Ask women what they do
I am not sure how many of you would have encountered a category of men who tend to engage in immersive conversations with women without asking or even feeling the need to ask them what they do for a living or in life generally.
I, for one have encountered this a few times and as recent as last month.
Not certain if most of you would find it offensive coz the conduct or the negation is so subtle, it may almost seem like a genuine miss. But to my mind, undoubtedly, it isn’t.
Picture this, I am talking to a man who is a budding entrepreneur, with my husband standing mutely by my side absorbing the conversation. I engage in the dialogue completely and ask all sorts of questions that get him more engrossed in explaining the nuances of his business and the headway that he has made in his phenomenal professional journey. Just when he senses a lull in the conversation (coz he has finally finished his knowledgable rant), he turns his head slightly towards his left and asks my husband “so what do you do”. My husband is a little spaced out as he wasn’t expecting himself to be drawn into a conversation that he wasn’t actively a part of and so it takes him a couple of seconds to tune back in and respond.
Whilst I hear the remainder of that conversation, I genuinely feel affronted. Did that man just conveniently omit asking me what I do or did he not even think that its worth asking a women what she does.
I would like to believe that I have reached a point that it wouldn’t perturb or unsettle me much but I am not one with whom it would go unnoticed.
With the number of conversations floating around about women equality and numerous men joining the band wagon to support this cause, I think this is one of the most rudimentary things that men need to be aware of. Please give women the basic respect and acknowledgement that they deserve for what they do in life. Whether it is being a full time mother, an ambitious industry leader, 9–5 job worker or a home maker; you will be surprised at what you may learn from them and their varied experiences.
They need to be heard, they need to be listened to. You cannot possibly still live in a world where you think that its not even worth your time to ask a women what she does.
LinkedIn is adding “stay at home mom” as a job title and we still have men who consider it menial to ask a women what she does !!
This form of chauvinism is passé but it doesn’t go unnoticed.
ASK WOMEN WHAT THEY DO. YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED AT WHAT YOU LEARN.