You Wait Here is about being alienated by others because of your gender.  It is when others have determined, based on your gender, your presence, opinions, ideas, input or views are not considered welcome and/or relevant.  My focus is on those situations that have occurred to women.  And those situations aren’t necessarily perpetrated by men.  It could occur at the hands of other women.  

A co-worker, Beth, shared a story with me that fits into “You Wait Here.”  She, a successful attorney at a financial institution and mother of two small children, was on a conference call that included her boss (who was leading the call), other members of in-house counsel and several attorneys from an outside law firm.  Except for Beth, all of the participants on the conference call were males.  As with many conference calls, people are calling in from multiple locations, including from home.  Beth was working from her office at corporate headquarters.  It was the first meeting of the business day and she had not seen her boss yet that day as they worked on different floors. 

During the course of the call, someone’s small children could be heard in the background causing a distraction for participants on the call.  Beth’s boss, who was leading the call, interrupted the meeting and asked Beth if she could disconnect from the call as others could hear her children.  She quickly informed her boss that she was there in the office and those were not her children.  An attorney from the outside law firm the confirmed that indeed it was his children that could be heard in the background.  He was not asked by Beth’s boss to disconnect from the call, but to please mute his line.

Not only did her boss assume the children must belong to the only female participant on the call, but when corrected he didn’t as the man to disconnect from the call as he had Beth.  Further, he never apologized, either publically or privately, to Beth for his behavior.  It could be that her boss was so incredibly unaware of his prejudices that he didn’t recognize his own behavior.

Do you have a similar story or know of someone who does?