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.

On my first day as Finance Manager for a company there was a meeting. The salesman looked at me and said “I’ll have a coffee thanks”. I looked blankly and said “Great, mines a tea”. He actually told me that as a woman, I should be making all the drinks. I went ballstic, told him it’d be a cold day in hell before I was responsible for making their tea, and a few other things too.

Great thread. I remember going to a local council type multi-agency meeting years ago, mainly men in attendance. One chap (who played in a band) kept piping up that what we really needed was a Youth Festival in the town & looking over at me when he said it. He was very persistent on the matter. Having taken over the market square a couple of years before to do 'an all day event' I knew what a logistical nightmare it was & I wasn't prepared to do it again along with my job at the time.

As it was I had a really sore throat that just meant I croaked noises rather than spoke properly so I just ignored him every time he made a suggestion, let it hang & stayed silent. Reader, he didn't arrange a Youth Festival for many years... And still probably hasn't 😂

I hope @Blibbyblobby realises she's coined a new phrase - DON'T FILL THOSE GAPS!

Ha!

I was gutted that post was lost when the thread got killed so really happy to see it's struck a chord.

It's something I noticed a while ago and now actively point out to my female colleagues and (usually) male mangers.

Basically, because men and (to a lesser extend) women are socialised to expect women to be the support humans (love that phrase!), those expectations bleed over into the professional context.

I've seen many competent and conscientious women in their forties get branded as "a safe pair of hands" or become some male managers "trusted second" and end up doing mostly invisible gap filling. They are respected and trusted, yet at the same time less competent (usually) men are promoted past them because once you are a safe pair of hands, you aren't seen as Leadership potential.

I call it the "housewife trap", from my observation that the people who spend their time actively avoiding problems (for example, watching the stove to make sure the milk doesn't boil over) don't get as much credit as the people who swoop in after a disaster happens to clear it up (snatching the over-boiling pan off the stove). Yet it's the former that you really want on your team.

A woman I mentioned this to at a professional event sent me this link about the same thing: noidea.dog/glue. It's long but worth reading, as is the article it links to about male/female patterns in volunteering at work.

FWIW I still fill the gaps. I'm a project manager/product owner so it is my job :) Difference is (1) I will delegate as much as I can to juniors ("hey Amit, it's development opportunity time!") and (2) When I stop a fuckup I make sure everyone knows I do it rather than assuming they realise. "Whoa! That's a huge gap between man A and Man B! But it's ok, I've caught it and managed the immediate impact on the stakeholders. Here's my recommendation for how we handle it. Everyone happy with that? Great, crack on"

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 think you just have to stop doing it. I'm afraid they will probably never notice / understand they were leaving it to the only girl, but at least it won't all fall on you. You can still say "Ok, X needs to be done, who is going to pick that up?" Just make sure you don't fill the resounding silence with "ok, I guess I can cover that".

Which means that ultimately, you have to be prepared to let the thing fail rather than continue to cover the gaps.

MsTSwift

Riight. You are very unconvincing. And incredibly rude

Because I don't fit your ridiculous idea of what a woman should be like? Sorry but I am a woman, in business and I simply do not behave like a doormat.

I find it very amusing how so many of the regulars take great pride in boasting, as on the recent thread about David Thomas (?), that they reject anything feminine and are constantly wearing Doc Martens, only practical clothing, buzz cuts , no make up etc etc but on the other hand take an inverse pride about moaning about how put upon they are in the workplace and the home.

It's just bizarre- apparently you (general) you can resist the socialisation of the trivial things but important stuff , you (general you) fold.

If you (general you) are daft enough to voluntarily take on low level admin tasks which aren't part of your job description, hell mend you. If you (general you) aren't capable of speaking up that's your problem not the "patriarchy"

MsTSwift

Am almost certain Dido has not been in the company of your average 13 year old girlthat doesn’t include the violin playing jumper wearing sort I mean the other sort

I'm not entirely clear what this is even supposed to mean beyond some nonsense
that can see through a computer screen into my soul- clever you.

