But seriously...

[la_marquise]

So, I have a question for my female friends and female-presenting non-binary friends.
For those of us who present as 'feminine' in the more traditional sense (can be having longer hair, wearing skirts or other 'girly' clothing, being soft-spoken and so forth): do you find people are more ready to question your knowledge than they do that of women who are seen as less 'girly' in presentation? It was noticeable in my last academic jobs that my female colleagues with short hair who dressed in suits tended to be taken more seriously than the rest of us, and were less likely to be asked to undertake extra admin jobs and to do emotional caretaking.
I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of others about this.

Skirt of the day: Blue-tiered the 2nd (as distinct from the beloved, much worn, fragile blue tiered the first.)

Comments

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Adding: I work in publishing, so the proportion of women in the building is quite high. But ALL the editors are men and the head of the whole place (my boss) is a man.

Our editors all frequently exhibit behaviors that can be interpreted as (1) learned helplessness, (2) an expectation that others will do things for them, (3) passive-aggressiveness, (4) cluelessness about how things work. I often say about the editors, "Well, they don't understand that they need to do work. They're handicapped by a lifetime of being well-off white dudes."

The biggest example was when we called a meeting for people to discuss how to deal civilly with slobbiness in the shared kitchen, and only women showed up. Big surprise. (I avoid the problem by simply never using the kitchen. More trouble than it's worth.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I think a greater gender balance helps, and so does being somewhere over a long period.
But argh on the kitchen.