Working in a "mans job"

Stheno

Will wrote: »

Just in response to the original post by sar84, im finishing up a degree in computer applications at the moment.

There are a handful of ladies in the year, rest obviously guys. The amount of stupidity and childishness i see whenever i venture to college is horrendous on behalf of the guys. For example, got a macbook a few years ago, brought it in. Cue the abuse and talking down i got from every corner of the room. Was told that i should have purchased some other alternative because the processor was .2 of a ghz faster or something ridiculous.

Won't even bother going into the bickering that goes on about the stupidest of things.

I suppose all im trying to say is that it seems like nothing changes between college and the work place. The childishness seems to still hang about like a bad smell and the bickering... oh the bickering.

Actually that's probably a valid point Will IME.

When I was in my early twenties, I was on a team of 40 odd guys and myself, (average age 22/23) and at times it was like you describe.

The average age on the team I'm in now is about 38/40 and whilst there can still be a little technical oneupmanship or "MS is crap/Linux is better" type slagging, it's much less serious and far more jokey, more a kind of comic relief/here we go again slagging thing.

Would be kinda interesting to know the age profile of those people are talking about, I wonder if it changes depending on the demographics at all?

miss no stars wrote: »

I'm in a very male based course (engineering) and tbh, it's not my classmates that are the problem. It's the older, bigotted lecturers that are.

It's quite sad actually. The good thing is, I've only found the older people to be like this. They'll retire out of it

See above, I've had the opposite experience That said the company I work in has an overall gender split of approx. 85% male/15% female, and some (not many tbh, a fairly small minority) of the older male staff can be a bit neanderthal. There again, an older female member of staff told me my boots were slutty and unsuitable for work a few weeks ago

Fishie wrote: »

Um, it was a joke, I thought the and the fact that it was a completely over-the-top suggestion would have made that obvious. Judging by rainbow kirby's response, I think she got that it was a joke, and is unlikely to go on a virus-infecting rampage

Ah sorry about that, it's one of my pet peeves at the moment (I've been confickered ) sense of humour failure on my part there.

jellie

Will wrote: »

I suppose all im trying to say is that it seems like nothing changes between college and the work place. The childishness seems to still hang about like a bad smell and the bickering... oh the bickering.

It does change to a point - it kinda just gets more serious, the stuff youre bickering about actually matters sometimes.. which is why people get a bit more forceful with their opinions i suppose.

nkay1985 wrote: »

I now work in IT in a manufacturing facitily. And there are very few females but the ones that are, I would say the same thing about them. They're not given any special treatment one way or the other.

I wouldnt say im treated any differently in terms of overall company operation, from management or from anyone superior. most of the attitude i seem to come across is from men on the same or lower level to me.

in saying that it might not actually be because theyre male & female, it might be because they dont like anyone telling them theyre wrong. but sometimes i find that certain things are said to me that they wouldnt dare say to a man on our team - & half the time its said over IM and not even to my face. nothing i cant deal with, but sometimes its been close to the line.

I did have a case where one particular guy was blatantly ignoring what i was asking him to do when id been put in charge of a project & i was given no choice but to go to my boss & say "look XXX is ignoring everything i say & this isnt going to get done if he doesnt listen to me". this particular guy is one of the ones i find looks down on me, and laughs at things i say (which then turn out to be correct). unfortunately hes never crossed the line in an obvious enough way for there to be something concrete for me to complain about. i was telling my ex about something he said to me one day because i wanted to make sure it wasnt all in my head & i wasnt overreacting & my ex went crazy, so its not just me being oversensitive.

CorkLady1983

hey ...I hear you, I also work in a male orientated envirnoment. I'm a transmission engineer and used to get some very strange looks when I'd go to meetings with people from other departments, when I started working a few years ago. Some of the older guys used to think I was someone's PA when I started working in the company first. Some of them used to love calling me barbie when I started working first, as I have dyed blonde hair and do wear more than my average amount of pink. I got annoyed about it and went to our team lead, who was like oh ok, I thought you thought it was funny. Very hard to be taken seriously when guys carry on like that....don't see why guys think you're a bimbo just because you take pride in your appearance. I also know for a fact that I qualified higher up the class than the majority of them, so I don't see where they are coming from....

