As much as I find that my job is not always suited to me I will say I don’t see this where I am. Even though I’m often either the only woman in the room or one of 2 or 3 I never see that I’m ignored. Sometimes I wish I was. 
Women in the engineering community isn’t typical even today but I don’t see it as I’m treated differently. Now I will say that I probably have tendencies that are more maile based maybe. When I get in the room I do take my “space”. I’m not a shrinking violet and all the guys I work with know that I’m not shy. I will speak my piece and I will be heard. Now maybe that is some of it. I do find it funny sometimes that the new women graduates like to be treated differently. They want to be a bit more handheld than I ever was and don’t seem to hold their own with the male counterparts. I don’t really understand why. Just what I have observed.
I’m not shy and have never been a shrinking violet type, but I see a huge difference in the way I am now treated in the workplace vs. how I was treated when I was in my 30’s. I have talked with D about this.
It’s one of the reasons I marched too!
FG - Interesting how different companies can be. I am currently in a meeting. I am the only female out of 25 attendees. Many of those are guys in my age range I believe - maybe some younger and maybe 1 or 2 are older. As I was sitting off to the side because I had brought my own healthier lunch instead of having what was provided I’m sitting trying to do some email and I ended up with 6 of the guys just hanging out talking to me. Now maybe if there was another woman in the room that was younger or better looking they would have not done this. I have no idea. I will say that it impacted my email capabilities.
The men at lunch weren’t sexist like men were back in the day. It’s just that all three were just visibly ga ga over the beautiful young woman. I don’t know if men are even aware of how they are behaving. It is fascinating and sometimes creepy the way that men of all ages pay So Much Attention to my own beautiful blonde daughter even in my presence.
It seems that there aren’t any gorgeous 30 year old men in my professional life, so I can’t look deep inside my self to see if I react the same way to them.
missy…you make me laugh out loud!
Missy, in my business life/field there are quite a few hot young men and I have to admit I am likely every bit as sexist as my male counterparts in terms of attention, however innocent of motive/intent 
I am no doubt attended as anything other than den-mom-mentor to these guys, but I do wonder if my older male counterparts feel it. I came to notice this last week when a bunch of bus acquaintances were out but one of the elders (and a dear friend) made a point of making plans to meet up with me at a concert tonight so we could “actually visit.” I knew what he meant…that young set are motormouths when drinking and attention-seeking, whereas my friend is more laid back and literally couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
MP, I helped start a hedge fund and went to a number of HF conferences with investors, hedge funds and industry suppliers. Bigger HFs often hired young women who had been on the sell side at places like Morgan Stanley who, just coincidentally happened to be extremely attractive. At these conferences, the investors (who were almost all male and older) were drawn like moths to the flame of these HF marketing babes (that was what people called them, but the reality is that they were usually quite substantively competent). It was often like a feeding frenzy. If I ever had an investment or tech company, I would hire attractive females who were substantively competent for sales positions as they could likely get meetings that others couldn’t. The flip side, I’d guess, is that a lot of these women don’t get credit for their substantive competence. In the HF case, they were hired to extol the genius of the HF founders/traders etc. who, with very few exceptions, were male. Ah well.
In my main business, everyone seems to pay attention to the high status folks, who are largely male. Actually, there aren’t too many females overall (although I have two clients with female CEOs and the head of strategy at another client is female). Some of these women know that they are attractive and can get attention and do so to advantage. For others, I am sure the attention is unwanted. Because I am a guru in my field, I occasionally get flattering attention from younger women (this is status seeking behavior).
As I was thinking about this, I saw a AAA truck and the AAA person changing the tire for a guy was a woman. I thought, “Now this is good.” I would like to see a world where women (and men) could get jobs for which they were qualified and not be prevented from doing so because of their gender and that they could aspire to anything regardless of gender (and not have society discourage their aspirations).
Shaw, do you find reverse sexism (of the attention-seeking kind) flattering or disingenuous when you’re the subject? Just curious.
