My female boss actively seeking to recruit a man into a new role in the team...

[RowRowRowCrocodileScream]

I work in a professional role in a growing company in an all female small team. There is an additional role being added to the team because of workload and in team discussions my boss has made no bones about the fact she would prefer to recruit a man with the insinuation that it's better not to have a yet another woman of childbearing age in the team, I did challenge her on this but was not able to change her mind. Unsurprisingly a man has been appointed. This has really annoyed me and I wanted to vent. I am trying to see her point of view about wanting more "balance" in the make up of the team but I keep coming back to the view that she should have been looking for the best person for the job without pre-judging who that might be.

I am fortunately leaving soon to join an organisation which takes equality much more seriously. I am, nonetheless, disappointed that this still happens and worse still, facilitated/ orchestrated by a woman! call me naive

Scallops - I am in a similar place. Mostly men. We have 3 women in the marketing team and are recruiting a 4th person. The temptation is very great to try to balance the team. Nothing to do with child bearing age. Just balance. It seems wrong in a company which is 80 % men to have an all female marketing team.

Don't even get me started on the lack of a male receptionist.

And the fact we have more men called Dave in our company than technical women.

We have a male receptionist. The traditional secretary role is becoming less common but we have a couple of men who type and do general PA work.

Marketing teams didn't exist when I started work - we weren't allowed to advertise but since that restriction was lifted the marketing dept. in the firms I've worked in have been female dominated

I'm still inclined to disagree with the OP here. All-male or all-female ghettos at work are bad, and if the boss is trying to break one up, that ought to be a good thing. But we haven't heard enough to be sure of how this is being done; prejudice against younger women would be dead wrong, for sure.

"And the fact we have more men called Dave in our company than technical women."

I have encountered this!

Still, in my industry, I have had men from other industries come to an event and ask where all the women are. I recognise what you say about law and accountancy in general; however, there are certain parts of accountancy where a male dominated team is very common.

My industry is small enough that I won't identify it here; the oldest firm in it is less than 80 years old though.

Just read the chat and I have to say they it's just like the sexism shown in a Project Petra, the Blue Peter competition to find the 'best' spy's. The girls were way better but three boys won. There is still the sexist view that boys/men handle things better / part of a 'better' social mix etc. And here is the grown up example of it. Stay strong. It will change, hopefully within our lifetimes!