You have an incredibly narrow idea of what being a woman is. It's pretty pathetic trotting out must be an MRA or a man just because a poster doesn't fit into the stereotype.

@daringdoris. Good thread!

Since it was pointed out to me a year ago I've been acutely aware of 'Office Housework'. Our office is about 60% women, but men definitely dominate the higher-up jobs.
I've noticed on our team (about 50:50) that not a single guy has organized the twice yearly office training/jolly day for several years (we normally have a committee of 5 people doing this). I pointed this out to a team leader and she looked so surprised, as if this wasn't totally apparent. So, they're trying to gender-balance these things more.
But it's definitely still the women who bring in the greetings cards, organize snacks, do the wife-work.
I agree with @Dido that we shouldn't be doormats, but I think the point of the thread is that if you don't even recognize that someone is wiping their shoes all over you then you can't change.
I'd consider myself a fairly strident feminist and it only just occurred to me that blokes were taking the piss at work. Having said that, I'd be very happy for all the cards/treats etc to disappear anyway.

The thing is would people care if the whole card / birthday thing ended? Is it done as a pay in thing because you want your own life events recognised? So if it all stopped so what? Personally found it all quite tedious and was always done by women. But would mr big shot be upset if he retired and no one organised drinks or card etc?

Dido can’t even be arsed to respond just jolly glad I don’t know you in real like you sound a barrel of laughs

I did it for the first time this morning and it felt great. 👍

A male colleague was whining about a spreadsheet that needs to be updated by everyone in the team; and he told me that he wasn't able to do it, blah, blah, blah.

So could I update it for him?

I pointed out that 2 other people had managed to do it this morning, so he should just try again.

It felt really good. My eyes have truly been opened.

I’m lucky that this doesn’t happen in my workplace, apart from organising birthday /maternity/leaving cards, which I try to avoid having anything to do with anyway as I think they’re unnecessary. With regards to making tea/coffee and washing up, if anything the men are better organised and do a better job - but they are mostly ex-trades and used to doing a tidy job and clearing up after themselves.
They might not be like this at home, but I suspect they are.

And anything spreadsheet related I direct them to YouTube.

For what it’s worth, when I made the original comment I wasn’t thinking about stuff like social events (though I agree that stuff is done disproportionately by women) but being the person who notices stuff falling between cracks and catches it, whether that’s the logistics for a critical workshop, or realising two key people are making incompatible statements and getting them together to agree a single solution, or sometimes sending cupcakes to a team on the other side of the world to show appreciation for their having to deal with a problem your team created.

I find the men I work with (not all men but typically) are focussed on their own tasks and deliveries more than the big picture and tend not to see these gaps opening up.

(The cupcake gap is the relationship friction that would have opened up between the teams if I hadn’t done something human and public to show them we knew they’d been impacted and appreciated them)

Thinking about this more, I think there are two issues....

Institutionalised/subconscious sexism... as highlighted by the author of the invisible woman... there are certain inherent bias to what is expected of women/considered women’s work (eg organising catering, showing some children round etc.) which is hard to break out of without seeming like a difficult character, not a team player etc.

Also there is a personality type thing at play too I think. My husband for example is a manly man in a macho job, he’s good at making decisions as a manager, but is too ‘nice’/too much of a people pleaser to put his foot down about things which affect his own working life (particularly with awkward/bolshy clients) so ends up being messed around or compromising his own health and safely (eg moving large animals, using farm equipment on his own). It’s assumed he won’t mind them turning up late, without clean equipment or enough staff etc and just get on with it, because he never blooming puts his foot down, it does my head in.

There are some amazing kick-ass women that he manages on his team however, that don’t take any nonsense and aren’t treated like that, farmers turn up on time with adequate staff/equipment and sometimes even a cup of tea. They have them well trained!

So maybe not always directly about being a woman, although women walk a finer line between being judged “assertive” or “b**ch” which is difficult if you care about what people think.

