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?

The example of the washing up is more an issue of seniority

Just look at the threads on here about a male looking after their daughter... maybe this is why he doesn't deal with the girls as much...

He's the supervisor - he's delegating as he should.

With regards getting 'stuck' in with the boys, he's going to - it's natural.

YABU.

Is it possible it is just delegation rather than sexism? Having said that, many managers will just muck in with stuff like this. My (male) manager would never dream of asking any member of staff to wash something that he could just do himself.

He's senior and is delegating the lesser jobs to you.
It's not sexist but rank.

Is it as he is a man that bothers you or if was a woman not mucking in would it bother you less?
I am office staff in a pre school but provide lunch cover as bank. In that role I am the assistant however in my main role I am "senior" I am always the one to wash up /sweep/clean. The teacher offered to do it the other day to which I said no thank you as more junior that is my role. I don't really like cleaning up but it's my job,

Whatever happened to : " WHAT DID YOUR LAST SLAVE DIE OF?" In my day that would do the trick. As far as sexism goes hes just protecting himself.
If this dont work : Pretend to be deaf.
Try : I thought Slavery was Abolished.
I once worked a shift with a thoroughly lazy guy, he did nothing much, just sat around on his butt. So be thankful he fid some work.
Or take a bucket into the room filled with water and a sponge. ( So no excuses)

I dont think saying "what did your last slave die of?" To a more senior colleague who has asked you to do a task is a great idea to be honest. I'm suprised half of mumsnet actually survive in the workplace with some of the things they suggest.

Am I the only one who is feeling quite stressed at the thought of hot chocolate in a PRU or similar environment?

Perhaps the boss thinks, you made it, you clear it up?

Could be a boss thing. Call him on it. ‘Do you ask me to do this because I have a vagina? Or cause I’m your minion?’ At least then he has to examine his motivations - and it probably won’t happen again.

And with the girls vs boys it could be some underlying sexism in that it’s weird for a grown man to be alone with a little girl. And can be risky. Women are just trusted with children more - which is due to a lot of shot males do do - not most of them - but percentage of violent or sex crimes is about 98-100% male depending on where you live.

Youre right.
I once mentioned the S word to a culturally sensitive guy.
In the third person I was asked by another colleague ". Will you pass ' him' a X"
" Im not his Slave." ..I replied.... I think I recall I got told off.
I was sent to the Manager. And had to eat humble pie.

Watch out for her. She had no reason to make you think that and subtly encourage you to cause a stink over nothing. She sees you as competition.

I think a few enjoy giving women wishful but impractical advice that would destroy their lives if taken seriously. Like the OP’s female colleague that has whispered rage bait in her ear.

Why bother posting when you know what answer you want and aren’t prepared to listen to people giving a different one?

I can see the point of view that washing up should be done by the more junior members of staff but on balance I would say that the fact it makes you feel uncomfortable and the message it is sending the children (it’s always the women doing the washing up) means there is enough there for you to raise it. It doesn’t have to mean you accusing anyone of being sexist or wrong but suggesting that everyone mucks in with the washing up and explain your reasons. Maybe also talking about the fact that girls benefit from positive male role models too so could he work with them and you with the boys on occasion. Listen to your gut OP and have the difficult conversation :)

He may well be a bit old fashioned sexist. He’s also the unit leader and part of that is to delegate tasks.

I agree - this would without doubt be inappropriate in the work place. You can raise issues without insulting someone or being unprofessional .

YABU. You made the hot chocolate which resulted in the mess and you are his junior 🤷

I work in a similar sector where its the norm for the entire workforce to be female with the tiny number of more senior jobs held by men sigh! But anyways, that does make it easier for everyday sexism to fly under the radar because its impossible to know definitively if things are happening because you're a woman or because you're in a less senior position. I would say this IS sexism when you look at it in the context of him NEVER doing any of the dishes. It's likely an extension of that. Presumably you and your female colleague's job descriptions don't include 'doing the dishes', it's just something that is needed on a daily basis as part of the role. So why shouldn't he be doing it too?

In such a small team you can't afford for the "boss" not to much in as well. It's not like his hands aren't working.

What problems do the children have that you look after? Maybe being the only male amongst challenging children and being in charge, if something had kicked off and either you or your other colleague had been injured, he would have been held responsible?

I would not expect anyone,be they junior, director or CEO to leave their dirty salad or sandwich containers in the sink for other people to rinse and put in the recycling, but that regularly happened at my work and it wasn’t the junior staff doing it.

I think it's hard to say he's sexist when he's the more senior and both his juniors are female. He isn't picking on you and not expecting your male equivalent to do it. He isn't passing low level tasks to a more senior woman because it's woman's work. He's a senior getting his juniors to do the low level jobs.

As for the kids, does he ignore the girls or does he take on the more challenging kids?

If you don't feel you should have to clean up after him, then I think you need to have that conversation rather than labellong him sexist

I work in a very similar setting, Op. I'm a Ta and will usually be with 2/3 other Ta's and a teacher. Some of the teachers are great (male and female) and will wash up, change pads etc whereas others are lovely but remain very much 'the teacher' and don't get involved in that side of things. Generally speaking, I wouldn't be offended by a male or female teacher asking me to rinse a bowl out etc because if 'junior' staff are available, I wouldn't expect a teacher to leave the classroom to do the job. I imagine if your lead had only male colleagues he would ask the same of them.

Would it bother you if he was female?

I work in similar environment and mostly female staff. Those in charge always ask those who are assistants to assist. 🤷‍♀️

So the boy you made the hot chocolate for poured it into a basin? As you were the member of staff who made the hot chocolate, surely you should wash it out?

i think my boss would expect the same of whoever made the drink, and she’s a woman. In a similar setting!