MIGHTY MEN OF HUBSKI currently or formerly male gendered.
I'm in a conversation with some teachers at a western university. Originally we discussed running my workshop on women and ambition - examining whether there are any historical, biological, cultural, social, or other factors that lead some women to suppress, deny, or ignore their ambition.
We then discussed including men in the workshop because they also face confidence and ambition issues. We wondered what questions college-age -- or any age -- men were asking. I'm wondering, hubski, if you ask any of these questions of yourself. My guess is that you do.
0. Am I treating women with the same respect and consideration that I would treat a male team member?
1. Do I make assumptions that my women classmates or team members or co-workers might not be as skilled or might be differently skilled than the males?
2. Am I assuming too many leadership roles without giving others a chance?
3. Do I prefer men in the group to lead the projects?
4. What other assumptions am I making about the race, gender, ability, skills, intelligence of others? Is it possible that I am making assumptions without being aware of it?
5. Am I building my personal skills to be a good citizen, parent, friend, son, brother, etc.?
-- "Do I make assumptions that my women classmates or team members or co-workers might not be as skilled or might be differently skilled that the males?" Only when I really take a disliking to someone. -- "Do I prefer men in the group to lead the projects?" I refuse to take leadership roles, and think much less of anyone who does. There is something inherently untrustworthy to me about choosing to direct rather than do, and I find it hard to respect anyone who makes a habit of it or takes a position where it's a permanent thing.-- “Am I treating women with the same respect and consideration that I would treat a male team member?”
-- “Am I assuming too many leadership roles without giving others a chance?”
Think of it less as choosing to direct and think more of it as taking on the burden of responsibility. For example, if I were your supervisor and you were part of my team, ultimately the responsibility from the decisions that are made to the results that follow fall on my shoulders. I am there to insulate you not only from the challenge of making the hard decisions, but also any negative fallout that might follow. Conversely, if we succeed, it's not because of anything I did, but what we did together.I refuse to take leadership roles, and think much less of anyone who does. There is something inherently untrustworthy to me about choosing to direct rather than do, and I find it hard to respect anyone who makes a habit of it or takes a position where it's a permanent thing.
I see where you're coming from and to an extent I agree. The thing is though, the responsibility of success for an individual worker falls on that individual. However, the responsibility of success for a team falls on the supervisor. Let's say you and I work in a factory. Let's say you're a new hire and I am a floor supervisor. As a floor supervisor, it's my responsibility to make sure the whole production line moves smoothly. As a new hire, it's your responsibility to assume the role of Workman One. Workman One's role is pretty straight forward. It is your job to put Rod A into Slot B to create Unit 1. It's important that you do such proficiently, so Workman Two can put Unit 1 with Unit 2 to make construct A. You, as Workman One, have three main purposes that can be broken down as such . . . 1) Put Rod A into Slot B as quickly and efficiently as possible without error to produce as many Unit 1s as possible in a given amount of time. 2) Understand the how Rod A and Slot B as individual pieces function, so that you may understand the final purpose of Unit 1. Knowing these, you will know how to best put together a proper and functional final product. 3) Understand Unit 1's relationship with Unit 2. Properly understanding how all of these components work together once again goes towards creating a proper and functional final product. Now, let's say for some reason you have trouble putting Rod A into Slot B. That's okay. You're new. We're in this together. It now falls onto my shoulders that you understand your role on our team so that we can not only create a working product but also save time and minimize waste. There are many ways I can do such a thing and I will employ as many as possible. I will do everything from coaching you on your specific job to make sure you understand your individual role to partnering you with your other team members so you can see how your job and their jobs rely on each other. Let's keep in mind this whole time though that I chose you. I see that there is value in you as an individual that makes me want you on my team. Not only that, but we've already gone through all of the initial training. At this point, you are a vested interest. As a result, your success as an individual on my team is not only your problem, but mine as well. By taking you onto my team, your success as a team member becomes my responsibility. So let's say that you continue to struggle. When my supervisor comes to me at the end of the week to talk about my numbers, he will bring up your area of production. He will say something to the effect of "rd95, why is bfv under performing?" On the surface, it sounds very simple. What it actually is though, is a very chilling statement. What my supervisor is asking is less "Why is your team member falling short" and more "Why, as a supervisor, are you allowing your team member to fall