NC, as this may end up being somewhat identifiable:
I'm having a moment of shocking clarity ... and it's not a good one!
Context: my place of work practises a turn-based as opposed to a position-based approach to compensation adjustments and promotions. I'm middle management at my firm, meaning I get to participate in every discussion on the subject below my own paygrade. And I have got transparency at least on what the potential outcomes are for my own grade and the next two up within my group seeing as I know who the people are.
I think I've just unwittingly attended a two-day seminar on how old boys' networks function. It's not my first time around the block either - but it's the first time it's struck me as much:
We're a male dominated firm in a male dominated field in the first place - but we've policies in place that seek to address this. Realisation, at the end of two days of meetings:
- Number of women drops with every level of seniority ... starting out at 40% with junior staff, dropping to 20% in lower management, dropping further to it literally being down to me, myself and I only in middle management, and everyone who outranks me is a man!
- Women need to be extraordinary to be positioned for promotion, boni, etc. Men need to sit on their arses and not fuck up for a few years on end and it'll be considered "essential" to progress them ...
- All women - with the potential exception of myself, I've obviously not been told - who've been pushed have been junior level paygrades
- In every single case, the female colleague ended up at the bottom of the priority list (again: I am the potential exception, I don't know what my own outcome is).
But here's the part that really broke my fucking heart about the situation: female lower management colleague arguing for her (male) workforce. They're fine and I'm sure they do a perfectly alright job. But none of them is an obvious over achiever. She does really well and represents her people very competently. Except ...
... the only reason she even got to do this was because I asked for her to be invited. Male colleague who outranks her ever so slightly was invited from a totally different area to speak for that unit despite this normally being a local affair.
... and I'd sat in the day before as she herself was described as "solid performance, good employee, nothing special".
I heard that woman argue well and with passion about how her equally "solid but nothing to write home about" male employees ought to be promoted ... which would make them her peers and her competition this time next year. Because she was not proposed for promotion as their leader. Being her deputy, on the other hand, apparently warrants one.
Total gender parity on the "worst performers" front, though! We've achieved a perfect 50/50 on that one ... despite there being a lot more men in the group. Funny, that!
The worst thing is: I don't think anyone is doing this deliberately. I don't think anyone is out to get women. I think this is entirely structural and that we, as women, have to be fucking geniuses to be noticed in the first place, whereas men get away with being okay and waiting a year or two.
I see men with high potential be prioritised above all else. But I see men with mediocre potential and a long time waiting being prioritised over high potential women.
And, yes, I'm feeling utter feminist rage - including at myself for being too much of a coward to point it out the moment I spotted a pattern! I should have - but while I'm happy to take on a management meeting full on men on content, I'm just not brave enough to accuse them collectively of structurally sexist behaviour. I could prove it - but I don't trust my abilities to assert myself far enough to win them all over and would risk hurting myself with anything less than a clear victory by overwhelming force.
I'm so sorry I let us all down. But also, so pissed that I should even be feeling that this is my responsibility and mine alone.