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Staycation Day 3
I spent the evening at a work meeting. I realize the irony of going to work during my vacation, but I think going to this sort of high level and voluntary meeting is important. Of course, it's held after hours, which means it is particularly hard for working mothers to attend. As evidence, I saw only one mother there while her husband (same kind of job in the company) was home with the kids, but several fathers in attendance, while their wife was home with the kids. The mother who attended was speaking at the meeting this time, and I don't recall that she usually comes. I was the only mother there with little kids, all the others have older ones.
We are technically a non-profit health care organization run by the employees. We are also big enough that effectively we are run by a board, several committees, and several layers of management.
Part of the meeting was devoted to discussing the culture that allowed a pretty high profile sexual harassment to occur, and how we are going to move forward and make sure "everyone feels safe and respected at work." There's a lot of work, because almost all the speakers sounded like "All Lives Matter" speakers. If the old boys network won't recognize that there is a problem, then nothing will change. And there seemed to be this fear of saying women aren't being respected, least it scare off the men that ultimately run the place.
One of the senior men who likes to talk went off in the meeting that this kind of sexual harassment issue was not the norm in our organization, and he knows that because blah blah blah. I'm rather pleased with myself because not only did I speak up at the meeting, but I calmly (and that was difficult given that I could barely get a sentence out before being interrupted) challenged him point by point until he came around to acknowledging that sexual harassment and other forms of gender discrimination do occur, but that he doesn't know what to do about it, other than not allow it when he is in charge. He fancies himself in charge a lot. I only see him at meetings, it must be very challenging to work with him.
After the meeting, he actually came over to apologize to me (in a sort of vague way, but I think he did mean it, he just wasn't quite sure what he had done wrong) and also to introduce himself to me. I tried to be gracious, but couldn't help point out that we'd already been introduced, and was still trying to sit on my temper, so the little microaggresion back felt very satisfying.
After the meeting, about 8 people came over thanked me for standing my ground and saying something, including several in senior leadership. So that was good. Of course, the meeting ran late, and the girls were already in bed when I got home.
We are technically a non-profit health care organization run by the employees. We are also big enough that effectively we are run by a board, several committees, and several layers of management.
Part of the meeting was devoted to discussing the culture that allowed a pretty high profile sexual harassment to occur, and how we are going to move forward and make sure "everyone feels safe and respected at work." There's a lot of work, because almost all the speakers sounded like "All Lives Matter" speakers. If the old boys network won't recognize that there is a problem, then nothing will change. And there seemed to be this fear of saying women aren't being respected, least it scare off the men that ultimately run the place.
One of the senior men who likes to talk went off in the meeting that this kind of sexual harassment issue was not the norm in our organization, and he knows that because blah blah blah. I'm rather pleased with myself because not only did I speak up at the meeting, but I calmly (and that was difficult given that I could barely get a sentence out before being interrupted) challenged him point by point until he came around to acknowledging that sexual harassment and other forms of gender discrimination do occur, but that he doesn't know what to do about it, other than not allow it when he is in charge. He fancies himself in charge a lot. I only see him at meetings, it must be very challenging to work with him.
After the meeting, he actually came over to apologize to me (in a sort of vague way, but I think he did mean it, he just wasn't quite sure what he had done wrong) and also to introduce himself to me. I tried to be gracious, but couldn't help point out that we'd already been introduced, and was still trying to sit on my temper, so the little microaggresion back felt very satisfying.
After the meeting, about 8 people came over thanked me for standing my ground and saying something, including several in senior leadership. So that was good. Of course, the meeting ran late, and the girls were already in bed when I got home.
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