Creamy Goodness

i have had a very different experience than the OP,

worked in a team of 13 software developers, 7 of which were women, all of which were totally respected by everyone on the team and actually put us all to shame (i was allowed screw ups as i was only an intern :P). they knew their **** so they did

i can see where you're coming from though OP, i see it in college as well on a regular basis.

i'd like to think you're just working with ignorant assholes but i fear it isn't the case .

watna

I've never really had much problems with this. Probably because I don't work in a technical area. I have come across this attitude before but never really directed at me - althougg I have been frustrated about it a few times when I ahve witnessed things

I have to say though, I think it depends on the environment and culture. I find that in New Zealand people are much more respectful to women working and there are a lot more women in senior positions. Our CEO is a woman and certainly commands a lot of respect - and what's even better she doesn't have to be a bitch to do it like some woman. I definitely feel that women are treated a bit more equally. It's hard for me to judge, because I'm an EA - which is considered a woman's job anyway but it just seems to me that a lot more women are in senior positions and it's not expected that you will be just doing admin because you are a woman.

I can't explain it very well - it's quite subtle but I feel like it would be easier to get ahead here as a woman then it would in Ireland.

b3t4

watna wrote: »

I have to say though, I think it depends on the environment and culture. I find that in New Zealand people are much more respectful to women working and there are a lot more women in senior positions. Our CEO is a woman and certainly commands a lot of respect - and what's even better she doesn't have to be a bitch to do it like some woman. I definitely feel that women are treated a bit more equally. It's hard for me to judge, because I'm an EA - which is considered a woman's job anyway but it just seems to me that a lot more women are in senior positions and it's not expected that you will be just doing admin because you are a woman.

I absolutely and totally agree with you. I noticed the exact same thing when I was working in New Zealand. The Kiwi men never ever questioned my abilities. They were more likely to assume I knew everything. It really was refreshing living there.

In the news also you'd here a lot more talk of women in high power positions such as the CEO's of companies and that.

A

NewFrockTuesday

In my job, sometimes we open the facilities we provide on new builds so I turn up in my hard hat and hvj and heels. It gets some funny looks from the lads working on the site sometimes, but usually its fine. I get quite conscious if I’m the only female there, I just cant help it. It we are measuring up, I wait till there’s no one around sometime, esp if Im wearaing a skirt. I don’t have a problem dealing with men at all as I was a chef for years and a lot of the time the only girl in the kitchen, but some jobs vary I suppose in the level of interaction with your colleagues. You get to know everyone very well in a kitchen as youre working really long hours together and I can honestly say I never felt shy in front of those guys, but when it comes to walking on to a building site with 50 men and Im the only woman, it can be a bit intimidating.

Just in line with the It discussion piggybacking here, our IT dept is all men except for one girl. And shes so smart! I mean scary smart! Some kind of wunderkind I swear! But shes also 2 arguments short of becoming a supervillan and doing the world some serious damage!

Morgase

I was working away yesterday evening and it suddenly dawned on me that I was the only female out of about 20 workers. (I work on a motorway project and we were laying a section of road pavement at the time.)

The men on the site don't usually treat me any different to any of the other engineers; there would be a small bit of gender-related banter but it's good-natured.

Of course, there is the odd mysogynist who likes to take any opportunity to try to make women feel different. There is one particular old English man who is always calling me and my female co-worker "darling" and "love" but I feel that I can't say anything at the time as there is something more important to be discussed (usually the contractor making a mess of things!) so it just gets left. Even though it makes my skin crawl!

When it's old men I'm inclined to leave it, but when younger men come out with sexist nonsense I call them up on it. They should know better.

newestUser

There is antipathy towards women in IT. It's not everywhere, but it's definitely out there. I've seen guys 'target' women they worked with, by asking them questions and setting them challenges that were irrelevant to their work but were vaguely technical (ie "what's the signal loss ratio on a 20 foot cable that I use to connect my stereo to my speakers" or some such quasi-technical gibberish), then telling them they weren't cut out for IT when they couldn't answer them.

I think it's an occupational hazard for women in IT. Bickering and sniping over pointless fan-boy issues is an important part of IT culture, and being seen to go beyond the call of duty in learning pointless trivia about software, hardware etc. is a badge of honour amongst nerds. I don't think women buy into this nearly as much as men (and rightly so), and can, depending on the workplace, often slip a few notches in the hierarchy as a result.