Sexism in workplace

LegacyUser · 21-03-2009 02:18PM #1

Hey. Im going unreg'ed for this one. First off, Im a guy, and left my two previous jobs after the companies wound down. I left with good references and experience. I'm just trying to get across that I'm a generally a good worker. I want to see if anyone else has experienced situation and how they dealt with it. I presume its a common occurance.

I started a new job about a year ago. Since then, I haven't seen any possibility of progression in the job. There is a tendency in the company to ignore or talk down to my team. It has a very incompetent team lead. About 80% of company employees are male. About 6 months ago, this was closer to 95%. What Im seeing is alot of the women employed are coming in to my team, and they consistently get the interesting task, get alot of feedback from other members of staff, get alot of people coming to their desk in relation to issues, some of which were my issues. One of them was offered a good promotion and turned them down.

The guys on my team get none of this. However they dont seem to mind, but then also dont seem to mind no promotion potential and to just coast the job. I cant settle into a job like that tho. Im staying there at the moment, because my previous jobs lasted 4 and 2 years, and I dont want a patchy CV.

Craft25 · 21-03-2009 02:35PM

There may well be some affirmative action going on, seeing as how the numbers were so uneven before.

But before you go making accusations of trouble in work why dont you try speaking to superiors and ask to be given more responsibility and some of the more complex tasks - for the experience. Im sure they will welcome the initiative.

cafecolour · 21-03-2009 02:42PM

I've been in IT for a decade, and can't really say I've seen much overt sexism either way, despite a near 85% - 15% ratio. Though I will say that the women in IT have overall been more assertive in person than the men - I think that may be a function of the type of men attracted to IT vs the type of women.

I second the above poster's comments - take more initiative and ask for more assignments, rather then just complaining about other people's.

If it gets really bad, a year is not considered a short amount of time at a company - I wouldn't think 4 then 2 then 1 would constitute a patchy CV.

LegacyUser · 21-03-2009 02:59PM

thanks for the feedback. I certainly hadnt any intentions of rattling cages, tbh I think I wanted to rant (wrong forum, apologies). It might be a bit of some of the above. Ill talk to my sup about some more responsibility.

Sexism in workplace

Comments