But with regards to the falling through the gaps thing, I wish he’d just learn the womanly art of making a good list!!

Dido can’t even be arsed to respond just jolly glad I don’t know you in real like you sound a barrel of laughs

You really have a problem with a woman expressing a difference opinion don't you? Your ridiculous comment about he/she merely shows you have a very narrow minded and stereotyped vision of what a woman should be like so I am equally glad not to have to deal with someone like you in real life.

This thread is just one of many making excuses that it's "the patriarchy" or "men not pulling their weight". Any excuse other than requiting women to take a long hard look at themselves and deal with the issue of why so many women are happy to behave like doormat. But no it's far easier to whinge about how hard life is. This thread has little to do with feminism being of any use to women beyond being an exercise in self-pity.

I don’t think it is of little use.

Recognising that you have been socialised into behaviours that are not ideal is useful. Sharing experiences and strategies with other women is practical feminism.

What’s not useful is saying don’t know why you would do that I don’t. It’s never useful to people who do have the experience whatever it is.

We need a name for it, could name it Antoinetting?

This thread is just one of many making excuses that it's "the patriarchy" or "men not pulling their weight". Any excuse other than requiting women to take a long hard look at themselves and deal with the issue of why so many women are happy to behave like doormat. But no it's far easier to whinge about how hard life is. This thread has little to do with feminism being of any use to women beyond being an exercise in self-pity.

It’s the exact opposite. It’s saying this happens, it’s not fair, but if you want to stop it happening you will need to take responsibility for saying no, and for not helping in situations where you could.

The study in my link into the male/female patterns of work volunteering shows this is not down to women behaving like doormats, it’s because empirically different expectations are placed on women than on men.

And while I agree it’s still going to be down to individual women to resist those expectations, that’s additional effort and risk for women vs men in the same position and cumulatively this stuff matters.

That’s not how I’m seeing the thread at all Dido. It’s not “bad men weedy women” you seem to be a very black and white thinker.

It’s the unconscious stuff I find interesting. I find it very valuable to step back and examine why we “naturally” fall into these roles.

And you are very aggressive. What is it about this discussion that riles you up so much?

Here we go...is this an example of me 'Filling the Gap' at work?

We have a team page which contains updates of guidelines, protocols, contact details etc. This stupid thing has not been scrubbed of bullshit info since about 2010. There are out-of-date contracts or weird little social things hanging around in there from 2008 mixed in with key information.

Because of how it's formatted, you have to diligently click through up to 8 pages of info before you find the category you might want. It takes about 3-5 seconds delay before the page turns. It's irritating, but not a deal-breaker.

I finally got fed up with seeing a 'World Cup 201* sweepstakes' (can't remember exactly which World Cup) line. So, I offered to scrub the pages of flim-flam so we could get access to information easily.

But, now I'm thinking, why isn't one of the more experienced blokes on the team offering to take the lead on this?

Because of the way our team is structured, there are now women on it, but we're all relatively new to this job. The older men would be way more alert of what is relevant and what isn't.

I thought that organizing this team page would be a good bit of teamwork and show willing, but perhaps I'm kidding myself and I've only gone and offered to do the electronic equivalent of scrubbing out the office fridge?

By the way, this will take me about a week to do, I'll do it on top of my regular work spread out over a month.

I find it very valuable to step back and examine why we “naturally” fall into these roles

But this discussion goes nowhere. I've seen this type of thread so many times. It never goes anywhere beyond the "women are socialised to be nice, oh dear what a pity". Lots of hand wringing but little of anything practical.

Interesting that you interpret my rejection of being nice as aggressive. Or that you think being a door matcshould be "natural" The latter is a very odd way of thinking.

I find this sort of navel- gazing very irritating.

For me, I'm finding this thread very useful (see my post above) as it's making me reconsider the grey zone between being a team player and being a doormat. I wish it were more obvious, but sometimes it isn't.