short." You, awesome guy that you are, will be in a little bit of trouble. Me though, as a supervisor, will be in a lot of trouble, because I as an team leader have failed to take initiative to solve a problem that affects my team as a whole. There are a lot of things I, as a supervisor, can do. All of which has positives and negatives behind them. I can keep you in your current role hoping you pick up on it in a week or so, but in the mean time I risk the loss of material. Purchasing hates that. I could have you retrained for a different role, but as a result we're now spending time and resources on a retraining. HR hates that. I could also recommend to my supervisor to have you let go altogether, but despite your failings, everyone on the team adores you, and they'll hate me for that, building friction between me and them as a supervisor. If that seems overwhelming, cause it is, keep in mind that's one tiny facet as a supervisor. We have to maintain everything from scheduling to variable cost control to team moral. Your decisions as an individual affect only you. My decisions as a team leader? They affect everyone. Though I have to say, judging you as an individual, if we ever found ourselves working together, I think I'd bank on you. ;)
Your last comment was interesting to me, although not for the purposes of the original thread. I can understand what you are saying in a more formal setting, but let's say, for example, if there is a school science project or even a group of friends deciding where to go for dinner, and nobody is taking initiative or making any executive decisions. Oftentimes if someone makes a decision, people automatically start taking that person's lead and asking them how they want things to go. Do you object to someone making this type of first move?
With school projects, I always just did them if no one else wanted to. I think taking a task that isn't getting done on yourself is a fine thing to do. I never saw it happen when I was in school, but if hypothetically someone took it upon themselves to make other people do the work rather than doing it themselves, then yes, I would have thought less of them. This has never been my experience. I take offense when people start making decisions for me.Oftentimes if someone makes a decision, people automatically start taking that person's lead and asking them how they want things to go
I guess I'm older; I'm 12 years out of college. 0. I do think about this. It isn't that I think I might treat them with less respect but rather I'm aware I may act differently because they're women and I'm a man who is attracted to women. I don't want to treat them differently. 1. I don't think about whether I make assumptions about the qualifications of the women I work with. I work with some absolutely superb women, and I have no doubt about their qualifications. I've worked with excellent women, excellent men, poor women and poor men. In my work experience I've found no correlation between gender and ability, and I'm pretty sure I know this both consciously and subconsciously. 2. I rarely seek out leadership roles. It's one of my faults and something I'm trying to work on not as a way of dominating but as a way of sharing my experience with others. 3. I don't think I worry about the gender of the leader. I've worked with good female leaders, and their ability was the only thing that mattered. 4. I definitely catch myself making assumptions about people based on whatever physical characteristics I can see. I make conscious efforts to set those assumptions aside, but they are still there. 5. I sometimes think about how to be a better friend. The piece I've thought most about is how to listen and respond when a friend is telling me about struggling with something. I think I've become better at it, but I still think about how to do better.
21 year old male here. No, I don't ask myself these questions - but then again, I had a... different upbringing than most, and to me "male" and "female" are barely anything more than a statistic as far as people go (at least people I don't have a romantic/sexual interest in).
The Implicit Assumptions Test is very revealing of biases one doesn't think one has.
I took one of these, and it was fascinating. I'll go back and do some more. Part way through I could have guessed at my results just from my difficulty with certain slides, and I'd have been right. I'm glad I took the test.
Yes, b_b, it means you are older than school-age or college-age. You can be school or college-aged and not in school. My audience will be college-aged students and I imagine some "older" ones and I am particularly interested about how much they think about questions of gender in their workplaces. I'm also interested about whether post-college individuals realize later on, when they are in the workplace, that there are gender issues. I'm curious the extent to which men and women think there are gender issues. That is, if women perceive gender issues or discrimination (no mat leave, for example), whether men are equally concerned about these issues. Women tell me that they go to meetings where certain men will never look at them or address questions to them. They address questions to other men, who then turn to the woman for the answer. Are men alert to other men's subtle forms of discrimination? Some are both alert and vocal about it. But it is hard for us to be aware of experiences of others. We tend to assume that people are treated the way we would treat them. The Black Lives Matter movement has shed a lot of light on the fact that people are routinely treated differently, often fatally.
