How not to 'fill the gaps' for men

[daringdoris]

Inspired by the discussion on the Billy Bragg thread about left-wing men thinking that women are just there to make the tea and make sure there's enough paint for the placards, and Blibbyblobby on the 'Diana' thread, who said you've never been a professional woman stepping up to do boring admin to help the team because someone has to do it then realising the men don't even register you've been filling the gaps for them

I've realised I do this. The men around me are nice people, but now I think about it, nearly all the boring admin in a venture we're involved with is left to me. It is voluntary work, but in a context where we have to be extremely professional and well organised.

I really want to not only stop doing it, but get them to realise that the gaps are being filled by (almost) the only girl in the venture. Is it possible? Has anybody done it?

I'm happy to be pointed towards an existing thread if this discussion's been done to death already.

Observe the most oblivious man. Copy him.

Yup.

Once you learn to ignore that residual stab of socialised guilt, it’s really really nice. I’ve perfected a slightly bemused shrug.

Fab weekend organised entirely by dh. He booked and planned it all. Let tweens pack themselves. Dd1 wore a bra top and combats in freezing temperatures. Not my problem she wore her coat indoors and looked weird so won’t do that again

YYY to grab what you want work.

Do not comment at all on any gaps beyond a oh yeah. Not even if every fibre of your female socialised being wants to fix the problem or make the awkward go away. It’s a trap. Resist.

This stuff works on kids too btw. It’s good for them, makes them take responsibility, age appropriate levels obv.

I don’t even say try Bob. I just say I’m too busy. Unless of course Bob has irritated me or is coasting.

I have a colleague who occasionally tries to offload jobs to me - admin like organising meetings, and I consistently refuse 😄
He always looks very surprised, but then gets on and does it himself.
We're not even in the same team.. but there are no women in his.

Raaarrrggghhh, am getting twitchy reading this because I know how much, in my 80% male work environment, I do this. I need to implement some of these now, and I think I’ll start with a bit of tactical, cheerful obliviousness...

Oops, pressed post too soon.

I snapped a few weeks back at a colleague (who i know is beautifully facilitated at home by his wife, and who I think quite likes the idea of me as work wife). We had a standoff that ended with me huffing “I’m not your secretary, James”, and him getting the hump and not doing the stuff I’d asked him to do as petty revenge.

I've worked with all male teams in my speciality for years.
I just don't fill the gaps. I leave it to the men.
They will do it if you don't.
I don't make them drinks or tidy up their rubbish either.
They often moan about their own mess but I am selectively deaf.
My own clinic is immaculate as an example to them but an example is all it is. i don't jump in and help. I'm not their wife.
When on occasion I work with women then of course I do all those things because I know I won't be taken for granted.

I haven't quite snapped at anyone SophoclestheFox but the awareness of this happening was simmering under the surface and I started making comments I wouldn't usually make, which probably also made me look a bit bonkers...

Will be putting some of these to use from tomorrow.

SophocIestheFox

The art is not to confront it. It is to ignore it’s existence and not look it in the eye. Like an advanced game of empty loo roll innards in the bathroom.

MrsTSwift that made me laugh

I'm fascinated by this thread. What kind of stuff are/were you all doing to fill the gaps? I work in a male-dominated environment (engineering) and i don't think i do this kind of thing, but i am a bit of a misanthrope and it wouldn't even occur to me to do a collection for someone leaving, for example.

Booking the Christmas meal/coordinating menus/deposits
Taking dirty cups/apple cores out of meeting rooms
Setting up meetings for more senior men
Writing up meeting notes and sending them round the team - no men do this EVER
Organising team away days

Pisses me off no end. Also annoys me how undervalued/underpaid PAs are - I think basically because men think they are a work wife.

I work in a small company and it's the small but really important admin tasks that always seem to fall to me. Like filing an HMRC thing or chasing up unpaid invoices or sorting out missing expenses. There seems to be a general awareness that I know these things need doing and care too much to let them slide.

Exactly what @TorkTorkBam said. And whoever said ‘workplace chicken’. The most dramatic time I did this was taking a huge student group on a longhaul overseas trip with a colleague who was the trip leader — I was simply there to make up staff-student ratio and run one specific event on one afternoon of six, and I had been very clear in advance when I was asked to go on the trip about the fact that I was not taking any admin/organisational responsibility outside my own event. I was in fact doing the department a favour by going.

