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 find myself wondering if you're young, OP? First job, or newly qualified or possibly mature and starting in a new field? I've been an employer until relatively recently and some young recruits had difficulty adjusting to the world of work where there is a hierarchy of seniority and sometimes they are simply told what to do, rather than being asked if they will do it, or taking it in turns to do the unpleasant bits. I can remember how difficult that can feel (I started at the bottom too) but the baseline is it's how most of us start out, doing the basics and learning. Comfort yourself that it won't be long before you're in his position.

As others have said, if he's in charge, experienced and earning twice as much as you then it makes managerial sense for you to do the menial stuff.

How would you feel if I (I'm female, older, have held senior positions) behaved like him? If you were senior and managing a junior in your current position, would you expect to be washing up or would you delegate the junior on the team to do it? Do you think a woman would be kinder and fairer than he is and do her share of the washing-up? Why? I suspect I would probably have handed you the bin to clean, too.

Is the fact that he's spending more time with the boys than with the girls an issue of sexism — which it could well be — or is he spending more time with the boys because of all the research that shows that a lot of boys lack decent male role models and time spent with men? I don't know. Perhaps you could ask him. I think it would be great if the boys could see him washing up or cleaning up the mess he leaves when making a drink, but as that has to be done elsewhere, perhaps the 10 minutes that takes is best invested in being present with the boys?

Nothing but questions, OP, so not much help. I'd say I'm a pretty hardline feminist and not one to excuse sexism when I see it. In the situation you describe it's not yelling loudly at me.

Perhaps you should think about why your first thought is lack of experience or maturity on OPs part. Feminism requires continual growth.

I think you’re being sensitive. Take gender out of it and look at the facts. Senior staff member asked junior staff member to do something. Completely irrelevant what that thing was. He delegated. He’s busy enough to need a team of two people.

Im assuming he’s a teacher and you’re a TA, which might be wrong. I’d mot be surprised if that sort of work, which would be admin in an office would be part of the junior role.

Honestly if he’s in the higher role don’t think he should be doing these types of task. It’s not his gender that’s the deciding factor it’s his job role.
When I ran a large department I would not have been impressed if managers were washing up ( or equivalent)

That's really tricky, I suspect you're right it's sexism but he could easily argue its seniority/the more menial tasks are for the more junior staff if you formally raise it, as he will be petrified of being called a sexist. I hate these type of very low level sexism issues, I was the only woman on an all male team and they were all nice guys but somehow it was always me remembering birthdays/taking minutes/pouring coffee/carrying empty cups out the meeting room. I suspect its very very subconscious and the moment I casually mentioned it everyone looked mortified and for the next week ran themselves ragged fetching me coffee.

Personally, if you've a good relationship, I'd light heartedly make a joke of it to test the water? An "I'll be mother again shall I" or "I hope you don't expect your wife to clear up your mess at home like I do here, in this day and age its meant to be 50/50 you know" type of jibe to see if he recognises it. If you like everything else about the job it wouldn't be enough to make me leave, but it sounds like there are other issues annoying you...

OP sounds to me like someone who possibly hasn't spent a lot of time in a work situation. Most people understand that if you're the junior member of a team (as she is) and that team involves some menial work it's likely to be the junior member who is expected to do it. My other thought was that she might a mature person (in years) perhaps new to the field but coming to the job with the expectations of someone who has been in a more senior role elsewhere.

I don't think those observations are unfeminist. Could you explain why you do?

I was making the point that you might want to reflect on why you assumed OP is either young or inexperienced. What was it about the post that made you think OP was inexperienced or junior?

This is coming from a place where I regularly need to challenge and question my own views. I’m particularly conscious about the fact that women, particularly professional women, are just as likely to hold misogynistic views as male counterparts. So many workplace constructs which appear normal because it’s the way they’ve always been are discriminatory. So much of what I have considered normal in the past (and perhaps still do) shouldn’t be. It sounds like you are doing the same so thank you for asking for an explanation.

Back to the post, OP clearly stated she is not junior but the least senior. Therefore holds a senior position. She also heads the department with a colleague in the absence of the male team leader. This doesn’t feel like the role of someone young or inexperienced to me in particular as some elements of the role are challenging.

It also appeared to me that you were suggesting OPs youth or inexperience meant that she doesn’t understand the world of work and / or that she should just get on with it because she’s junior. This felt a little patronising, dismissive, and out of touch with modern work practices.

I hold a senior position and wouldn’t dream of speaking to juniors in my department the way I was spoken to as a junior. The world has moved on - and it needed to. It’s not about pandering to a snowflake culture of people who don’t want to work hard it’s about nurturing professional maturity and responsibility right from the get go. So no, I don’t tell, I ask, because that junior may be overflowing with work and unable to take on anymore that day. Overloading someone doesn’t work for anyone. And giving someone a plate full of menial tasks is demotivating. The dialogue needs to be open, respectful, and it goes both ways. To be honest, I’m generally bowled over with how mature, hard working and ambitious the next generation are.

