Classmate's Post and My Commet on Post #1

By: Chris P
So my eurkea moment has to deal with my experience in the corporate world. I am 21 years old and last April I took a job with a company and this was my first real job. My supervisor was a 50+/- year old woman, who looked very professional and pleasant when she hired me. Well once I gotten into the department and got to know my co-workers they had told me how horrible of a supervisor she was. She was very authoritative and liked to have the power to control. She wanted everything done her way and was in everyone's business. to me this moment gave me a realization that when woman are given supervisory positions all the power goes to there heads and they become horrible at the position. After 6 months of being on the job I transferred to a different job in the company where I was now with a 40+/- year old male supervisor. This than gave me the chance to see maybe it's just the way people are in the corporate world. Well I discovered that a male supervisor is a lot more laid back than a woman is. My supervisor now who I have had for about 6 months now has been awesome. As long as I get my work done and do it right he does not cause any problems. He does not take advantage of the power he has and does not care how the job gets done just as long as it is right. Talking to a lot of people in the company I work for it seems more people would rather work for a man rather than a woman. I can still remember sitting in a meeting with a few woman manager and supervisors and they are gossiping about how someone from IT was with this woman from Auto and he is just using her as a beard to cover us that he is gay! These gender roles that the male and females have played in my career at my job have played some sort of impact on my interpretation of how woman are in jobs where they are given power. It's not so much that they abuse it, I think it's more of the fact that they finally have it and they want to show that woman can take on a mans job. Every since I have left her department she is very different towards me too. I think woman take things more personally than men do. For our culture now a days is not unusual to see a woman in these positions, but it's just the way they act that makes me think now that it's easier to work for a man than it is a woman. No wonder why when I started only 2 out of the 13 of us in my department were men!!!


In response to Chris P's comment: I appreciate that you are thinking critically about your supervisors, and trying to learn about gender through your daily experiences. Though not all experiences, nor people, will determine or best represent other people. In your case, the female supervisor perhaps was a bit of a tyrant, because that was her personality. Not because she was female, or because she was trying to prove herself. For example, my mother is a business owner. I have seen her interact with her employees on more than one occasion and she was been encouraging, yet firm, intelligent and articulate, though never abrasive. However, what is interesting is that if she has to call someone on their ill behavior, or if she stands for something that no one else believes in, she is immediately labeled as a, you know what! I digress, there just isn't really a common way that men and women act on the job as character comes more into play rather then sexual identity.