Monday, May 07, 2007
As an addendum to the below, went out for drinks last Friday with old work colleague who I haven't seen since that night, we frequented the same hostelries, and what do you know, ran into same old school-friend again. And beer is evil, again.
And now, fun for all the family, a discourse on office gender politics...
Now I've worked in a lot of different places, from public sector offices to corporate offices, from shops to film sets (and by the way, this last week I kept up my unbroken record of having been offered a permanent job at every temp job I've done, go me!), and it's been interesting to see how they differ in gender make-ups, and how the genders are treated. Swooping in for a few weeks at a time gives you the position of observer to a certain extent, as many of the women that are in whatever workplace have been there for years and most have become inured to the status quo, or just keep on keeping on. They would be the ones like those in the large company where I worked for a year that was 80% female and had no females on the executive board, but they just didn't give a damn and kept on doing their jobs as bloody well as they could. And they have my greatest respect.
The corporate offices I've worked in have always had 100% female low-level administrators/secretaries, but, to their credit, above those positions, it's been as near 50/50 as you could hope.
Currently, I'm working in telecoms, and you have to swing a bloody large cat before you hit a female in my office. Now I like most of the men I work with, they are kind and intelligent men, but I've already had 3+ comments on my weight (of the well-meaning complimentary sort), as well as sundry assumptions about my skills with computers, cars* etc. The need to comment on various items of clothing, and my hair, is also apparent. I don't know how it came up, but in my second conversation with the MD there, I felt the need to mention quite how unbalanced the office was with regards to gender. There wasn't much of a reply.
The other day a colleague directed "Oh, one of you ladies must have a needle and thread in your bag" to me and my fellow temp. He got a whipped head and gobsmacked look from myself, with a forced genial "while I am the kind of person to have that in my bag, I'm also just as likely to have a penknife". A few minutes later I was outside having a cigarette with fellow temp and another guy, who said "But you know he was only having a joke." Me: "Well, yeah, I'm not that dense, but you know I'm still going to react to that."
While I don't feel the need to detail all of my past experiences, and jobs that I love, along with the fact that I'm far more comfortable in a pair of paint-covered jeans, balancing on ladders at midnight, the fact that I am sitting in an office and choose to do the female office-wear of skirt etc in a certain style should not take that away from me. It's a struggle not to blurt out about my yen for power tools, just to counterbalance it. Because I shouldn't have to.
I've appreciated the pragmatist approach to gender in the film industry: I and the female art director spent the first few days on one job hearing "Are you.. girls... alright with that?" which didn't come accompanied with any offer to help. Which was fine. Because people realised very quickly that if we couldn't shift stuff, we would have been absolutely useless at the job. I'm the first person to admit my lack of strength, and to ask for male help if available, but if that isn't an option, you just have to crack on with it.
Another film job employed a small jockey-sized lad mostly because he could fit into small spaces. It's a practical thought: there were females there that they'd send on similar missions, but in my case, I'd get my torso up into a bloody small hole, and then not be able to get back out because of the bosom. Thank God that the TV programme '999' does not exist any more, otherwise we would have been treated to a BBC evening's viewing of a paramedic cutting my bust out of a 2-foot floor of polystyrene. There was also my hideous lack of coordination at risk, as evidenced by some poor soul getting me to risk my poor acrobatic skills while flinging myself many a time towards finely-made set pieces. You could feel the impending doom, but then, that could happen to any gender.
*Now I happen to not know the arse-end of a piston, but that's not the point.
And now, fun for all the family, a discourse on office gender politics...
Now I've worked in a lot of different places, from public sector offices to corporate offices, from shops to film sets (and by the way, this last week I kept up my unbroken record of having been offered a permanent job at every temp job I've done, go me!), and it's been interesting to see how they differ in gender make-ups, and how the genders are treated. Swooping in for a few weeks at a time gives you the position of observer to a certain extent, as many of the women that are in whatever workplace have been there for years and most have become inured to the status quo, or just keep on keeping on. They would be the ones like those in the large company where I worked for a year that was 80% female and had no females on the executive board, but they just didn't give a damn and kept on doing their jobs as bloody well as they could. And they have my greatest respect.
The corporate offices I've worked in have always had 100% female low-level administrators/secretaries, but, to their credit, above those positions, it's been as near 50/50 as you could hope.
Currently, I'm working in telecoms, and you have to swing a bloody large cat before you hit a female in my office. Now I like most of the men I work with, they are kind and intelligent men, but I've already had 3+ comments on my weight (of the well-meaning complimentary sort), as well as sundry assumptions about my skills with computers, cars* etc. The need to comment on various items of clothing, and my hair, is also apparent. I don't know how it came up, but in my second conversation with the MD there, I felt the need to mention quite how unbalanced the office was with regards to gender. There wasn't much of a reply.
The other day a colleague directed "Oh, one of you ladies must have a needle and thread in your bag" to me and my fellow temp. He got a whipped head and gobsmacked look from myself, with a forced genial "while I am the kind of person to have that in my bag, I'm also just as likely to have a penknife". A few minutes later I was outside having a cigarette with fellow temp and another guy, who said "But you know he was only having a joke." Me: "Well, yeah, I'm not that dense, but you know I'm still going to react to that."
While I don't feel the need to detail all of my past experiences, and jobs that I love, along with the fact that I'm far more comfortable in a pair of paint-covered jeans, balancing on ladders at midnight, the fact that I am sitting in an office and choose to do the female office-wear of skirt etc in a certain style should not take that away from me. It's a struggle not to blurt out about my yen for power tools, just to counterbalance it. Because I shouldn't have to.
I've appreciated the pragmatist approach to gender in the film industry: I and the female art director spent the first few days on one job hearing "Are you.. girls... alright with that?" which didn't come accompanied with any offer to help. Which was fine. Because people realised very quickly that if we couldn't shift stuff, we would have been absolutely useless at the job. I'm the first person to admit my lack of strength, and to ask for male help if available, but if that isn't an option, you just have to crack on with it.
Another film job employed a small jockey-sized lad mostly because he could fit into small spaces. It's a practical thought: there were females there that they'd send on similar missions, but in my case, I'd get my torso up into a bloody small hole, and then not be able to get back out because of the bosom. Thank God that the TV programme '999' does not exist any more, otherwise we would have been treated to a BBC evening's viewing of a paramedic cutting my bust out of a 2-foot floor of polystyrene. There was also my hideous lack of coordination at risk, as evidenced by some poor soul getting me to risk my poor acrobatic skills while flinging myself many a time towards finely-made set pieces. You could feel the impending doom, but then, that could happen to any gender.
*Now I happen to not know the arse-end of a piston, but that's not the point.
