This was just expected in any administrative role if you were a woman, however, if you were a man you were exempt from it. Even as far back as 2014 men in the workplace were not expected to relieve at reception, it was only ever the women who were put on the roster no matter what position they were just because they were a woman.
If you are in the running for a position of management and have all the qualifications to do the job but it's in the hands of a man to make the call if you get the job or a man, the reasoning behind you not getting it was that you are a woman and emotional and can't make the hard decisions, or staff won't respect a women of power, the list goes on. There is a shift going on and more and more companies are in fact not taking your sex into account, however if you have a company where the management is or has been there for over 50 years they still have the thought that a women can't be more than a receptionist and men make better managers or even that women just won't even be considered.
So you ask why I write this blog post, its simple. In my experience, I have not been considered for jobs because I wasn't the right look of a woman to be in that role, so that stigma of women having to be beautiful, thin and not necessarily capable of doing the role, it was more about the look she had, if she was attractive enough - BIAS BIAS BIAS, that is what I say. In fact, I have worked with other women who got these roles over me because I was not a barbie doll, even though I had better administrative skills, more organized, more think on my feet kind of gal, analytical, more everything. I sometimes found that the women that got those roles over me would often come to me to solve some problems or finish a report etc that were out of their skill set.
I used to get so angry and felt like firstly, I only got reception jobs and very low paid administrative jobs, and never got any corporate executive assistant jobs because of my looks. It was, on one hand, sexist bias on interviewers point of view because they wanted a thin barbie doll look in that role which was bad enough, and on the other hand, didn't want someone like me to do that job even though I was more qualified and better suited to the tasks at hand. So first is the old fashioned sexist thought of having a gorgeous woman at their side, then the second was not to hire me because I wasn't up to par on my looks.
Some times its an ethnic thing too, 1. you're a women 2. your not attractive (IE. overweight) 3. you are of ethnic background. If you speak to my friend she has never had this issue, she attractive but is overweight but has gotten these high executive roles - mainly her skills are fantastic but the other reason is she is English/Australian.
There are lots of points of view on this matter and some people can relate to it and some can't but overall I think you should only ever be judged on your resume experience, I mean wouldn't it be great to set two resumes in front of a panel and one is from a women and one from a man, but their names are not listed on the resume. The person doing the hiring only knows their experience and skills. Wouldn't this be a great way to truly hire someone on their merits no matter the sex?
In recent years I have been running my own business from home making handmade plus size clothing and accessories, hemming service and running my own Sewing workshops. It has definitely been rewarding and taking ownership of everything from administration, accounts, and finance, marketing, business strategy, and networking and setting up systems that I always wanted to do at my old day job but never had the permission to implement. So, the thing I have learned the most through this experience is that never let anyone tell you that you can't do something, and for people who try to deter you from trying something new just because they put their doubts onto you, don't listen just be bold and have confidence in yourself.
I would love to hear about your experiences in the workforce and what issues or no issues you had, it will be interesting to see what your company is like as far as employing people goes and how you are treated as a woman.