Here's the biggest problem: I think that most people who think about whether there's an issue aren't the people that need to be addressed. The people who never think about whether gender issues exist (especially in male dominated industries) are the ones that aren't going to listen and who cause most of the problems. Here's a quick anecdote to illustrate my point. My wife was working with a guy, and they were within earshot of a meeting in which there was an angry woman yelling at a bunch of people. The guy looks at her and says, "You don't ever want to sound like that," with a smile and a chuckle. She looked back at him and said with a dead serious face, "Yeah, you too." Apparently the dude just kind of stared back in confusion then changed the subject. She's also had men tell her in all seriousness that women shouldn't design cars after they have a family because all the only part of the car they care about at that point are the seat belts and airbags. And, I shit you not, that it's not really fair that women are treated so much better than men in the industry, that they're just handed everything. Those types of people just don't get it. They never once think past the end of their own nose. It's a noble goal trying to get through to them, but I don't know how much impact you can have on people who completely lack the ability to be introspective.
No. My boss is a woman, and I'm the only male employee in the office (that matters, wubalubadubduuuub), so the question is trivial for me. Also no. Generally female classmates are more pleasant to work with and more inclined to concentrate on the work that needs to be done than male classmates. Read: anecdotal. I'm also in tech so their only shield against sexism is probably being goal-oriented 100% of the time. Lol, no. I avoid leadership roles like the plague. I am not a leader and I've come to terms with that. Also no. Of the two bosses I've had, one being male, one being female, my female boss has been far easier to work with, more engaging, less critical, and more open to discussion. Yes, but I'm not saying why here. I don't ask this question because I'm generally alone on any given day so the question doesn't need to be asked. At least, that's how I feel in the context of a normal day.Am I treating women with the same respect and consideration that I would treat a male team member?
Do I make assumptions that my women classmates or team members or co-workers might not be as skilled or might be differently skilled that the males?
Am I assuming too many leadership roles without giving others a chance?
Do I prefer men in the group to lead the projects?
What other assumptions am I making about the race, gender, ability, skills, intelligence of others? Is it possible that I am making assumptions without being aware of it?
Am I building my personal skills to be a good citizen, parent, friend, son, brother, etc.?
I am not male, but I have some data. I went to a party at my SO' s Project Managers house. She is not my boyfriend's boss, but she does have more authority. There were a few content developers there, but it was all the project managers. I am 8 years younger than my SO 35, but most of the people there were way older than him, early to mid 40s. The hostess was the only female PM, she is also Hispanic. Everyone at the party, including her husband made racist jokes at her, one after another. I was freaking out, she laughed along with them. They all thought I was a silly baby, for worring about PC, or respecting her culture. There are lots of smart women her age, who couldn't tough out those dicks, to make the life they deserve. My SO was told very elaborately how fast I would leave him, if he acted like his good old boy coworkers. ---- I don't like to be in charge of work, or people. In school everyone was pretty excited, to have me in their group to take charge. Also, most of my gen ed classes are close to 80% female.
I don't think I ask myself any of these questions. I mean I do ask myself more general questions regarding my treatment of gender and race. It has become an interesting issue in my writing. I read a lot of pieces during school from men who really can't create female characters without them seeming like a side-note even when they should be the main focus. I remember in my creative writing in fiction class, the professor had us create a main character of the opposite gender. I'm not sure how accurate a man can get on the women's perspective, but it was an interesting insight.
0. Yes, but I work in a field with really stange gender and racial dynamics (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). 1. Yes, as teaching is usually considered a more female-oriented profession, and communication/social skills also seem to be thought of as coming more naturally to women. Also, I like to observe how gender influences student participation and skill-building. 2. No, I avoid leaderhip responsibilities. 3. No. I look at who's the best-suited individual, regardless of gender. 4. Yes. I frequently think about cultural differences, multiple intelligences and (potentially undiagnosed) developmental issues. 5. Not exactly, no. I think a lot about being a polite guest in my host country, and how to be a person of integrity and how to a good role model for children. But I don't tend to think about personal skills vis-a-vis those kinds of roles/relationships. edit: I'm actually between jobs now. I've been going through the hiring process for a new position. The two female admins I've been in contact with have been great about follow-up and communication in general. The male admin is so bad about responding to emails that I've stopped even CCing him.
