Sexism Stoplight: Secretary Syndrome
November 20, 2009
by Optixmom
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Dear TNA,
I am now a Principal Engineer at a prestigious government laboratory. When I first started as a Sr. level engineer it took some time before the upper levels of administration even noticed that I existed [as an engineer]. I had one interaction with the Assistant Director of the laboratory that I will never forget. We had a safety inspection in my individual laboratory and in attendance was the Assistant Director, Stan; an engineer from his group, Mark; my boss, Dave; and me. Before we got started in the inspection and before any introductions Stan automatically turned to me and asked:
“Honey, can you take the minutes of this meeting.”
I was flabbergasted that this individual first off called me “honey” but secondly assumed that I would be the secretary. I was also nervous to respond because of his high level rank at our laboratory.
Thankfully, my boss Dave responded by saying,
“This is my new Sr. Engineer here Stan. She is not your secretary. If you want anyone to take the minutes it should be Mark because she outranks him. If Mark doesn’t have the penmanship to suit your needs then you need to call up someone who does.”
My question to TNA is if Dave had not stepped up to correct Stan how should I have handled it on my own? Should I have just not said anything and taken the minutes?
Sincerely,
Ms. Jane DOE
He called you HONEY? I would be fuming!
What do you think peeps? How should Jane have handled herself if she didn’t have the support from her boss.
Good on Dave! Since you can’t go berserk at work, I think I would have just said “No thank you pumpkin, I have a nasty case of carpal tunnel, maybe one of the other guys can do it?” Smile like you’re joking but he would get the point. As much as you want to scream, sometimes a sarcastic “joke” gets the job done without you losing yours.
“I’ve never taken the minutes to a meeting before in my life. I’m an engineer. If you want that done, you’re better off asking one of the secretaries.”
LOL! I have been a secretary for some non-profits I belong to and I am the absolute worst! I have a financial background, so I would rather look at numbers anyway. Having said that, if someone calls me “honey” I would call them “sweetie”. They will either receive the punt well, or be just as embarrassed. Hopefully, both will happen.
This happened to me once. An investor was in our office for a meeting and assumed I was his gopher, asking me to fetch things and make copies, etc. I stood there silently for a moment. My female boss said nothing, her male boss interjected explaining that I was an accountant. Whew, saved by the gentleman. He really was a gentleman. One of the kindest men I’ve ever known.
I’m pretty sure calling a big cheese “sweetie” in front of your co-workers even after he called you “honey” would not go over too well, tempting as it might be. Janis’ response is perfect. You have to speak up, but in a professional manner. Nothing wrong with stating the truth.
Were the engineer who asked for her to take the minutes a woman, would the suggestions of how to respond be the same? Or are we conditioned to be so afraid of male power that they can totally go out of bounds with a woman who has higher status than some of her male counterparts and never be called on it because it may upset them? Just curious.
She can take a sheet of note paper and write on it “I am an engineer — not a secretary and my name is not Honey” and pass it over to the bigwig.
I had a male manager for a few days who called me “sweetie” I told him politely to stop, and he stopped.
I was in that position once, except it was the boss who wanted me to start answering the phone for all of the men. I actually refused to do it, and that didn’t get a good response. It’s unfortunate that men put women into these positions during their careers. I like the above answers.
still I walk into a room with a power suit and an awesome resume and men -still- think they can hire me as their assistant
“Secretary Syndrome” TOTALLY!!
Kathleen,
I have been in situations similar to the one above many times. I think you are right if you are saying that you have to analyze each situation and be very careful before you slap a “sexism” sticker on everything. I frequently tolerate being called “Honey” by both truck stop waitresses and old Southern men because I think in some cases it’s cultural and no offense is meant. However, as a woman who works in an overwhelmingly male dominated industry I don’t think “Honey” is ever appropriate in a professional environment. I too have been asked to take minutes, order lunch, make accomodation arrangements, lie to wives about the previous evenings out of town “entertainment”, fetch beer at business ball games because “you’re not watching anyway”, wait for the luggage at the airport and see it to the hotel because I wouldn’t enjoy a frosty at the sports bar with everyone else, replace a lost button because I’ll have a sewing kit (which I always do but because I learned that in the military not because I’m a “chick”) and I’ve even been asked to clean up spilled coffee (not mine) on a conference room floor. Now is it theoretically possible that the exact same things would have happened had all my bosses and co-workers been women? Sure it’s possible, and if it makes you feel better to convince yourself of that, bully for you. But I do not find the need to convince myself that the sky is always orange, just because I like orange better, even though it may be for 2 minutes in the morning and evening. The sky is freaking BLUE Kathleen! I see what I see.
Thia,
I apologize for not being more articulate in what I was trying to say! My point was that I thought if a female boss or colleague had made such a remark to another woman, the woman receiving the insult would be more likely to tell her to her face directly, rather than trying to bend over backwards not to make the male boss angry.
I wanted to point out that even when the male boss is out of line, the woman is expected to treat him with kid gloves and I find that not only insulting but again, places the woman in a position no male boss would ever put a male employee in.
I’m just tired of having to always placate the male ego, even when they are wrong. No male employee would put up with a female boss who treated them with such disrespect.
Kathleen,
Well you’re right about that. Although I’m not sure how many women communicate even with each other in a blunt direct way. There seems to be some learned reticence to be direct with a lot of women even amongst ourselves. I’m not criticizing, just an observation. But then if you are more assertive and direct you are “acting like a man.” I guess it’s just another no win!
Thia,
You are absolutely correct about how women communicate with each other differently than men and that we continue to face a no-win situation, no matter the circumstances.
I always thought that women needed to be like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson when it came to calling out racism, but then I realized, despite the fact that they were African-Americans, they were still “men” and, therefore, would be allowed to take the get in your face attitude and be respect for doing so.
Women, no matter what color, are never allowed to defend themselves with the same tactics that the black men are. Because of this different, the men have effectively slowed down our progress in making sexism as shameful as racism.
The only way we can overcome this great disadvantage is to unite and work together and stop fighting amongst ourselves. That is, if we truly want equality and respect from the men.
Leave your response!