I’m 27, female, 5ft tall, get told I look younger than I am all the time.
I work as a SEO in the civil service in a data leadership role and feel like I don’t fit in. I get comments about my age, appearance all the time and people double checking my experience. I’ve been told I’m younger than my direct report’s daughter by her & that she’s my “work mum”. People outside the team sometimes revert to the people I manage instead of me. Sometimes I’ll reach out to someone and they ignore my messages, but are fine with everyone else. It’s clear that some people don’t respect me in post and are unnecessarily combative. It’s mainly other women who are like this.
I have worked in the civil service in both data and leadership roles since graduating with a maths degree. During and before uni, I also worked. I’m qualified to be in post. Everyone I worked with before knows my skillset and respects me, including senior management.
In this role, my management have given me really good feedback and reward&recognition, said I’ve really impressed them and to ignore the people judging me. Both of my managers, and also my mentors say it’s because of my age/gender that I’m having issues and to ignore these people as I’ve done nothing wrong. Aibu to let this knock my confidence regardless? Just feel like everyday is becoming a challenge and it’s turning into a minefield but there’s nothing I can do to fix it.