2 women entrepreneurs who invented a fake male cofounder say acting through him was 'like night and day'

[MonsteraCheeseplant]

www.businessinsider.com.au/witchsy-founders-created-fictional-male-cofounder-2017-8?amp&r=US&IR=T

Eugh that this happens.
How could this be addressed though? Obviously acting as a bloke is a means to an end, it's not going to change anything but I am a bit mystified about how we could get the respect and treatment we deserve in business.

@fascinated

Parallels to the identify as men thread

Yes... if you don't want to ID as a man, just ID an empty chair as a man.

Another reason to have an androgynous first name and masculine pronouns in our email signature...

I'm tempted to do this. I'm a freelancer, often deal with clients purely by email, so I wouldn't have the worry of video calls etc.

I often feel like I get overlooked for certain projects, especially if there is a technical element. And I often think I get low balled in terms of pay. It might be an interesting experiment.

Dame Stephanie Shirley always went by 'Steve' personally and professionally, so when corresponding with people, they naturally assumed that she was a man; and she deliberately didn't correct them.

She said the look on their faces when they finally met was the same every time, but they were too polite to say anything!

Being a software engineer, she knew that she wouldn't have been taken seriously, as Stephanie.

I am not shocked.

I was the only woman at a board meeting. An older bloke needed something photocopying and they all looked at me to do it.

@WinWinnieTheWay

I am not shocked.

I was the only woman at a board meeting. An older bloke needed something photocopying and they all looked at me to do it.

I've experienced this many many times - most notably when I am the most senior, most experienced, and the decision maker (which is irrelevant as the men typically do what they want anyway).

Typically I am one of the most senior and almost always the only party that actually understands (and has to in order to hold my credentials) economics, finance, tax law, and accounting... but I am the only woman in the room 99.9% of the time.

I'm shocked my brain hasn't exploded at this point - work tirelessly on a solution, map it out, present it to peers, decide to move forward only to find that 'the men' have decided to 'try it their way first'. Imminent failure follows, them scrambling around for solutions only to come back to me to push for implementation of their 'original idea' (read: my plan).