I’ve worked for a company for several years on the same team, in a field that often has an even mix of women and men. I’m a 29-year-old woman and a subject matter expert who is a non-manager. During this time, every female leader who has left or been laid off has been replaced by a male, and all newly hired manager roles are also filled by men. Now my entire management chain is men, and all of the team leads in my department are men, while the workers who are not managers are more women than men. I don’t know the stats for the entire company, but this feels ridiculous, right? Is there anything in my power to do aside from just changing companies at some point? I read that employment law doesn’t apply unless I was personally blocked from a promotion or hiring due to being a woman, and I haven’t been. I had hoped to stay at this company for many years since the work is enjoyable.
Huh. What are the odds that every new leadership hire would randomly be a man? (The odds are quite slim.) It sounds like this pattern is occurring across your department, so it’s probably not the fault of one individual hiring manager with a sexism problem. Talk to human resources and point out the pattern you have observed. Ask if they have recruitment policies in place to make sure that each job search is unbiased and pulls a diversity of applicants. One quick fix would be to advertise leadership job openings more widely. If your field has professional societies of women, queer people, or people of color, encourage human resources to send each job announcement to those groups’ message boards. Human resources could review job descriptions to remove gender-biased language, like “fearless” (for the he-man leadership roles) or “cooperative” (for the lady-like non-managerial roles) that subtly influences who feels welcome to apply. Some organizations ask hiring managers to include at least one person from an underrepresented group in the three (or however many) candidates they advance to the final interview stage. It might help make your case, especially if your human resources reps don’t seem like the best feminist allies, if you point out that this process has been popularized by the National Football League (the Rooney Rule) to improve diversity among coaches.
If you trust any of the women who were laid off and replaced by a man, you could contact them and tell them you’re concerned that there may be a pattern of sex discrimination in the workplace. It might not be too late for them to band together and talk to an employment discrimination lawyer. The relevant laws vary by city and state, so your protections depend on where you live. Even if you haven’t personally been harmed, an investigation could benefit you because it would put leadership on notice that they have to stop the blatant bias.
Please do apply for leadership roles in your company. Best-case scenario, you get a promotion and have more power to improve the culture and practices in your company. Worst case, you experience sexism during the hiring process, take a lot of notes, and join any future legal action.
Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir want to help you navigate your social dynamics at work. Does your colleague constantly bug you after hours? Has an ill-advised work romance gone awry? Ask us your question here!
Dear Good Job,
How do you deal with a boss who’s incredibly thin-skinned and takes all input as a personal attack? I work in a small nonprofit organization headed by a boss who cannot hear any feedback without becoming a victim. Example: I told him that our organization should be devoting some attention and resources to issues of equity and inclusion. He said, “So you’re calling me a racist,” and then told several of our board members that I’ve been going around the workplace calling him a racist.
I have tried to soften my approach as much as possible, but there comes a point at which my message is lost among the fluffy pillows upon which I must deliver it. I feel like there is no way to have an honest, forthright conversation with him about anything he finds uncomfortable.
I am solidly in my perimenopausal/DGAF era, and it chafes me to have to make myself tiny in order to protect his feelings. I am no longer interested in accommodating fragile men. Yet, I have a job to do. I work in a very niche field, so alternative jobs are not abundant, but I’m looking. In the meantime, how can I tiptoe around his ego while getting what I need in order to do my job, and staying true to myself?
Ugh, you have to work for that guy. One strategy that sometimes works with fragile people is to turn your idea into a question that only he, genius that he is, can answer. “Do you think our organization could help lead on inclusion?” “What do you think our role could be?” “I wonder if you see any potential for growth?” Use business-ese language to depersonalize it while also triggering his leadership aspirations.
A bigger problem than his fragile ego is that he’s misrepresenting you to the board. You don’t say how you found out about his comments. Did a board member tell you directly? In a well-run organization, the board deals with the executive director only. But realistically, is there anyone on the board you could go to for advice? You don’t have to tell them that your boss is a jerk, but you could ask them if they have tips for how you could help your organization be more effective. If your boss is as thin-skinned with the board as with you, they might already be looking to oust him. Not to mention, complaining to the board that you called him a racist when you didn’t makes your boss look ridiculous and like he’s protesting too much.
When you originally raised the subject of equity and inclusion, did he agree that your organization could make more of an effort? If not, well, he’s not not a racist.
Whenever my husband interacts with people who wait on him, whether at the grocery store, the bank, the pharmacy, or anywhere else, he treats them like shit. He barely makes any conversation and tersely tells them what he wants. I work in a professional position now, but I worked in fast food and retail in high school and college, so I understand what it’s like on the other side of the counter. Being shown a little decency makes these jobs a great deal easier for the people who work in them. To my irritation, my requests that he behave with a modicum of courtesy fall on deaf ears. What can I do to make him treat these people like human beings and not servants?
Thank you for encouraging your husband to be gracious. You don’t specify whether you’ve made a positive case for courtesy or a negative case against being terse. If you’ve tried only one, maybe try the other? The negative case tends to make people feel judged, ashamed, or contrary, so it is usually not as effective. But you could point out that rudeness makes these underpaid jobs more stressful and dehumanizing, and may mean that he gets slower or less thorough service. The positive case gives him an opportunity to make the world a better place: His kindness might help someone get through a difficult day or take pride in their work. And kindness is contagious. The pharmacist he thanks for their service might pay it forward by being extra attentive to the ailing person who is next in line.
Your husband’s intentions likely matter, both for how much his rudeness irritates you and for how you approach a conversation. Does he think he’s simply being businesslike? Or does he have contempt for working people? I suppose it’s possible he never learned the magic words thank you and please, or maybe he was taught that a stern tone of voice makes him sound authoritative. You could start a conversation about your different experiences and upbringings, and see if he’s willing to learn. He might learn more quickly if he experiences service life personally. Maybe you could encourage him to volunteer at a fundraiser, book fair, or food-delivery charity where he would interact with other people who are kind to him, or not.
— Laura
My husband and I both have full-time jobs. He has an “important” job and tends to work 60-plus-hour weeks and travel at least twice a month. My 9-to-5 job is often interrupted or truncated by family needs — think doing school drop-off while my husband is traveling, responding to school nurse phone calls, bringing kids to doctor appointments, planning social calendars, and coordinating/delivering kids to all of their activities. I also, like most women, do the majority of the housework…
