Discover five real-life stories of girls who have faced sexism at work, shedding light on the challenges that women still face in the workforce.In many companies, women are still considered “the decoration of the team.” And this is demonstrated not only on March 8. We talked to girls from different fields who built their careers by fighting gender prejudices.
Sexism is gender discrimination or, in simple terms, a biased attitude towards a person based on gender. In the labor field, it is associated with many phenomena: harassment, the gender wage gap, the division of professions into “women’s” and “men’s”, the “glass ceiling”, fines for motherhood. All of these are consequences of sexist prejudices and stereotypes.
Many studies show that sexism is not a feminist invention. According to HeadHunter , in Russia, when applying for a job, a woman will be asked about her marital status and prospects for having children in 7 cases out of 10. Men are asked such questions less often: in 3 cases out of 10. And the gap in expected salaries according to the resumes of men and women in various fields is from 10 to 46% in favor of the former.
We talked to girls who faced gender discrimination at work to show how sexism affects their career path and quality of life. And European University sociologist Daria Litvina shared her scientific view on the problem.
Elizaveta, secretary, 34 years old, Yekaterinburg
“We don’t need women”
In the company where I worked, career growth for women was practically impossible. I remember several times when vacancies opened in other departments, and they could have promoted my colleague: she had worked in the company for ten years, knew the people in the department, and easily learned new things. But instead of transferring her, they always hired a new employee. A male.
I was in charge of recruiting, and they almost always told me: “We are only considering men, we don’t need women.” At one time, my managers told me: “We have plans for your future,” but I never saw that future in five years, and I chose to quit. And they hired a man for the higher position I was applying for. He had never worked for the company before and was inferior to me in qualifications (for example, he spoke English poorly, but he was important in that position).
On March 8, when congratulating female colleagues, they always said phrases about “decorating the team.” I have a negative attitude towards this. Because of such wishes, I avoided corporate parties, buffets and other informal gatherings. March 8 is not about beauty and spring, it is a day of women’s struggle for their rights.
Women are traditionally given certain positions – secretary, accountant. The position of department head and the corresponding high salary will be received first of all by a man.
In most places where I worked, men are paid more by default: where he gets 45, she gets 35 thousand for the same work. There is not a single woman in the management of my company. New male employees are hired for serious positions, rejecting female candidates under the pretext of “we’ll hire her, but she’ll go on maternity leave” or “she has children, she’ll often go on sick leave.” As if men never go on sick leave.
It was unpleasant that I was being belittled solely because I was not a man. I am a straightforward person, I usually say what I think. I wanted to explain that it was the 21st century, it was time to stop thinking in terms of 1852. But I kept quiet at work.
Complaining about discrimination at work is useless, because management is the first to believe that a woman must get married, have children, and go on maternity leave. This was sometimes expressed to unmarried female employees.
“Where is the guy?”
Since I worked in a “traditionally male job” – as a loader, I often encountered sexism. I had to meet drivers, approve goods, unload the car, and put goods in the warehouse. Most often, this was hard physical work in terms of the quantity of goods, not their weight. I was the only loader in the entire building of the enterprise, where offices and warehouses were rented out.
At first, I was paid less than the guy who had previously held this position. I had to fight for a stable salary and bonuses. Our production volumes increased. The bonus amount depended on overtime work – and most often I physically could not count how much I did: I was a “fetch and carry”, and worked with small documents, and hired and released drivers, and was a loader, and even replaced the shop manager for half a day or a day, while combining it with other work. I was a more versatile employee than my predecessor, I worked more. The systematic expansion of my responsibilities and the fact that I was already replacing not one employee, but two, meant nothing to the management. My salary remained the same.
On average, there were two or three deliveries per week. Very often I heard from drivers: “Where’s the guy? Who’s going to unload? How do you do that?” or “Why are you, girl, carrying the goods?” It was even funny: an empty entrance for a car, I’m standing with a cart for goods, and they ask me who’s going to unload. I clearly showed that I was carrying, because I could. When I encountered the same drivers again, there were no questions.
I could attribute unsolicited help with the product to benevolent sexism. Sometimes they literally snatched it out of my hands to carry it. More often they didn’t ask – I think only one man actually asked if I needed help.
The elevator operator in the freight elevator regularly asked me: “Why by yourself? Why not someone else? It’s time to get married, stay at home, not work, why aren’t you studying?” Although I successfully combined studying with work. My colleagues – women of retirement or pre-retirement age – also constantly asked about marriage and children. The answers that I was not planning on it did not satisfy them.
