Sexism becoming more apparent at work the more senior I become

[AnnoyedManager]

I am a manager on the path to promotion and today was giving a presentation for a group meeting. I help steer the work of this group from a strategic point of view. It has a secretary. At the start I was asked where the papers were and told I needed to improve governance for the meetings (not my job). I did my presentation which posed lots of questions WE need to address. Chair said he would meet with my line manager to decide on next steps. Line manager (in same meeting) doesn't manage this bit of work and is as puzzled as I am. I will ultimately take forward this bit of work, am responsible for it but not invited to the next steps meeting...but I can sort out the bloody paperwork. I will probably gate crash the second meeting, and this is just a rant but is this really what I have to look forward to for the next 20 years?

I've had this. It's probably a status thing - the Chair thinks they're a big cheese, and that it's beneath them to deal with people who aren't also big cheeses.

Can relate. I found a meeting in male colleague's diary today, he's set up a meeting with a new senior manager to discuss an area that's firmly in my remit.

I screenshot it and sent it to him saying "please forward meeting on, this falls in my remit"

Next step is to one on one with him and then my boss (also in this meeting) to ask why I was not included. I plan to say very little and leave a very long awkward silence for them to fill.

Askamanager blog has some good examples of wording and tactics to use in these types of situations.

I think there's no harm in calmly and politely stating facts. Men have no issue correcting women, you also should have no issue calmly correcting the men.

Grandboss got the wrong end of the stick, at the end you can say something like "to be clear, the next steps are ... xyz" and in your summing up nominate yourself as taking the action for next steps.

So long as you're calm and clear

I’m not sure I follow youre post, but I do agree sexism gets worse - I do think it is a combination of seniority plus age. Once I started to become older than my male bosses it really racked up.
The thing that was most obvious to me and other senior women was that our performance appraisals were full of personal criticisms- not the sort of stuff around “you maybe could try this approach” or “you didn’t achieve that “ by and large we were senior enough to have earnt our stripes, be experts in our fields (we were senior consultants) and have feedback direct form our”customers” to show we were successful. What the performance management consisted about was critiquing our personalities even after 25 years with the company: we were too agressive, needed to be calmer (aka we expressed passion) , headmistress (what wrong with being a headmistress except the poor boys obviously had hang ups on getting rollickings!) , not assertive enough, too assertive! And even, yes, bossy. 🤦‍♀️
I was shocked when I found out from other senior women that they were getting similar stuff in their reviews- women I really admired and came across as measured and assertive being described as “emotional”

Yes that is very good advice. I am good at calm and clear but obviously need to be more assertive at the same time and come over more like some of the men I work with who are good at the talking the talk but not the delivery...

As an aside I went on a 'women in leadership' course and we had a whole session on coming over well in a zoom call. Advice included buying a green screen, soft lighting from several angles and taming curly hair if you had a virtual background. Maybe that is where I am going wrong.

I found the sexism really ratcheted up when I had a child and was no longer visibly young and fuckable (I’m a lesbian but very “femme” and blonde, so I really noticed the difference in the way I was treated by men once I was no longer young and stereotypically attractive).

It’s one of the things that I think makes young women often resistant to feminism - they don’t realise how much men’s sexist behaviour is masked when women are young and sexually interesting to them - and how quickly the mask slips once that’s no longer the case.

@foxgoosefinch

I found the sexism really ratcheted up when I had a child and was no longer visibly young and fuckable (I’m a lesbian but very “femme” and blonde, so I really noticed the difference in the way I was treated by men once I was no longer young and stereotypically attractive).

It’s one of the things that I think makes young women often resistant to feminism - they don’t realise how much men’s sexist behaviour is masked when women are young and sexually interesting to them - and how quickly the mask slips once that’s no longer the case.

Agree with this..and then rose when you’re old enough to be their mother

If you're not attractive to start off with it's pure sexism all the way through, from men who are sexist. The odd gem isn't.

Yes it gets worse.