Most importantly here, OP has stated that she feels “demotivated and undervalued at work”; her team leader demonstrates “sexism” (the dish washing was merely an example) and the way her team leader spoke to her made her “feel a bit shit”. If anyone feels like this at work then it is concerning. No woman, no-one, whatever their role or level, should feel like this at work and simply be dismissed as not understanding how things are and told to suck it up. In my view, what needs to happen is a proper discussion, ideally between OP and the team leader.

*I feel the washing up is a red herring to the wider issues at play.

I work for a male boss. After a meeting he is the first person to pick up the empty cups and wash them up. He often makes the drinks too. He does it to ensure we understand he expects a culture of working together and that no-one (even the CEO) gets treated like a VIP. It’s why Ive worked there 13 years. I don’t think seniority in a role or ‘who made the drink’ is an excuse for bad manners or ordering a junior person to do a menial task which you could easily do yourself. Spending 5 minutes washing up doesn’t hinder anyone from doing their job effectively but it does foster an equal team environment 🤷‍♀️

I've told you why. Things I picked up from her post — language, expectation that in a work situation all tasks will be shared equally etc. Expectation that equality is some kind of 50:50 split. As others have explained, this isn't necessarily practical, economical or desirable in a work setting.

It was 'least senior' that made me wonder whether this was a mature person who had held a more senior position retraining in a new job. That's a carefully calculated phrase. She could have given more detail to clarify. She chose not to.

Re your initial comment
Perhaps you should think about why your first thought is lack of experience or maturity on OPs part. Feminism requires continual growth
As an older feminist, and a radical lesbian feminist for some of my life, I do quite a lot of reflecting and reading and shifting on feminist issues. Currently wrestling with Mary Harrington who's right in many ways and yet absolutely not my kind of feminist. But go on, be patronising if you must.

I think there's more context needed here - what was he doing / engaging in when he asked you to wash up?
I'm an SEN teacher with a brilliant team of 4 - I'd usually ask one of my team to do something like this so as the teacher, I'm in the room (unless they were all engaged in activities with other children and I wasn't).
Considering you'd just been to make the hot chocolate for the child, I think his response was reasonable.
If the boys in your unit are more challenging, I'm assuming he's taking them out to try and de-escalate behaviour before things start to boil which is for everyone's benefit?

Totally agree, it’s clear OP was working with a student, If the guy was ‘floating’ he should have taken it.

id have probably said ‘off you pop!’

I disagree, why would she stop supervising the child to leave the space to clean the basin?

if she’s working on a task it should be left to the side for the end of the lesson or the ‘free’ member of staff take it and clean it.

It depends what the job of the small team is, if you’re there the support in children eating and drinking etc them clearing up their mess is seen as part of the role so it’s fine for the senior to delegate. If the role of the team is to provide extra training in maths and drinks are provided as a nice thing to do - like when you go to some for a meeting at work, then whoever is supporting the child should make drinks/wash up

I wouldn't expect a person more senior to me to do such tasks - male or female.

You're not really clear on your job roles and responsibilities in your unit.

Is the male leader overall responsible for supervising the children at all times?

Because male or female, simple tasks that require leaving the room - I'd delegate to the team.

Because the first question asked, if there was an incident, would be: Where were you? Why were you doing that? Why didn't you delegate that simple task?

You're all engaged in frontline activities - directly with your "clients/customers" - the children.

I'd have more concerns about a supervisor/ team leader who wasn't constantly monitoring the classroom.

hi :)

your key word is partner. It is her boss. He certainly can choose which small tasks he does or not.

He might be most senior but to me his behaviour demonstrates lack of self and team awareness, poor judgement around workplace dynamics and general lack of emotional intelligence. Seniority doesn’t mean binning off menial tasks to everyone else. If the OP is a member of the cleaning staff then not unreasonable to be asked to do associated tasks. But no more her job to clean than his surely? But it will be difficult I imagine to find ways to shift things here unless he has already cultivated a team culture of openness in which a bit of light touch feedback is possible. Dare I say a senior woman manager would be viewed more harshly for this kind of behaviour. It feels very old fashioned.

I think for me the question is, would you be upset if a female leader asked you to do the same task? I can see how it would be sexism if your equivalent colleague was male amd you were the only one being asked but it is your superior asking you to carry out the task regardless of his gender.

You say he could easily do it, which of course he could, but is it more part of your role than his?

I work in an industry where sexism is absolutely rife so I'm totally against it and not defending him in any way, shape or form, just trying to figure out if it's more to do with job role expectations than gender?

Dumping menial tasks (that probably don’t come into any one’s JD) isn’t delegating. It’s a very poor approach to managing a team to carry out its work. I’m feeling glad I don’t work for some self-proclaimed bosses here.

He is more senior so it may not be sexism. You could do a lesson on feminism and the domestic labour divide and ask him for his intelligent contribution and to talk about what he does at home!