Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the subject of an extensive New York Times Magazine profile this week in which she discusses "the place of women on the court." At her confirmation hearings in 1993, Ginsburg said she hoped to see at least three or four women seated on the court after her. As she still waits for even one woman to join her, Ginsburg has noticed that she is judged differently than her male counterparts. She recounts one example:
"Once Justice O’Connor was questioning counsel at oral argument. I thought she was done, so I asked a question, and Sandra said: 'Just a minute, I’m not finished.' So I apologized to her and she said, 'It’s OK, Ruth.' The guys do it to each other all the time, they step on each other’s questions. And then there appeared an item in USA Today, and the headline was something like 'Rude Ruth Interrupts Sandra.'"
By simply interrupting a fellow woman Ginsburg was soon portrayed as rude or aggressive, while the same assertive characteristic in a man goes unnoticed. The justice's little anecdote reminds us that sometimes women face different standards in the workplace. Have you ever come across this?
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Rm By Roland Mouret
No, i work in a mainly women oriented office, we have 98% women here. well not 98% women, but 98% of the workforce is women.
1That doesn't surprise me. What makes a man successful in the workplace - drive, assertiveness, the ability to take charge - are the characteristics of a "b*tch." Ridiculous, and sad.
Being a young attorney, I get a lot of "sweety" and "honey" comments from old(er) male defense attorneys.
2I work in a small office that is mainly women. My boss is the only man and we tend to gang up on him a lot. I answer the phone as needed and I do notice that some people, mostly men once in a while women, treat me very rudely as if I am “just a stupid receptionist”. They will get very pushy with me until I make it very clear that I know exactly what is going on and I am very experienced in my field.
3Well, I am a teacher. Not exactly a profession where you expect to see a lot of men, but we have enough. I do notice that the older men view an assertive woman as something that is abnormal. I think they are more thrown off by the fact that I am just as fun as they think a normal man would be, and I can relate to my class without being a maternal figure of sorts. However, in my work place, having a young woman is way more uncommon than having a woman in general (women teachers are everywhere!) I am 22, very in control of my classrooms and very educated. It seems some of the older teachers I have met didn't like me at first because the things they told me I could not do, I did.
4I am a head cook in a small restaurant, all of the other cooks are men. I receive alot of attitude from them (partly due to being a woman, also partly due to being young, I'm only 20).
One guy fought everything I told him to do. Argued with everything I said, and tried telling everyone I was a "party girl" and liked to smoke weed all the time. *Which I don't!*
I've heard it all though..."when I started cooking there were no women in the professional kitchen." "did you go to school with alot of females, cause from my experience this is a man's world."
They're awful. But I'm stubborn and determined, so I'll make it.
5I forgot to say...the guy who spread rumors about me was fired. I might be a 20 year old girl, but I did my job 1000 times better than he ever could!
6I work in a garage and I've never noticed this sort of discrimination. I'm expected to do the same tasks as the guys, and I've never been excluded or treated differently because I'm a woman. I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones!
7Yep, i get it alot! Which is sad.. so more normal very direct persona gets the trade of of b*tch and my passive persona get passed over as a pushover, its a lose/lose situation.
8I was an RA this past year at my university and the female RA's were held to a much higher standard than the male RA's (btw there are no co-ed dorms on campus so it was easier to treat the females differently than the males). While we must strictly adhere to the many rules that are placed upon us, the guys could get away with breaking most them. I don't have a single problem with the rules placed upon me or following them. I do wish that the same expectations were held to everyone. I wasn't rehired the next year basically because I was five minutes late to my rehire interview. Meanwhile, my guy RA friends that don't even really do their job were. These happen to be the same RA's that would smoke on the roof of our dorm (tobacco is strictly prohibited from our campus) with the director that I interviewed with.
9*were rehired.
10Runningesq - I know exactly what you mean! Just yesterday, a (male) attorney at my firm asked me to relay a message to a client. At the end of our telephone conversation, the client was like "now, I'm assuming you're a paralegal?" It's amazing how people can't wrap their mind around a 25 year old woman actually being an attorney!
11Ugh, I did marketing at small, mostly male firm and I experienced sexism all the time. Even though I was bringing in the best numbers, I was often treated as a secretary and given clerical work my male counterparts were not. I finally quit at the beginning of the summer and I've never been happier!
12People underestimate me, being a young female attorney. Their loss!
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