At first, the questions made me slightly furious. However, in some ways it helped: I wanted to prove that being a girl didn’t bother me. Then I resigned myself to it. I ignored the questions or tried to answer them with humor.
There were sexist jokes, too, but I tried not to pay attention. I did not encounter harassment. I can explain this by several factors: my work team was mostly female; communication with men was minimal; I looked masculine. Once, a worker from the neighboring workshop, seeing me in the women’s restroom, was surprised: “I thought you were a boy.” At the same time, it was extremely unsettling to work on weekends, when there were almost only men in the production building.
Maria, 31 years old, technical support specialist, Solnechnogorsk
“Switch me to a normal specialist!”
When I worked in technical support for an Internet provider, the management and colleagues did not allow themselves sexist statements and actions. There were always two girls working in the department. They paid enough. It would have been a great job if not for the clients.
Initially, I only communicated with local network subscribers, and then they connected legal entities to me. When a legal entity admin calls, the task is to understand whose side the problem is on – the client’s equipment or the company’s equipment.
I had completed preparatory courses and was well versed in the processes at the level of a technical support specialist. But the admins often got irritated when they heard a woman’s voice. Once a man shouted into the phone: “Look, you’re all on vacation, the stupid fools from the call center were transferred because there was simply no one to work!!! How can you help me?! Transfer me to a normal specialist!” So we didn’t come to any agreement. There were many such cases: the admins were pissed that a girl would tell them something about network settings.
There was one case: the admin calls, something is not working for him. I explain to him what is what, but he does not understand. In the end, he started yelling that I am a stupid fool and with my female convolutions I am not able to understand anything in IT. At the same time, he did not listen to my comments carefully. At such a moment, many clients turn off the ability to listen and understand words. He hung up. I waved my hand, since I spoke to him politely, they will not deprive me of the bonus for breaking the rules.
And the next day the same admin calls, apologizes and says that yesterday I said everything correctly: “You really knew one nuance that I didn’t know about. I would never have thought that a woman could understand anything about networks.” This was often said, and it really irritated me. Or I constantly listened to: “So-o-o unexpected. On the first line for the stupid, a boy was consulting me (on the first line, they check whether the balance has run out of money and some other small things), and then suddenly a girl.” It was incredibly annoying.
“Before maternity leave they decided to punish me with idleness”
Later, I got a job in the technical support department of another company that was engaged in advertising and promoting its mobile application. When I got pregnant, harassment suddenly began. I worked well, there was nothing to find fault with. And the bosses were discussing how to fire me before I went on maternity leave. The accountant told me about this. And although the fines for violating the law for the company would be greater than the maternity payments, they did not stop trying to smoke me out of the company.
They discussed the issue of transferring me to a lower salary with me many times. When I refused, they started to put moral pressure on me: they spread rumors about me, set the team against me. At some point, they decided to punish me with idleness. I would come to the office, and they would simply take all my tasks off my plate. It was incredibly stressful. In the end, I went to the hospital for preservation. I am sure that I would not have been hospitalized for so long if it had not been for the stress at work. After the birth of two children close in time and the end of maternity leave, I quite.
“ It’s better when a boy sits on the first cello”
The first time I encountered sexism in the professional sphere was when I was getting a music education. The place of first cello in the ensemble and orchestra was given to my brother by default, although I received the best places in competitions. This was justified by the fact that “it looks better and more respectable when a boy sits on the first cello.”
I encountered this more than once in college and at the conservatory. Some teachers openly said that a woman’s place is to sit at home and serve her husband. One respected composer professor convinced my classmate that a woman cannot become a normal composer, since her brain is underdeveloped for this. Female pianists were told that they are “physically weaker than boys” and therefore will never be able to become stars, but only accompanists in a music school. I think that if someone considers this approach to be teaching, then they are crazy.
At the same time, there were always more girls among the students, and they played very well, studied a lot, while the boys were cooling their heels. But among those people who really achieved heights in academic music, there are almost no girls.
“He said what a good girl I am for not resisting.”
When I decided to leave my musical career and studies at the conservatory, the worst thing happened. I moved to St. Petersburg and for the first time looked for a job outside my specialty. I wanted to work in a cultural place and got a job at a Soviet-era museum, which was run by an elderly man with teaching experience and a bunch of publications about himself and the museum in the press.
On the third day of work, the elderly director sent me to a distant room to decorate the tree, and then came there himself. He started pawing at me, saying what a good girl I was for not resisting. And I was as if paralyzed. This all lasted for a very long time – we managed to check every light bulb on several long Soviet garlands.The next day I didn’t show up for work.