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Author Topic: Work/Gender/Power  (Read 4164 times)

Christine

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Work/Gender/Power
« on: September 01, 2015, 08:29:12 AM »
I am in a dark office of a bank.  I am sitting in the customers seat and no one is sitting in the seat across from me.  A tall dark man comes in and leaves a thick commercial loan folder on my desk.  He asks "can you do this?"  It almost sounds like a challenge or a dare.  I open it and see that their are tax returns for several related companies.  Immediately I want to make sure that the liens the bank has on the assets collateralizing the loan are on each of the companies, and not just the parent company.  I look at the legal lien filings and they are blank...they are obviously inadequate. There is no collateral.  Inter - company accounts receivable are also not valid collateral and lots of companies have fraudulently borrowed money from banks using them as such.  On top of the legal lien filing are the names of companies written in blue ink in all capital letters.  Someone is trying to cover up the banks mistake but of course it does not.

I walk out of the office and there is a long table with white women all dressed in white sitting around it.  I walk by them and one of them says...can you come out here (out of the office) at 2pm?...two of the women will be gone i assume and they want me to help cover the phones.  I think pull a chair away from their table and put it on the other side of the room.  I go to an area next to the women...there are two microfiche machines and two plastic white chairs in front of them with white index cards/black lettering taped on the back of the chair.

This feels like issues I have had at work that relate to gender and power?  or status and ego?

I enjoyed the challenges that men gave me at work.  Doing the analysis and discovery.  However what I found did not always show the other employees in their best light or the banks procedures and policies.  I believe sometimes my work, and maybe my way of communicating, expecting not to be treated as a woman, was threatening to men on my level and above.  I felt I was not welcomed by the men and did not fit in with them.

Most of the women I worked with were clerical staff and they saw me as one of them, someone who should answer the phones and serve the men.  I did cover the phones when I worked with them to help them out, even though none of the men on my level were asked or expected to do so.  I did not feel welcomed or that I fit in with them either.

I think I have always been pretty lonely in my professional life.

I am not sure what the microfiche machines mean, except that they are/were an old fashioned way of doing research before computers and databases were invented.  I last used them in the mid 1980's.

Tony Crisp

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Re: Work/Gender/Power
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2015, 02:54:42 PM »
Chris - I feel that you probably have a higher level of intelligence than many of the women and men you worked with, and because of social viewpoints it was a difficult situation to deal with - and you are still trying to find a way to BE you in such situations.

Do you feel you are still being pulled back into old 'feminine' roles? If so can you define the cause?

I feel there is a favourable influence that carries you toward what you wish, but only if you can yield to it. Within the events of your life a good wind blows. No radical actions need be made. Just like a gentle wind will, through its constant action, transport huge logs across water. But also a strong will is needed to navigate its influence, lest it move hither and hither without purpose. Have a direction and utilise gentle continuous actions to reach the goal.

There is a need to recognise and support your relationship with the groups most important to you. This may refer to the family group, society, business, or a religious or political group. The suggestion is that willing acceptance of our role in the group is necessary. Personal sacrifice in this role is called for, leading to great good fortune. The reason being that when a group of people cooperate, their power and creativity is multiplied.

Tony