Age: 22 Ask myself 2, 4, and 5. I tend not to be around too many women in the job I currently hold, so I don't really ask 0. I grew up with mostly female influences in my early years, so I actually tend to think better of women in group roles than men (hence me not asking 1 or 3 frequently, or asking the inverse as a corrective means). I tend to find racial assumptions to be harder to break than genderized ones. The only exception would be transgender ism, which has been a particularly hard one to buck. I credit a highly religious upbringing with that one, but coming from a family that viewed it more as unnatural than sinful.
Those are some great questions and an excellent conversation to have. Unfortunately I do not think I can add much but nonetheless I will opine! I have never and do not think about those issues much if ever, but: 0. I think so. 1. Yes but no more than males I do not think. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. 2. Sometimes yes. I can be pretty pushy in that regard if I think I am best suited for that role. 3. Absolutely no preference whatsoever. I want the best person and that choice varies in between men and women depending on the project. 4. Of course it is possible. But I do not think I am making arbitrary assumptions. 5. I hope so. I have been lucky to have been surrounded throughout my life with men and women who are very strong, self-confidant, egalitarian and strong enough to speak out against those who are prejudiced in any way. They have not been over-reactionary "SJWs" but simply know when fair is fair and when it is not. It is odd that I grew up in a small redneck Southern Ontario hockey town with mostly white male friends that many could assume would tend to be chauvinistic and racist but that was the opposite of my experience. And i have been lucky enough to continue that through undergrad and grad school and into the workplace. I was lucky enough to study in a program that was 50/50 and work in an area that is maybe 60/40 male. I have worked with good and bad male and female team leaders and hired men and women and gender has never played into my hiring decision (as far as I know). I am sure my experience is not universal but I have never heard any man put down a woman either directly or subtlety and I think I would clue in if I did. And I would say something. I certainly have outside of the workplace. A couple of my good friends are stay at home Dads because their spouses have greater earning potential than they do and their parenting skills are as good as any. My male and female friends both get pissed when they hear someone say that "being a Mom is the hardest job in the world" since that minimizes the role of men in child rearing and perhaps "being a good parent is the most *important" job in the world" would be more accurate. Maternity and paternity leave is something that should be universal and equal. Both parents need to be directly and actively involved in their kids lives. I don't know if my experience is unique or whether I am simply naive. It is hard to be objective about your own biases. But that is the way I perceive it.
Mid 20s male here. Gender relations occupy a lot of processing time in my brain. I constantly fret about perceptions and "making up" for the bad behavior of other members of my gender. 0. Am I treating women with the same respect and consideration that I would treat a male team member? Typically more respect and consideration. 1. Do I make assumptions that my women classmates or team members or co-workers might not be as skilled or might be differently skilled than the males? Often yes, but I've practiced noticing when I do so and try to correct my thinking to fit the information at hand rather than gut reaction. 2. Am I assuming too many leadership roles without giving others a chance? N/A 3. Do I prefer men in the group to lead the projects? N/A 4. What other assumptions am I making about the race, gender, ability, skills, intelligence of others? Is it possible that I am making assumptions without being aware of it? I do my best to base my opinion of the skills and intelligence of those around me on a rolling scale tied to the interactions I've had with them. The worst assumptions I have of people are often those made when I first meet them. When it's a racial difference, especially in cases where the other person has a strong accent I think it's more important to notice the things the other person struggles to get across rather than what they can more easily convey. Concepts that are more difficult to convey in a second (etc) language are often more complex and provide a better window into the intelligence of the speaker. 5. Am I building my personal skills to be a good citizen, parent, friend, son, brother, etc.? Mindfulness of those around you is the first step and I have that down at least.
1) No. I've seen many people over the years with various skill sets. None of them can easily be divided by gender lines. 2) In my industry, leadership roles are assigned. They're equally split by gender. 3) Leadership roles are assigned by performance. Once again, they're equally split. As for my immediate supervisors, I have no preference in gender, race, background, etc. one way or another. It's all about results. 4) As a supervisor myself, to make assumptions based upon preconceived notions about race, gender, and cultural background is to take unnecessary risks. Assumptions on future performance have to be based on an individual's previous successes, current performance, and known skill sets. 5) Yes. As a supervisor, I am not only a team leader, but a coach and supporter. If one of my co-workers fails to do well, I am as much to blame as they are.