The male colleague whose baby it all was clearly expected me to bustle about filling in gaps, despite this, and kept sending over ‘to do’ lists. . I just had to resist and let the car crash happen.

And happen it did. We’re talking no transport arranged to pick up at airport, events unconfirmed so didn’t happen etc etc. It also became clear that he thought I was going to navigate the group around a major city that I didn’t know at all, despite the fact that he had led the same trip the year before.

I realised while spending a lot of time with him on that trip that he entirely unconsciously thought women would always sort him out. At one point when he took the group on the wrong underground train, he actually messaged his wife for suggestions! Clearly I was not living up to expectations...

I have been forcing myself to use @TorkTorkBam 's method for years. A new colleague, senior (but not as senior as me) has started sending me REALLY menial tasks to do. I ignore him.
Friday he sent an email to a customer with me copied in, stating I would be providing the information they had requested.
I sent him an email saying I was unsure where he had gained the impression I was working for sales support and told him to redirect his request. He had the gall to respond that it was an activity I should be doing.
I probably wouldn't have sent it but I knew I was about to resign and I'm sick of the lot of them.

Sorry, what I was trying to say was that you have to be prepared to stick to your own job responsibilities even when doing so is likely to risk making your organisation/department/colleague look very bad. Men assuming you won’t risk that, or that you’ll subordinate your own interests to the collective good is what keeps this misogynistic show on the road.

he actually messaged his wife for suggestions! Clearly I was not living up to expectations.

Reminds me of a man my friend was dating. He messaged her from the bus station to ask about bus times to her town. She replied “you're the one at the bus station!” They didn’t have another date. I was very proud of her for that as she is very much a people pleaser.

Good for your friend, @JuanSheetIsPlenty! This guy’s wife should have done that, because as far as I can gather, as well as being an unpaid intercontinental travel guide (and yes, she did actually message back suggestions about which train we might be on, in the middle of her own working day in the UK!) she did literally everything else in their marriage and with their children, apart from one meal of abstruse ingredients he spent several hours over on a Saturday, chiefly, as I understood it, to avoid having to deal with the children /take them out.

He’s now getting a divorce and will have to actually parent his children 50% of the time, in theory. I’m hoping his wife will not step in to solve issues...

Writing up meeting notes and sending them round the team

I have always refused to be the minute taker in a meeting, if asked I just claimed to be crap at it & declined. In reality I didn't want to be cast in the clerk/secretary role in a meeting just because I was female.

As I got older I realised that getting the women to take minutes/sort out drinks etc. in meetings not only puts them in a 'support' role to everyone else in the meeting, it also interferes with them taking an active part - who can concentrate on a discussion & be fully active in it when they are taking notes or sorting out who wants tea or coffee?

I have at least one (female) colleague who disagrees with me on this. I couldn't give a flying feathered fuck Wish I'd taken such a firm stance with my ex over wifework at home though.....

YY to all the things QuentinWinters said.

YY also to definitelygcs There seems to be a general awareness that I know these things need doing and care too much to let them slide

Financial admin
Logistics, room availability
Welcoming important guests
Crisis management

Great to hear everyone's comments.

I agree with the minute taking and the secret Santa - just don't bother. However I still struggle with the "workplace chicken" for the really important stuff. Fair play to you @Contrabassoon for letting the trip abroad go to shit. I don't know if I could have stood back and watched as that catastrophe unfolded.

She’s the only woman on her team at her grade, she has her own project work plus any planning/logistics/catering for events falls to her and she finds that support/secretarial staff (mainly female) will volunteer to do work on behalf of the male staff but not her, she feels awkward asking them and usually ends up doing it herself

The point of support staff/ secretarial staff is to support the higher up person. Your sister should be telling the support staff what she wants them to do and reporting them to their line- manager if they don't. If she isn't capable of doing that she needs to assess her own role and capabilities.

I have no time whatsoever for this pathetic "all the admin falls to me because I'm a woman" shtuck. All work places have a hierarchy. If you are at the upper range of the hierarchy you should be asserting authority that those lower down the chain do the admin/filing/booking transport or whatever.

I as a young woman (long time ago) offered to take minutes. I quickly realised that I could actually put my emphasis on what I believed in.

My male bosses - stupid central

The scales are falling from my eyes as we speak!

This is an incredible thread, daring, so thank you very much for starting it.

I'm realising how lucky I am to be in a predominantly female office (with female directors, no less) where the piss takers are few and far between! I am storing these up for use on my husband and father instead (tbh I have been going that way for some time, much to their dismay)