to care one jot about what others thought of their position in the hierarchy. Genuine authority doesn't feel diminished by mistaken identity or perceived slights. Only middle-ranking people insecure about their true worth seem to care. Their sex has nothing to do with it.

And to clarify I have no issue with taking turns making the coffee, but I keep score and it’s not “womens work”, and I will withdraw all of my goodwill and assistance to anyone who starts that shit.

My understanding of this thread is not one of looking down at someone else's role but addressing the institutionalised stereotypes that are normalised in certain staff in workplaces. These become our lived experiences which we are sharing.

I get it a lot
Work in the car industry. They have selected the option for service and will come through and I say hello, they ask for service
You might think "oh they're just making sure they're in the right place"
Nope. It's only ever men that ask, and my male colleagues never get asked if they can put them through to service
I'm not reception just because I'm female. And to really throw them, our reception is male, and most of sales are female

I've been asked questions as if I was admin, but it was by other (older) women.

I was 30 years in financial services and ended up in a senior role. It never happened to me either although I'd frequently be the only woman in the room who wasn't in a support/admin/hospitality role.

Minutes were taken in meetings by rota and usually one of my male colleagues organised the coffee.

This happens to me all the time! I'm a director in motor trade. I bloody well fought hard for my position and the respect I have earned and i take and I take an instant dislike to passive misogyny.
I was involved in an industry leading launch over the last few months and the company I run was the first to use this product and send it stratospheric, until in a meeting I was referred to as 'darling'. Fucked me off to high heaven! What's worse, in my experience it's not only men that do it but women also!

But we aren't discussing people getting tetchy about their status. We are discussing systematic misogyny, which is different.

This is going back a ways. A visiting trustee once came into the office where I was doing some admin and announced that he needed some printing done. I welcomed him, logged him onto a spare computer, showed him where the printer and paper was, and went straight back to what I'd been doing.

He later told an old friend of his, who I was also close to, that I had the most charming way of saying 'fuck off' that he'd ever come across 🤣

If I'd actually set out to make a point I couldn't have done a better job.

This misogyny in the workplace has really fucked me off for the past couple of years. I wish my male colleagues stopped mansplaining to me.

@PocketBattleship we are five months into the build, they weren't pricing up the work, we were calculating quantities for a bathroom. However, I take your point. Have to say I don't do myself any favours, I don't have a lot of gravitas and I say a lot of silly things because I like to be silly but it does mean I am often underestimated. Starting to think it might not be entirely a gender thing...

I was a service rep for an IT company. We used to diagnose/fix hardware problems. I had to call into a large office where someone had reported a problem. I was able to prove the fault was network rather than the terminal (think 1990s workstations). As luck would have it there were some contractors working on site, so I went and told them the problem was their end. Bloke's reply?? "OK love, get us a coffee and I'll have a look at it"... to this day I kick my naive self for going and getting him a coffee (from my customer) when I should have asked him if he'd have said that to a man 😡

The going out to get Sudafed is just bizarre. The response should have been to see if a junior member of staff, of either sex was available and then get on with leading the meeting.

Sadly I don't think it will ever fully stop, we're the product of millions of years of evolution and its only been for the last 40 years women have been seen as an equal part of the workforce. 40 years is nothing in that context, our brain wiring won't have changed.

I reckon its pretty much engrained within us to assess groups at face value and build a picture of what the social hierarchy is within them. Women probably score lower than men in that subconscious hierarchy so we always have to work to show we're actually more senior or competent.

Are you sure about that? It feels like the OP was saying "I think I'm quite senior. I was treated like my role is more junior." That's about status.

Misogyny is dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women. But the OP didn't describe a scenario where anyone exhibited loathing and hatred at the very idea that a women could be quite senior. She just gave an example of mistaken identity - one where it was assumed that she was junior. There are other threads about age-based mistaken identity, race-based mistaken identity, class-based mistaken identity - all sorts. It happens all the time.

Making it all about the sex of the person is a distraction. Many men are status-obsessed and insecure. So are many women. Anecdotal examples of mistaken identity are not evidence of systematic misogyny. Unconscious bias, perhaps. But it's not always pernicious. Sometimes mistakes really are just that - mistakes. All the posts in which people are celebrating those who have responded to these situations with prickliness or rudeness are just exhibiting the attitudes I described - an unhealthy obsession with perceived status and a gleeful desire to brandish some weird identity-based victimhood. That isn't fighting misogyny - it's being a dick. People with real gravitas don't mind, seem to notice or even care when it happens to them.

Would you say this to people of colour in senior positions who share that they have been treated differently to their peers in the workplace due to their race? Would you say to them that they were status obsessed, rather than simply acknowledging they want to challenge racism (conscious or otherwise) in the workplace?

Or is it just women's experiences you dismiss so readily?

All the posts in which people are celebrating those who have responded to these situations with prickliness or rudeness are just exhibiting the attitudes I described - an unhealthy obsession with perceived status and a gleeful desire to brandish some weird identity-based victimhood. That isn't fighting misogyny - it's being a dick.

You heard it, women. Be kind to men. Always.

Even at your own expense and that of your female colleagues. Don't make a fuss. Don't be 'rude' or 'prickly'. Don't challenge men.

Smile and be kind to men, even when they are being rude / dismissive / sexist.

Funny you should say that. I don't need to hypothesise that situation. And I know exactly how I behave - as graciously and forgivingly as I would any other mistake.

There is a world of difference between someone mistakenly assuming you have a different role to the one you actually have because of some visible characteristic and some conscious or unconscious biases, and someone behaving as if you don't merit the role you actually have once they know the truth. The latter is prejudice. The former, is a mistake.

With my uniform I often get mistaken for a different role, which can be useful at times, but I can I understand your perspectives op

Being a woman is a 'visible characteristic', funnily enough. What an odd thing to apparently not realise.

Are you sure about that? It feels like the OP was saying "I think I'm quite senior. I was treated like my role is more junior."

@Mark19735 did you forget to add "because I'm a woman"?