He handed me something to clean. Am I being too sensitive?

[kissthefish]

I work in Education, in a (sort of) unit in a secondary school. For a while, I've been feeling a bit demotivated and undervalued at work. I'm the least senior in a small, close knit team of three. There's the leader of the unit (male), and my female colleague and I. The kids are great and I have a fantastic rapport with them.
I get on extremely well with my colleagues, the female in particular. However a couple of low level things have bothered me about the male, the head of the unit. He is such a lovely guy but there's occasionally a subtle sexism to him. He'd be mortified to see I thought that. And I can't figure out if I'm being unreasonable.
He'll never wash up the kids' dishes. Not once. Unfortunately we can't ask the kids to do it, as we don't have a sink and must take the dishes to another room - where the they aren't allowed to go - to be washed. I know he's busy but it does smack of 'leaving it to the women'.
Today, I made hot chocolate for one of our boys. He added extra milk and the cup overflowed a bit. In the absence of a sink, the lad (very sensibly!) emptied some of the drink into a plastic basin.
This befuddled my boss a bit, and he walked over to me with the basin and said 'kissthefish, would you mind taking this and cleaning it out'. He also asked me to take the boy, until I reminded him that I couldn't.

I don't know. It just made me feel a bit shit. It would have taken him two seconds to go to the kitchen and do it himself.

I've also observed some slight differences in how he treats the boys and girls in our unit. He's much more likely to get involved with the boys, to take them out for a walk or play a game with them. To be fair, they can be more challenging. The quieter girls, he'll leave more to my female colleague and I.

Am I being ridiculous or was the basin thing not ok?

I think your unhappy you’ve ended up the least senior and looking for fault

i wouldn’t expect my boss to wash up

You’re not being too sensitive. This isn’t good behavior on his part.
when there’s a mess in my workplace and the cleaners can’t be called, my manager cleans it, because (in his words) he gets paid more than we do, so he feels it’s fair.

this man, if I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, is operating with a blind spot caused by male privilege.

I would have to speak up , but gently, in case he is reasonable enough to see that women aren’t the only ones who can clean.

What exactly are your roles? If your the equivalent of a TA then this is entirely appropriate as that's literally your job. He's the boss, not his job. Saying that, I would have just washed it and am often the one clearing the staff room, it is good to muck in and be seen to help, but as the boss it's not appropriate for him to do that all the time as he then wouldn't be doing his job.
As for the boys, if they're the most challenging I can see why he takes them. Question is, would he take a group of girls if they were the challenging ones?

I've worked in similar environments to you op. Some leads would "muck in" others wouldn't.

Lots of leads would have to stay in the class instead of nipping out to wash up incase their was an incident of some sort.

"I think it's your turn to do the washing up, boss. After all we want to set a good example to the children don't we? We don't want them to think that it's women's work!"

Spending more time with boys than girls might be a safeguarding thing. Letting you do the dishes might be internalised sexism or the superior delegating tasks to juniors. It’s really hard to tell, but maybe you could mention that it would be good for the boys to see him doing “girl” things, and not to see him delegating the cleaning to his colleagues?

Did he, the boss, put too much milk in or he the student?

You’re right OP, this has nothing to do with a seniority hierarchy. He just sounds sexist.

I'm a teacher and manage four assistants, a mixture of male and female (I'm female). I used to "muck in" and do the dishes as I felt bad asking my staff to do it (this was years a go when I was a fresh out of uni and my assistants were older than me). Then my boss pointed out that they were paid to do their jobs which was basically things you didn't need a teaching degree for. And that me doing dishes wasn't a good use of my "more qualified" time. That made sense to me.

Now my staff take turns doing dishes, cleaning jobs. I'll do it the odd time if it suits but it's not often. It's about effective use of me as a resource.

If I have a meeting with my female boss I clear up the mugs after. I’d be a bit annoyed if she asked me to though

Honestly I think this is more about rank and position than sex.

Hmm, it's hard to tell if it's sexist or a rank thing in this particular case to be honest. If he's a teacher and you are a TA, for example, I think that kind of difference could be expected. Maybe not so much if you are all teachers.

And similarly with the kids, it is hard to tell if it is more a case of going with who the kids are more likely to be comfortable with, or an unconscious bias.

It's a difficult one as with such a small unit there isn't much to compare with. Have you asked the other woman what she thinks?

Op, just do your job and count yourself lucky that you have a nice supervisor .

I was the female manager in this case . Mucking in with everything , from washing the office mugs to the helping people do their actual jobs they were paid to do (due to skills gaps ) . I ended up with rude , entitled staff and I now watch from afar as their new manager makes their life hell .
I would love to help but I know it will only backfire as a lot of people seem to misunderstand kindness in the workplace .

The pupil put too much milk in. I wasn't with him at that point though. As far as I was concerned, the drink had been made perfectly

I didn't ask my female colleague what she thought. It was her who told me that he'd been out of order.

I think it is hard to unpick between seniority and sexism from what you've said, but I'm wondering if this is a case of many many tiny things that are easily explained away individually but leave you with the feeling of sexism when spending all day every day together. Subtle but cumulative?

On a practical note, can you make a washing up station in the room? Start the day with a big 5l bottle of water (refilled from the tap each morning), some washing up liquid and a bowl. If it needs to be hot, you can boil some water in the kettle you use for the hot chocolate. It is much quicker to take the bowl to the kitchen area to empty than doing all the washing up there, and that way everyone, including the DCs and the room lead, can take their turn.

I'd put it down to sexism rather than genuine next-level incompetence.

Your first paragraph pretty much nails it. Thank you.

Do the quieter female students get the level of support and priority they need? Are they missing out because they're 'easier to manage'? That's my biggest concern here.

I think I'd raise the washing-up with him, as a question; 'I've noticed... what do you think?' The setting an example angle is relevant.

I wonder if it's like making rounds of tea - a necessary but voluntary task where everyone takes a turn regardless of seniority - or a more defined, delegated task that is more part of your role.

Totally agree. On both counts.

OP I used to run a small training unit for students from the local PRU and there was only 2 of us, sometimes 3. Plus various support workers would come from the PRU. So I get why sometimes the main person [whose name is on the insurance documents, and where the buck stops] sometimes needs one of the others to do stuff like leaving the room to take things away for cleaning etc. However there are ways and means of doing it.

Do you have after session tidy and mop ups where you all discuss what went well, what didn't and how you can facilitate better working in the future? 'Is there a better way of dealing with little things like the constant cleaning that I keep needing to leave the sessions to sort out/is there a better way of engaging the girls because they are not getting the necessary involvement that the boys are getting/insert other things that should be discussed in a small team teaching kids' is a good way of framing these things.

Absolutely. Yours is a very valid concern, and I can assure you that the girls get it from my female colleague and I especially.
We work so hard for all our kids and we regularly go the extra mile for them, even in our own time

Agree with PP’s, he’s the manager so it is on you to be doing the cleaning - especially if a child you’re helping made the mess.

This. I don’t have an entire team to then just do everything myself. They are there to support me, that’s their job. The male / female thing is irrelevant. He is your senior , he delegates. End of!

The point is that boys and girls need male and female staff to be working with them. Girls need to see good males in positions that don't denegrate the female staff and boys need to see female staff being in positions other than doing the washing up all the time.