I have a pair of longterm (male) clients who have several times asked me to run interference when a vendor sics their “hot bot” on them hoping to close a deal…but often these wildly attractive sales fronts turn out not to be substantively competent and the guys kinda use me as a litmus test for an unvarnished assessment
I’ve had male friends personally confide that they find status-seeking women offensive…seems to play to deep-seated sense that without power or money they’d be cast aside. I know that sounds like a bit of female fantasy on my part, but in actuality I think its a real phenom that’s unfortunately easy to overlook if you’re a feminist and earning 30% less than one of them
McH is an engaging, scary smart, robust fellow who claims privately he left the corporate world years ago not just due to a burning entrepreneurial spirit but because he felt a short smart guy was politically undervalued. I know what he meant but still find it kinda funny because he was actively headhunted for his last corp-world role and only left over a row about his intellectual property (which he wouldn’t forfeit.)
I find the topic interesting, albeit loaded.
In newsrooms in the old days, despite contrary reports, I found far less career sexism than I’ve seen in other corners of enterprise…but maybe that was a uniquely Canadian phenom. In my former city, two of my favorite media women that came up around my time now run their respective properties…one CBC as exec and the other a major daily as Editor in Chief. In the latter case, it was a first for that property in more than a Century of publishing.
I’ve worked pretty hard to advocate for women’s rights over the years, but the one thing I keep noticing is that when women self-identify as an object, they will be objectified So I’m a big fan of “teach people how to treat you.” I am sometimes accused as being a male apologist or an old boys girl for this, but at the end of the day its what we’ve got to work with!
Years ago I had a client who developed both office buildings and high rise condos. The office leasing guy was complaining to me that he was expected to work the high rise condo open house. He just couldnt understand why he was working a residential event, because he worked in the office side. I told him that it must be because he was so friendly. What I wanted to say was “Don’t you understand that it’s because you are incredibly good looking ?!”
kmc, good question. I have probably told you guys of my experience as a 26 or 27 year old business school professor teaching a tough quantitative first year course. I was told by a student from the prior year that half of the women in my class had a crush on me. This felt not genuine but not disingenuous. The students were ceding authority to me in a very hierarchical, infantilizing institution and somehow this brought out a range of emotions that had to do with the fact that I a) was holding them to high standards; b) really genuinely wanted everyone to learn and do well; and c) I was the professor at the bottom of the amphitheater who could call on anyone at will and humiliate them if they didn’t get the material. However, sometimes the female was sometimes very manipulative. I had students who came in, I swear, breathing hard and with a couple of extra buttons unbuttoned, who would lean over and ask to strategize with me about how they could get a better grade. That sometimes felt disingenuous. [And, it is very hard and disconcerting for men (I think) and me certainly to avoid looking at cleavage on display,] I literally initiated a policy of keeping my office door open and having my assistant wander in when I had female students in for meetings.
Fast forward to now. I kind of know why the attention is coming and so it doesn’t particularly bother me. Sometimes, as with my older students, it is conscious and disingenuous. Sometimes it is more subconscious. The latter is probably more flattering. Unlike your clients, I helped create the field that I’m in and the work that makes me something of a guru, so what they are attracted to is in fact inextricably tied to me. They are attracted to the surface existence of who I am, though they don’t know me personally. So, it doesn’t make me feel unhappy or insecure. In some percentage of the conscious and subconscious cases, I think extracurricular activities would be on offer. Sometimes this is subtle and sometimes nearly explicit, I don’t do that and so sidestep it. But, if I were looking for something on the side, I would think, disingenuous or not, this could be a fun evening.
I would hire “hot bots” to open doors and get meetings that might be hard to get otherwise but would not necessarily use them to close the sale. I think that their technical expertise may be invalidated in the men’s’ eyes because of their looks.
I think you are also right that if you objectify yourself, you will be treated like an object, but it is a bit of a chicken/egg problem as they (especially the really pretty ones) may experience so much objectification all the time that they figure, I better use this to advantage. Don’t know.
I think hiring “hot bots” to open doors is maybe not the most non sexist way to go about things but there is no denying that looks, social skills can matter in business (for both men and women). And that money, or perceived power (intellect , artistic, business , etc) can make anybody look better. Donald Trump is a case in point.
Two of my college roommates married their professors (one marriage lasted , the other didn’t). These guys (professors, not particularly attractive) would probably not have been given the time of day otherwise.
