Dismissed in business conversations?

[shootingstar]

Coincidentally when this topic started up, I met up with my oldest niece for dinner who's in city for a business /techical conference for the mining sector. I'm proud of her. I've known her since she was a baby.

She will turn 25 yrs. Graduated with university degree in geological engineering. She's been working full time for a small consulting geological/geotechnical engineering firm and travels on biz on behalf for the firm all over North America. Has been doing it for past 2 yrs. She started biz travel young enough that she was underage to rent a car in any city where she was conducting business. She is bright quiet young woman who was never a tomboy yet never was really girly-girly either. (She does wear pink and lace at times but not at a mining conference ) She probably talks some engineering stuff with her boyfriend who is a civil engineer.

Maybe this was another feeling-excluded-in-predominantly-men situation but she would have had dinner by herself if I hadn't joined her. Apparently there were 4,000-6,000 people registered at this conference.

I asked her about having a biz dinner with a bunch of work-related guys at the conference. She said: It's a bunch of men in their 50's. LOL. Which means these guys are as old as her father, me, etc. LOL

I'll have to remind her: if she is comfortable speaking with her boss, who is 60 and comfortable talking about work with my partner who is 66, then she'll be okay.

[ny biker]

I think it's important to look at it this way: they're not men, they're people. We're all people. If you're focused on gender differences, how can you expect others to overlook them? Same for age. Who cares if someone is old enough to be your father or young enough to be your daughter? If you're colleagues, that's what is most important.

[Cataboo]

Maybe I've just had good experiences, but I've never noticed gender biases or class differences in the biological sciences. (OKay, so I've known some phds who were absolutely terrible to any people in their labs... and I think that was just they were mean people that would torture anyone they could get away with torturing, even if it was fellow phds who wouldn't stand up for themselves) Yes, most of the tenured professors tend to be old men, but most of them at this point don't have a choice in taking women seriously. My graduate school class was 13 females. We did have 1 token male, but he was doing the 1 year certificate program to try to get into med school. And old men professors seem to not have too much problems with ending up with a lab full of smart females that look up to them as a mentor.

But, I was always taken seriously and my opinions sought - as a high school student working in a military lab, a college student in a lab, as a grad student or as a post-doc. And I can't say that I ever really observed class differences, but then I've never been the top of the chain. As a grad student or post-doc, you're pretty aware that you need to be in the lab technicians good graces. But lab technicians, high school or college students, etc. were always invited to sit in on meeting about a project they were working on, and they were listened to - because they were the ones actually doing the work.

I won't say that I'm not disgruntled with the whole academia, post-doc, etc - but it's not about being female or not being taken seriously because of my level or anything like that.

[Mr. Bloom]

I think it's important to look at it this way: they're not men, they're people. We're all people. If you're focused on gender differences, how can you expect others to overlook them? Same for age. Who cares if someone is old enough to be your father or young enough to be your daughter? If you're colleagues, that's what is most important.

Well said!

[ginny]

Well, I never experienced it either until I moved out of academia and into a company ... and I'm in Wyoming - that could have something to do with it. I have experienced maddening hierarchies (usually in gvmt labs), but in academia, I have found that one's brains speak much louder than one's degrees. I have also learned that those who really put much stock in the PhD after the name are usually narrow minded and petty to begin with...