Re:Been there, seen that... (Score 1)

I'm not going to get into what kind of stress men and women can handle, I think it has more to do with the person's demeanor rather than their gender, but that's neither here nor there...I can say that I've been in this field for a long time now and as a woman I never had any problems living in a male-dominated field. I actually enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere and the good-natured practical jokes around the office. One manager enjoyed the fact that I was a 5'1" 120lb female that had no problem throwing a monitor over her shoulder or racking up a server and made no hesitation in using me as an example of what a woman can do when being challenged that a woman was being hired as the receptionist and couldn't put shipping boxes on a cart and wheel them into the elevator for us...I actually had more of a problem with a woman that worked at that company thinking that I wasn't as good as the men that I worked with...So with that experience behind me I went to the last company I was employed at and after my first manager left I was excited and ramped up to show some leadership and make the department shine like I knew it could...until the new manager showed up...Everything I had heard about gender-discrimination and didn't believe existed anymore became my life, I should say my hell...this new guy was ~65 and had the old-school approach to business...I was a woman, I was young, so I couldn't possibly know what I was talking about...I tried and tried to get my boss' boss to see the way I was being treated and when that didn't worked after MANY attempts to keep it within the department, I tried and tried to get HR to see how I was being treated...despite being yelled at almost every day for ridiculous reasons, despite having good ideas that even the director liked but somehow my manager still yelled at me 'cause they weren't his ideas...nobody would listen!!! Needless to say the 'boys club' won, I got fired for "lack of professionalism and enthusiasm" after HR talked to my boss' boss about what I told them and even though the entire company outside of my direct management was shocked and appauled that I was let go, there was nothing I could do...Did I mention my woman-hating-boss and the director are old buddies from a previous company?? The boys club goes way back, but i think (and hope) it's becoming less and less wide-spread and needless to say, there will always be office politics no matter what gender you are! Long story short, yes gender-discrimination IS still out there, but I'm not going to let it get in my way.