@kmc, one other thought. I first noticed my objectification when I was 25 (I think). I was an obviously highly ambitious and confident grad student at an elite university (this was my third elite institution of higher learning) pursuing a field that would probably leave me either a professor at a fine school or highly paid in the world. I’d been a mathy geek for years (and was getting a PhD in a mathy field) but was also a college and AAU athlete and had a knee injury and was weightlifting and sculling to stay in shape and strengthen my quads – and was building muscle mass. At a certain point, I could tell that as the women hit a certain age, they were thinking about husband-types and for many of them, I checked all boxes. Earnings potential high, striving and ambitious (check), nice enough guy (check), Jewish (for some, very important), not terrible looking, some semblance of social skills (“I can work with that”), (“I can probably fix the clothes”) … . I could tell that some of them weren’t looking at me but at my headline characteristics. Similar to judging women based on looks. It felt as if I slept with a woman my age at that stage, she was ready to move in the next day. I switched to dating younger women for a while. Interestingly, ShawWife was not at all impressed by my credentials (to an artist, they sounded pretty boring).
Speaking of sculling, LIFE IS GREAT. The rain is gone (at least for a while). Yesterday and today were/are sunny beautiful. Yesterday, we went sculling for two hours in Richardson Bay. I can’t think of much that actually makes me happier – looking at mountains (or the SF Skyline) and sculling (a demanding but meditative activity). ShawWife is taking lessons. Today, we went hiking on Mt. Tam and are now heading in to visit the Berkeley Museum for ShawWife, dinner, and then a play at the Berkeley Rep.
Older son in particular was objectified from early on (older handsome , younger cute). Tall, handsome, athletic, social, smart. Grown women have commented about him to me. When he was leaving a HS basketball game with us (he was on the team), girls yelled at him that they wanted his baby! This was when we were WITH him. I cannot even imagine the chaos that happens with male professional high profile athletes.
Attended a “Huddle” today. The Huddle was an offshoot from the Women’s March…a small group gathering to assess and implement ways to take action as individuals or as a group for positive change. It was inspirational! Fun to connect with young female college students to women in their 80s. Had fun talking about who among us worked for the McGovern campaign back in the day! Also had an interesting discussion with a young US graduate of McGill. She loved studying in Canada and highly recommended McGill.
NM, ShawWife said that the best (or perhaps most encouraging) part of the March was being with young women who had never protested anything.
Except for a bit of a lingering cough, I am over my cold now. It was nice to enjoy a weekend and work out, get a few things done, go to dinner with friends, etc. H leaves tomorrow for a work trip (Valentines Day, I know), but we are through with the busy time at work so the week will be quiet.
NM- It’s great that you are staying involved. There are similar things here and I am looking into them.
We had a quick trip to visit S and family. G’Son will be 5 in a few months and is
quite fun. I introduced him to his first root beer float and he was ecstatic. I try never to
give him junk food but this was too tempting.
He asked me if we are his dad’s grandparents. His other “grandma and grandpa” are 10 years
younger than us and DIL has younger sibs who he spends lots of time with so he gets that
they are his mom’s parents. I wonder if S has ever told him that he (S) is adopted…betting not.
Their will be some interesting conversations in the future. I am interested in hearing what
they tell him as S has never been interested in his birth.
We have always told him/them that we will provide a trip to South Korea anytime they
are ready.
Sunny cold windy here but so nice to see the blue sky.
Another glorious day but I am flying to Toronto. Saw two very weird but good plays this past week. One was Hand of God by Robert Askins. It was a dark play but has in it perhaps the funniest thing I have ever seen onstage. It involves a teenage boy and girl who have sock puppets that have sex. Brilliant. The other was Fool for Love by Sam Shepard, who must have had a really bad home life. I’ve seen a number of his plays and without exception, they describe terrible lives.
We had over for dinner a well-known writer and poet (a couple). He is finding Facebook a good way to connect to groups that are demonstrating/organizing in opposition to the fascist takeover they fear from His Orangeness.
I remember seeing Fool for Love as a movie years ago. We saw Manchester by the Sea over the weekend. I loved it and hope Casey Affleck wins the Oscar. Loved Ryan Gosling in La La Land too. Denzel won the SAG award (which seemed a surprise to many people ) but Casey has won the other major acting awards (Golden Globe, BAFTA) so it will be interesting to see who wins.
Interesting about Manchester By the Sea, a friend of mine just told me not to see it as it is very sad. The only Oscar nominated film I have seen is Hidden Figures which I loved. Am hoping to see a few others including LaLa Land.