We face a lot of pressures at work, and deal with systemic misogyny as well as our personal difficulties. What have you seen derail a woman’s career?
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Growing up people kept taking advantage of my mother. They knew that since she was a single mother and not particularly rich, so they took every chance to skrew her over. What truly derailed her career though (and the reason why she kept loosing jobs) is because she is a proud Jewish women and a proud unionist.
You make a really good point about how being vulnerable and different can put people at risk. It puts a target on your head through no fault of yours
Its more than that, she dared to make demands and she refused to compromise on her core principals. When she demanded off for shabbat (the Jewish day of rest) she was not asking, when she organized her fellow workers they made demands too, and she refused to back down when the bosses tried tried to pit other workers against her. Bosses fear the educated women who knows the value of her labor.
Well, I derailed a woman’s career once. She was the teaching nurse for my nursing assistant class, but she was a complete ding bat. She spent most of our lecture discussing a cutesy cookbook she was writing and “gave us a break” on our practicum, because she couldn’t stand to be in the skilled nursing facility where we were supposed to be training for six hours a day.
So we would go and check in, then leave 15 minutes later. We didn’t have the option of staying on our own, because we had no instructor/supervisor and the SNF workers didn’t want us there just following them around asking questions.
I reported her. She was fired.
I see her as derailing it… you just did what needed to be done
Still feel like an asshole when I think of it…
The worst was a woman who refused the advances of her manager and her performance reviews went from sterling to inadequate, leading her to be let go eventually.
HR?
Yeah, they work for the company, not for us.
Oh god that’s awful. Unsurprising but awful. And you’re so right HRs priority is never, ever you
The manager in question would have to be underperforming (over budget) or in the gun sights of C suite suits (aka, makes too much money for their position) for HR to pursue anything.
Yep. And since the division was doing well, he could do whatever he liked. And there wasn’t enough evidence for a court case.
Alcohol.
Going to work drunk didn’t go so well.
I’d say the three biggest problems I’ve seen are…
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She has kids. She goes down to part time cos she’s having to juggle mummying and work, and she’s doing the majority of it at home. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen companies not support mums, and expect the same from her with zero flexibility from them. As a result, her career is massively put back or destroyed.
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She’s targeted or blocked by someone. She’s vulnerable and/or a subjugated group, and a bully goes for that, or just vindictively stops her improving her skills and progressing. They attack her so she ends up professionally effected by it and sometimes horribly so. Often followed by resignation and almost never consequences for the bully
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She screwed up. She’s a bully, poor employee, starts drinking and it ends up destroying her career.
I really want to emphasise how traumatic this can be to go through. Psychological abuse is still abuse and work effects our ability to provide for ourselves and loved ones. It’s also a big part of our identity, and the impacts of all this can effect us for years
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I had a teacher in high school who was absolutely not cut out for teaching teenagers. She was much too soft and everyone gave her a hard time. Eventually, she quit teaching and became a nun.
Other women lol back stabbing and gossip is real Women get jealous of other women instead of lifting them up, they tear them down
Yep! It’s so disappointing life is hard enough without knifing each other. Some women seem to mentally stay in school and it’s horrible
Yea it’s bad :/
