Interesting Observation about my Office

[geminigirl]

My office is in general, often a gender-stereotype and sexism free place. There's a good mix of men and women for a social services agency, there are women in leadership positions (often a challenge for social services agencies) and so on. In fact, during cultural competency training a few weeks ago, it was asked if women had different issue because the men are mostly gay men.

So here's my observation.

We have two conference rooms, the one that my office opens on to and a smaller, but nicer one further down the hall. Our Board of Directors meets in the smaller room. We also don't have enough chairs to have at the table in both rooms at once. So this morning when the chairs had to be moved from one end of the hallway to the other...the only people they asked were men.

Now, I don't mind being exempted from the chair moving situation. The chairs are heavy and awkward to move. It's the not being asked that I wonder about.