There are so few women in my industry (sound-mixing) that I am friends with, regularly interact with or have met nearly all of them. It's a profoundly male profession. As such, when dealing with women within my profession I assume there's something spectacular about them or else they wouldn't be doing it - we lost a good one last year who decided she'd rather pursue nursing. My answers are skewed as a result: 1) I am conscious to treat women with more respect and consideration because off-color jokes and sexualized speech is the baseline due to the near-total lack of women. 2) I presume that any woman I encounter in my profession is likely to be persistent and pretty damn good at her job. There's also the aspect that it's a skillset that rewards an attention to detail and I find that women generally excel at this - there's a reason men don't generally knit. 3) Doesn't really apply - leadership within my profession is either regimented or ad-hoc. Besides which, we're all doing the same job, or different aspects of the same job, and it's rare that you can assume a "leadership role." 4) I've never met a female sound supervisor. A female sound mixer is the leader of the team (mixer, boom, utility) by title and union classification. 5) I am wholly aware of the assumptions I am making, mainly that a woman in a technical position in Hollywood is persistent, skilled and thick-skinned. 6) I'm not sure how this is relevant. In my opinion, it's important to focus the workshop on women because "ambition" for women extends to family while "ambition" for men is always entirely within the professional sphere. And while men may face confidence and ambition issues, they aren't a systemic part of their gender's presence in the workplace and a workshop setting is better for dealing with endemic practices. A man's confidence and ambition issues are likely to be particular to the man, while a woman's confidence and ambition issues are more likely to be systemic and therefore easier to generalize.
You already know but in the interest of others, I'm male and school age. I didn't ask myself any of these questions except the last two, and the amount of thought it takes to answer them makes me think I should I can only think of one 'team' I'm part of that has a female member, but in this case and hypothetical cases I would not consider gender internally at all, unless it was relevant. However, in hypothetical cases with women I don't know as well, I would probably show slightly more outward respect and give them more feedback as I understand this is an issue in some places and they might feel discriminated or that I give their ideas less consideration just because they're women. Generally, I do not assume leadership roles. If I'm starting a group, I will only invite people I see as equal and try to form a dynamic where we all have equal say. Though I imagine the judgement in whether or not someone is competent enough to be 'equal' in terms of leadership is similar to whether or not I should assume leadership, so I guess it boils down to "Do I judge people too soon?", which I do not ask myself. Come to think of it, there have been several people I underestimated at first I can think of. But my opinions of people aren't set in stone, they change all the time and when I realise I underestimated them I'm not going to hide it or anything, I don't see how someone could have enough fear/arrogance to do that. I do ask myself a more generic version of this question quite a lot as part of an effort to keep my subconcious in it's place, and it's saved me from a lot of false assumptions. Way too often.-- “Am I treating women with the same respect and consideration that I would treat a male team member?”
-- “Am I assuming too many leadership roles without giving others a chance?”
“What other assumptions am I making about the race, gender, ability, skills, intelligence of others? Is it possible that I am making assumptions without being aware of it?"
Am I building my personal skills to be a good citizen, parent, friend, son, brother, etc.?”
Is this post inspired by Women's Equality Day? Questions 0, 2, 4, and 5 I would answer "yes" to. It's important to me to try and put everyone on the same playing field, not just women, but women / men / white folks / black folks / any other ethnicity and gender and age group. Question two is difficult because there are times when you know you can get something done efficiently but allow someone else to take the lead as a learning experience and to bring them up in their skill set and allow them to grow. Avoiding making assumptions is a very difficult thing to do, I think it's something we all do to an extent.
Maybe 4 and 5. When I was selling insurance I didn't really have coworkers, in school I was just as likely to be let down by female group members as male, and had to take the lead most of the time anyway because of generalized apathy. #4 - I try my best to only judge other people by the actions that I have directly observed. Sometimes by the way that someone I care about relates to them, but I try to take secondhand news with a good measure of salt. #5 - I asked this one too much (Or a variation on it) and got myself into therapy. Now I try and be mindfully loving and not worry about it much beyond that. And I was the person fixated on binaries yes.