A few years ago, I was in a meeting with 5 men to establish a new committee of the organization I worked for at the time.  I was a senior-vice president and was equal or above the men in terms of corporate title.   Our agenda (that I had voluntarily put together in advance of the meeting) focused on relevant issues related to the establishment of a committee including the committee’s purpose, who should be represented on the committee, roles and responsibilities of members, meeting frequency and timing of the first committee meeting. 

Early in the meeting, one of my colleagues suggested we should be taking minutes of our discussion in the off-chance we were asked to provide documentation by the Internal Audit Department.  Out of an abundance of caution, we all agreed this would be a good idea.  At that point, it happened!  All 5 men in the meeting looked at me and appeared to be waiting for me, the female in the group, to volunteer to take the minutes.  So, I asked “Are you all staring at me because you think I should take the minutes?”  Silence.  Me, “Would that be because I’m the only woman in the room and we all know women usually are the minute takers?” Silence (and now they are all looking down at the table).  I proceed to tell them I can’t take the minutes and run the meeting. 

What happened next, floored me.  One of my colleagues got up from the table and said, “Wait just a minute while I find an administrative assistance on the floor who can join us to take minutes.”  Well of course, let’s don’t do a job we feel is not worthy of our skill set!  So we waited right there in the conference room until he returned with a female minute-taker!

It is worth mentioning here that the organization I worked for only had women taking minutes in any committee or board meeting.  I guess on one hand, these fellows probably thought “this is now we do things here.”  It probably never occurred to them their actions and thoughts were degrading to me and the poor administrative assistance they pulled from her desk in order to keep an accurate record of what we were saying.  Maybe, I’m being harsh and they weren’t looking at me to volunteer to take minutes but looking to me for leadership on solving the minute problem.  Maybe (and I agree) they believed not one of the 6 of us should have taken minutes as it’s difficult to do that and actively participate in the dialogue.  Maybe they were each thinking that taking an accurate account of the conversation wasn’t in the wheel house.  What do you think?